Over and out
Like everyone else Israelis and Palestinians were enthralled by the images of Saddam Hussein's capture, but for different reasons, writes Graham Usher in Jerusalem
"One picture is stronger than a thousand missiles," wrote Israeli analyst, Ben Caspit, in Maariv on Monday morning. He was referring to the photograph that by then had been beamed across every network throughout the globe: the fallen Saddam -- hunted, haggard and bowing to his captors like a lamb in a pen. "Less a symbol," remarked another Israeli commentator, "more a shadow".
For the Israeli government Saddam Hussein's arrest by US soldiers in Ad Dawar on Sunday was an endorsement of home-grown policies now adopted by the Bush administration as its very own foreign policy: preemptive war, regime change and the portrayal of any brand of Arab nationalism (degenerate or otherwise) as simply another trench in war against terrorism. "Today is a great day for the democratic world and for those who fight for freedom and justice and those opposed to terror," enthused Ariel Sharon in a congratulatory letter to George Bush.
Analysts like Caspit also ruminated on the impact Saddam's fall would have on the Middle East's other military occupation. "The chances Bush will up and leave Iraq are now next to nil, which is good," he wrote. "On the other hand, it may be necessary to broadcast to the Arab world messages of conciliation and proof that the US are not planning to dictate too much. This could improve the situation of Yasser Arafat, which is bad."
But, generally, there was no Israeli -- analyst or politician -- who saw in Saddam's fall anything other than good news, whether they viewed it as a "strategic" or "symbolic" moment in the overall US-Israeli campaign to reshape the Middle East.
Among Palestinians the gamut of emotions was almost exactly opposite. Some took to the streets in Nablus and Gaza to salute their long-lost champion and nemesis of their enemies. But most felt a confused mix of shame and betrayal. "Many Palestinians preferred to die under the rubble of their homes than surrender to the Israeli army. Saddam has proved that he is the biggest coward on earth," said Anwar Shtayeh, a Hamas supporter in Hebron.
The Palestinian leadership was assessing the precedent rather than the man. Whatever comes from the capture of Saddam it sets a seal on the US policy of creating a "new and different leadership" in the Arab world, including in the Palestinian Authority. The PA typically chose to duck the issue, referring to the arrest as "an internal Iraqi affair" while hoping that the Iraqi people will soon "have their own authority and an independent and sovereign state", in the words of PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei.
The Islamists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad also pondered on the effect Saddam's final demise would have on the Iraqi resistance, a struggle they increasingly see as supplementary to their own. Never anything other than antipathetic to ex-Iraqi leader and his regime, both movements have long cast the Iraqi struggle as an authentic anti-colonial revolt rather than irredentist attempt to restore the old order. They are confident the weeks ahead will prove their description. "The Iraqis will learn from the experience of the Palestinians," said Hamas West Bank spokesman Adnan Asfour. "Our symbolic leaders have been killed or detained but our resistance to the occupation was never affected."
Another Hamas man said the Palestinian resistance will be determined by Israel's actions in the occupied territories rather than US's actions in Iraq. But few Palestinian analysts believe the two conflicts can be so neatly divided.
For example: will Saddam's fall weaken or strengthen those Iraqis who see elections as the source of their future sovereignty rather than appointments selected by US vetoed "caucuses"? Will it invigorate those, like certain Shi'ite groups, to throw their weight behind a more explicitly anti-occupation stand now the spectre of Saddam's return has been vanquished? Will it empower those, like the Kurds, who want a federal, de-centralised Iraq? And how will these debates, and the US stance toward them, play into Sharon's visions of a Palestinian state with "provisional" borders and "attributes of sovereignty" rather than fully-fledged independence based on international law?
From now on the future of Iraq is going to be tied up with the future of Palestine. As for the past, that is over and some Palestinians are mulling its lessons. For years too many Palestinians exhibited a visceral support for Saddam on the basis of his rhetoric and financial contributions to their cause while suppressing all but the mildest criticism of his tyranny against his and his neighbours' peoples, be they Arab, Kurdish or Iranian. Now they can see him, literally, in his hole and are beginning to admit that the means can never be separated from the end or, more precisely, how the means a government or liberation movement uses can lead to its end.
"Saddam's is the fate of all tyrants," admitted Fatah lawmaker Hatem Abdul-Khader. "But we wish he'd been caught by the Iraqis and not the Americans".
