February 15, 2003	Saturday	Zul Hijjah 13, 1423

TULKARM (West Bank): When Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel during the last Gulf war, some Palestinians climbed on their rooftops and cheered.

Now, as a new Iraqi crisis looms, residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip seem in no mood to celebrate.

Though most Palestinians still voice support for Baghdad, they have long since abandoned the image of Saddam as an Arab hero who will help rid them of Israeli occupation.

In place of that is the bitter realization that their plight is worse now than in 1990 when Saddam tried to link his abortive invasion of Kuwait to the Palestinian nationalist cause.

More than 12 years later, Palestinians are locked in a bloody conflict with Israel, their towns and cities under military siege, their economy in ruins and their casualty toll rising.

“For Palestinians, the Gulf seems much further away this time,” said Rashid Hanoun, medical chief for the West Bank town of Tulkarm. “The world’s attention is on Iraq, but here we are struggling to survive and wondering how much worse it can get.”

In the build-up to a possible US-led war on Iraq, the prevailing mood among Palestinians is reflected in the starkly different way they and their Israeli neighbours are facing the danger of chemical or biological attack.

While Israelis are stocking up their bomb shelters, updating gas masks and considering smallpox inoculations, most Palestinians see it all as part of a US-Israeli propaganda campaign against Baghdad and are not bothering to make any preparations at all.

LACK OF ZEAL: But so far, pro-Saddam sentiment has lacked the zeal inspired by the last Gulf war.

Most Palestinians realize their embrace of the Iraqi leader after the Kuwait invasion carried a steep price. In the war’s aftermath, wealthy Gulf states cut off vital funds and kicked out tens of thousands of Palestinian workers.

The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has taken care not to repeat his mistake of rowing against the tide of the US-led coalition that drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991.

This time he has expressed hope for a diplomatic solution but avoided taking sides. Still, Palestinians wonder if they will again emerge as losers in a Gulf crisis.

Most of them doubt that Saddam has the banned weapons which the US says he possesses or the missile power to deliver such warheads to Israeli targets if he did.

That has led to widespread indifference in the face of Israel’s decision to withhold gas masks and antidotes from reoccupied Palestinian areas.—Reuters