Saddam and Palestine

Daoud Kuttab

There is no doubt that the arrest of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein marks a turning point for Iraq and the American-led occupation of this strategic Arab country. But the question that needs to be answered is how this important event will affect the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

For sure, many Palestinians have invested, for better or worse, over the years, a lot of emotional mileage in this one man. Having lived for so long in a depressive and oppressive state where the balance of forces was clearly not in their favour, Palestinians have always looked outside for help in shifting this balance. They tried the Soviet Union, they tried the UN and it failed, they placed their hopes in various Arab leaders until Saddam Hussein appeared on the stage. He said the right words and his country, a rich and strategically powerful country, stood by the Palestinians, in 1948 even with troops. Iraq provided free higher education for Palestinians and gave housing and social privileges to Palestinians living in Iraq.

When Saddam invaded Kuwait, many hailed this move as a possible contributor to the shake up of the Arab leaders, especially in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, that may get them to genuinely help the Palestinians. And when Saddam made true on his threats to attack Israel, he was quickly applauded as the first Arab leader who didn't restrict his support to lip service.

When Al Aqsa Intifada began, the Iraqi leader continued supporting the Palestinians despite the siege and economic deprivation that his country was facing from the US and the world community. Representatives of the Palestinian chapter of the Baath Party were seen visiting the homes of Palestinians killed in the Intifada and giving cheques, to the amount of $10,000, to the family of every Palestinian killed by Israelis (and not only to every suicide bomber as is mistakenly reported).

All this created a larger than life image of Saddam. No one wanted to believe that Baghdad fell to the Americans that easily. And when the resistance began to hurt the occupiers, the image of Saddam again grew in the minds of the Palestinians, who began to compare themselves and their resistance to Israel to the efforts of the Iraqi resistance against the American occupiers.

None of this blind support was logical. Most Palestinians realised that they had been duped. The Scuds against Israel in 1991, while making a lot of noise, caused little damage and almost no death (one Israeli woman died from a related cause). They could see that the five-million-strong Jerusalem army was not really intended to liberate Palestine. They were able to understand the level of suffering that he was causing to his own people and the corruption of his authority and its dictatorial ways. But a sinking Palestinian community wanted to clutch to any straw. And as in any courtship, the emotion of love often blinds a person to all other facts; so was the adoration the Palestinians had for Saddam and therefore the frustration about what happened to him.

Outwardly, many Palestinians tried to put a strong face. Many said they were not so angry at what happened to Saddam as at the Americans for what they did. Others said they wished the fate of Saddam had been decided by his own people rather than by the occupiers. But the real sentiment was one of hurt and humiliation. When pushed, most said they felt angry and betrayed by the way Saddam was arrested and showed on television with a young American medic combing through his hair and opening his mouth for DNA samples.

For Palestinians, the issue of dignity is still fundamental. A friend of mine told me it reminded him of the way he felt when the Israelis attacked Yasser Arafat in the Muqata'a. "I don't like Arafat," he told me, "but when the Israelis tried to humiliate him, I wanted to go out in the streets in defence of our president."

The trial of Saddam as a war criminal will be a good opportunity to demonstrate to many what the fate of those that oppress their own people could be. But the most important fact is that Saddam's arrest and detention undoubtedly ends a charade that has given false hope to many Palestinians that their salvation will come from the outside. It will no doubt mean double effort for Palestinians, making them want to depend on themselves to prove the justice of their cause and get rid of an occupation that has preoccupied this part of the world for too long.