Notes from a Sealed Room: An Israeli View of the Gulf War

During the six-week Gulf war in 1991, Werman, an American-born Israeli physician, lived through the threat and the reality of Scud attacks, and sent daily reports to electronic pen pals over a computer network that extended as far as the U.S. and Japan. He records what it was like to huddle in a poison gas-proof room in his house in Jerusalem, struggling with fear and anger as Iraqi missiles fell on Israel. Between alerts Werman and his family attempted to live normally, observing the Sabbath, entertaining friends, following the news. (Aside from Saddam Hussein, the figure that turns up most frequently in the diary is CNN reporter Peter Arnett, whom Werman regarded as a tool of the Iraqi government and an Israeli-basher.) Werman experienced the last three Scud attacks in a cardiac intensive-care ward: ``So I was to finish the war as a patient,'' he writes in the epilogue, ``struck down not by a missile but by a traitor, my heart.'' His book is a vivid personal account. (Dec.)