SPECIAL REPORT

Waiting
For
Saddam

The paranoia of an American
in Jerusalem,

STUART SCHOFFMAN

Special to The Jewish News

Israel's side, has been
energized by the Persian
Gulf crisis and is more
united and strengthened
than ever before.
• Israel's government is the
most right-wing in her histo-
ry, willing and at times
eager to defy pressure from
the UN, and the U.S.
When all of these factors
come together, as they have
in recent days, the result is a
Washington more willing to
pressure Israel to accom-
modate the Palestinians and
the Arab states — and a
Jerusalem more willing to
tell the United States to go
to hell.
Just this week, the United
States participated in a UN
resolution condemning
Israel for using excessive
force in quelling a Palestin-
ian riot and ordering a UN
inquiry in the killings. (It
was only the third time the
U.S. has not vetoed a UN
condemnation of Israel, the
other times being a 1981
resolution condemning
Israel's bombing of a nuclear
reactor in Baghdad and a
1982 resolution against
Israel's invasion of Leb-
anon.)
In response, Prime Min-
ister Yitzhak Shamir de-
nounced the TJN resolution
as one-sided" and defied
Washington by announcing

46

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1990

new plans to settle Jews in
East Jerusalem.
Earlier this month, the
U.S. had finally agreed to
guarantee $400 million in
loans for housing for Soviet
Jews in Israel after Foreign
Minister David Levy agreed
"not to direct or settle Soviet
Jews beyond the Green

The world has
changed
dramatically in the
last year and the
Mideast equation
has changed,
perhaps forever.

Line," as Mr. Levy's letter to
Secretary of State Baker
reads.
The Green Line refers to
the 1948 armistice line
separating the West Bank
from Israel and runs down
the center of Jerusalem. The
Israeli government does not
consider East Jerusalem,
which is populated mostly by
Arabs, to be beyond the
Green Line. Housing Min-
ister Ariel Sharon declared
this week: "We never took
on ourselves a commitment
not to build in Jerusalem.
Never." He added that

government policy was "to
strengthen the Jewish set-
tlement in Jerusalem."
What happens now? Wash-
ington seems willing to work
toward a peaceful solution to
the Gulf crisis through dip-
lomatic means. Israel is wor-
ried that she may be the
sacrificial lamb in such a
settlement —involving an
Iraqi withdrawal from
Kuwait in return for an
international peace con-
ference on the Palestinians.
In addition, Israel is con-
vinced that any solution that
does not rid the world of
Saddam Hussein and his
nuclear and chemical
arsenal is not a real solution.
And beyond the im-
mediacy of the Iraq crisis,
there is a growing sense that
the U.S. will bring strong
pressure on Israel to make
concessions to the Palestin-
ians. And Israel, given its
current leadership, will
resist in the strongest terms.
Israel is, of course, an in-
dependent state. But the
U.S. controls the purse str-
ings, upwards of $3 billion in
loans and grants. Until
Jerusalem can wean herself
from American financial aid,
the struggles between the
two allies with the much-
vaunted "special relation-
ship" are certain to con-
tinue.

❑

erusalem — Exactly
one day after we
moved into our new
house, Saddam moved
into Kuwait. Does this mean,
my wife and I joked nervously,
that we'll have to replaster
the ceiling?
The work wasn't complete,
of course — Israeli contrac-
tors take a back seat to no
one in promises unkept —
and the dozen or so Palestin-
ian construction workers
who had, for a solid year,
regarded our home as their
workplace now had to
expand their definition. We,
in turn, had to inure
ourselves to the recurrent
experience of several Arabs
marching into our sanctum
at 7 a.m., often without
knocking.
As the days rolled by,
things became increasingly
uncomfortable. The PLO
declared itself squarely
behind Saddam and sudden-
ly the guys who were
touching up the paint job
seemed like fifth columnists.
We began to refer to our
house with black humor as
"the local chapter of the
Saddam Hussein Fan Club."
Our electrician was an
Arab from East Jerusalem, a
pleasant man who usually

j

Stuart Schoffman is literary
editor of The Jerusalem
Report, a new international
weekly news magazine.

worked with a handsome
young apprentice. The
younger man, N., would
always greet our baby
Daniel when arriving in the
morning, sometimes even
get down on the floor and
play with him. One day not
long ago I was unnerved to
see the young man come to
work in a T-shirt decorated
with bloody bullet holes and
the logo BLACK SUNDAY
— referring to last May 20,
when an Israeli youth nam-
ed Ami Popper gunned down
seven Arab workers in
Rishon LeZion. In America,
if you saw a kid with a shirt
like that you'd assume Black
Sunday was a rock group.
Here, it starts you worrying:
how safe is our wiring?
Next, Malka, Daniel's
nanny, found a small wood
screw in the kid's soup. By
an incredible coincidence
Malka had, for the first time,
left N. alone in the house —
for 15 minutes, an hour
earlier — while she went to
the grocer next door with the
baby. She was dumbstruck
and terrified to find the
screw. There was no possible
explanation other than
deliberate sabotage.
Malka hesitated at first to
tell us. We were incredulous.
N. was the sweetest guy,
with the warmest smile —
he even reaffixed our
mezuzah with special nails.
As trusting, liberal Ameri-
cans we refused to accept it.
The talk around Malka's
kitchen table was far har-