JERUSALEM -- As Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon consults with President Bush in Washington today on Middle East violence and Iraq, a muted debate is underway here over whether a U.S.-led war against Israel's archenemy Saddam Hussein is, in fact, a good idea.
While it is widely assumed that Israelis are gloating over the prospect of Hussein getting his comeuppance after the Persian Gulf War, when 39 Iraqi Scud missiles rained down on Israel, the reality is far more complex and the reactions more ambivalent.
No doubt Israelis more than almost anyone would prefer a Middle East without Hussein, but some question whether the status quo of a weakened and contained Iraq isn't better than a war that could further inflame anti-Israel sentiments in the Arab world.
And in recent weeks, some Israelis in the military and security establishment have cautiously questioned whether Hussein poses as immediate a threat as Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have warned.
"Saddam Hussein, a weakling as he is today, is in Israel's interests," said Aharon Levran, a brigadier general in Israel's reserve army and author of a book about the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Levran, one of the more outspoken Israeli critics of Bush's policy on Iraq, says Baghdad is no longer capable of anything more than a border skirmish.
"A war against Iraq will divert the United States from its clear-cut campaign against Islamic fanaticism," Levran said. "And if it fails, we in Israel will pay the price."
Opposition leader Yossi Sarid agreed. "Washington is far away. We live in the Middle East, and the consequences will be most immediate for us."
Among hard-liners, there is resentment over the suggestion that Israel should rein in its campaign against Palestinian violence so as not to hinder the Bush administration's efforts to win support from reluctant Arab governments for a campaign against Iraq.
During today's meeting, Bush will ask Sharon to show restraint during this period of diplomatic sensitivity, administration officials said. In particular, he wants Sharon to stop focusing so intently on Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, whose headquarters was put under siege and largely demolished by the Israeli army last month.
"Let's not make Arafat the issue. Let him depart into the sunset, as he now seems likely to do," a State Department official said Tuesday. "Don't try to push him off, which is only rallying more Palestinians around him."
