|
|
December 19, 2003/Kislev 24 5764, Vol. 56, No. 13
Saddam, Israel have long history
DINA KRAFT
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
TEL AVIV - Spewing anti-Israel vitriol was one of Saddam Hussein's specialties.
Of all the leaders in the Arab world, Saddam seemed to have the most to say against Israel and he seemed to say it the most often.
Now that he has been captured and faces possible trial, experts are asking whether or not the Jewish state will again be his target.
"It will be interesting to see if he chooses to attack Israel this time, not with Scuds but verbally," said Martin Kramer, a research fellow at Tel Aviv University's Dayan Center. "Historically, when he found himself up against the wall, his usual method was to divert and deflect attention to Israel."
It was Hussein's rhetoric against Israel that "was the main glue for the Iraqis for developing national Iraqi feelings, and remained so until the very end," said Ofra Bengio, a professor of Middle East history at Tel Aviv University. "Hussein wanted to be able to mobilize the population around Israel as the symbol of evil."
In 1969, soon after Saddam was appointed Iraq's vice president, the government hanged 17 alleged spies, 11 of whom were Jewish, in what is perceived as Saddam's first message to Israel.
The animosity continued in the 1970s, when Israel provided covert military training and support for Iraqi Kurds in their struggle against the regime in Baghdad. The enmity intensified in 1981 with Israel's airstrike on Iraq's nuclear facility at Osirak.
Out of all the Iraqi-Israeli recriminations, Hussein was proudest of Iraq's firing of Scud missiles on the Jewish state. For the first time in the country's history, Israel did not strike back.
Saddam's power lay in part in his image and forceful rhetoric, said Bengio, author of "Saddam's World." Saddam "managed to put Israeli society into a panic for more than a decade,'' she said.
But a serious Iraqi military threat never materialized, she said, because Saddam was on such bad terms with the Syrians and Jordanians to make common cause.
Making Israel the focus of his diatribes was politically profitable for Saddam. Presenting himself as a leader of the Arab world, Hussein could use anti-Israeli sentiment to rally Arabs behind him.
|
