May 2, 2003

“Will Iraqis Choose Another Saddam?”

The bloody part of the Iraqi war is more or less over. Saddam is either dead or on the run and as Deborah, the matriarchal Judge of Israel sang upon news of Sisera the enemy commanders’ death “So may all your enemies be destroyed, Hashem.” (Judges 5:31) The war however, has yet to be won because the attitude that permitted a Saddam to rule by suppression continues to permeate throughout the entire Middle East. Iraq will not suddenly become a democratic America and for that matter will lag for many years behind democratic Germany and Japan.

The Middle East (excluding Israel) had but one prototypical democracy, and that was Lebanon. The Lebanese had free elections for many years. They agreed to share political power between the country’s evenly divided Muslim and Christians. The Muslims with secularist Yassir Arafat’s help destroyed its system of free elections and democratic institutions and murdered one third of Lebanon’s Christian population.

Americans take pride in our social positivism, “they are people just like us,” is the frequently heard American description of people everywhere. Yes, it is true “all men are created equal”, but cultural, religious and social economic environments will determine attitudes and values. I blame the Iraqi people for failing to rise on their own against their bloody dictator, who for twenty-four years murdered and butchered tens of thousands of Iraq’s people.

Left alone now, Iraqis will discover another Saddam to once again terrorize and spew hatred, or like all other Arab leaders blame Israel for all their suffering. Too many of us make the same mistake. Arab hostility towards Israel is neither a matter of religious conflict or of ethnic rivalry. It is the Arab leadership’s fear of democracy. Peace with Israel would open borders and expose Arabs to democracy and create a demand for it, denying power to the despots who rule and exploit the great Arab masses. Saddam spewed hate against Israel to shift the blame for Iraqi suffering elsewhere. Arafat followed suit. This Arab has illusions of becoming a new Arab Saladan. Arafat is like Saddam, who wanted to be Stalin. Their subjects allowed these megalomaniacs to rule out of cowardice and false values.

Recent events in Iraq are but another page in history. The next page returns to Israel.

The Palestinians have staged an emergence of a Prime Minister and Arafat, their famed character actor played the offended President’s role. And now a quartet rises to the stage. Its members, the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union will present the next act called “the road map”.

You see, they tell Israel, this Abu Abbas whose stage name is Abu Mazen will outperform Arafat. But he already has. This protégé of Arafat is a holocaust revisionist, in simple words a liar and Jew-hater, “but” the script reads, “will inspire his people to build a democracy and make peace with Israel.” May G-d have mercy on the Palestinian people, or perhaps they do not deserve to be pitied. They, like the Iraqis were willing to live under demagogic leaders. The Palestinians in fact shouted from the rooftops and danced in the streets when Saddam’s scuds were falling over Israel.

Make no mistake. I dream the dream of peace and do hope that President Bush will make the impossible possible by bringing democracy and freedom to the Iraqi novices. George W. Bush may yet turn out to be a very great world leader if he successfully brings democracy to a land ruled by a Nebuchadnezzar and a Saddam, two of history’s worst tyrants. Hashem may have chosen our President to shed light upon the Palestinian Arabs who will then reject Arafat and his disciples and will instead choose to elect leaders committed to truth and justice. The truth; their leaders have deceived them, Israel has a legitimate right to the land and the justice; an amicable, and honest agreement to live in peace with Israel.  

I said it was a dream, I beg you however not to stop dreaming. Was it not the dream of the return to Zion that made the miracle of Israel’s founding the wonder of our day?

Shabbat Shalom