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What do I say?

Read Jeffrey Goldberg's article about Saddam Hussein in The New Yorker (titled "The Great Terror" in the 3/25/02 issue).

"Iraqi dissidents agree that Iraq's programs to build weapons of mass destruction are focused on Israel. 'Israel is the whole game,' Ahmad Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, told me. .... "[Saddam] thinks he can kill one hundred thousand Israelis in a day with biological weapons....' Students of Iraq and its government generally agree that Saddam would like to project himself as leader of all the Arabs, and that the only sure way to do that is by confronting Israel."


Seems to me, from what I read and hear, that those students are quite right: That by "confronting Israel" via killing a hundred thousand Israelis in a day, Saddam would win the hearts of the entire Arab world, and of the Iranians, Pakistanis, Afghans and North Africans, too. (Does Hamid Karzai, Washington's new darling, hate Jews? Has anyone asked him?) I am sure Saddam himself believes this to be the case, and he is, with all his endearing little character flaws, a man who knows something about the Arab mentality.

It is not too difficult to envisage a plan by which the spoken grievances of the Arabs against Israel could be addressed, and some compromise struck. The chancelleries of the world — including Israel's — are in fact full of such plans, drawn up with loving care by legions of diplomats, experts, politicians, ambassadors, scholars and private do-gooders like my reader, across decades of time. In an atmosphere of goodwill, and genuine desire for a solution, the Palestine circle could be squared. You'd just have to pull one of those plans down from the shelf, blow the dust off it, and say: "Let's take this for a starting point, shall we?" The circle is not going to be squared though — not by George W. Bush, not by my e-mail pal with his elaborate scheme to shut down the settlements, not by another round of "shuttle diplomacy," not by any amount of work on a "peace process". It isn't going to be, because there is no goodwill, and no real desire on the part of Israel's enemies for a solution. Or rather, there is a widespread desire for only one solution — the extinction of Israel and the driving out, or mass killing, of the Jews. That's what they want, the Middle East; that's all they want.

I don't think so. To the newspaper readers of Saudi Arabia, it was routine stuff, a statement of the obvious. If MEMRI hadn't brought it to the attention of the civilized world, do you think the Saudi authorities would have bothered about it? Do you think, even now, they really have a clue what all the fuss is about? Of course the Jews use gentile blood to make their cookies. Doesn't everyone know that? We'd best pretend to be shocked, though. Those Americans are so-o-o sensitive!

We are dealing here with people who are, not to put too fine a point on it, nuts. The Arabs, the Iranians, the Pakis, the Libyans: they are nuts, the great majority of them. Nuts. Not playing with a full deck. Not too tightly wrapped. One brick short of a load, one coupon short of a toaster. The smoke not going all the way up the chimney. Not quite 16 annas to the rupee. Nuts.

Is there anything we can do about it? Only what Peggy Noonan told us to do in her brilliant Wall Street Journal piece last week: Do what you do when you find yourself in a roomful of glittering-eyed lunatics down at the local funny farm. Keep smiling, talk softly, don't make any sudden moves, keep nodding and smiling, and keep a tight hand on the stun gun in your pocket. The Middle East contains three hundred million people, and most of them are crazy as coots. Glad I don't live there.