Israelis ready gas masks, but Iraq threat feels distant

For most Israelis, the prospect of an Iraqi missile attack seems the less likely of two evils. Two recent opinion surveys say Israelis who fear a Palestinian bomb easily outnumber those worried about the arrival of an Iraqi Scud.

Still, it often pays to be cautious. So in a country already suffused with metal detectors, impromptu roadblocks, and patrolling soldiers, now comes a new imposition in the name of security: the problem of obtaining an up-to-date gas mask.

Sunday, the Israeli government ran its first multiple-launch test of four Arrow interceptor missiles, to gauge the country's defenses against possible Scud missile attacks from Iraq. In recent weeks, it has been distributing "personal protection kits," conducting civil-defense drills that simulate missile attacks, inoculating emergency workers against smallpox, and urging citizens to stockpile drinking water - in bottles or sealed tanks, not plastic - in the event that regular supplies are disrupted or contaminated.

Meanwhile, Israeli newspapers have published reports saying that the country's smallpox vaccine has been prepared under substandard conditions, that army-issued gas masks don't fit in some cases, and that the government is exaggerating the possibility of war for political reasons. Officials have denied all three charges.

Yoel Parnasa, a square-faced computer engineer who lives in Jerusalem, shrugs his shoulders at the war hype. "We will not need it," he says, referring to his new gas mask. "The chance that something will happen is very, very small."

Nonetheless Mr. Parnasa adjusted his morning routine one day last week to visit an Army Home Front Command distribution center in a dim parking garage under Jerusalem's biggest mall. He got masks for himself and his wife, a ventilated protective hood for his three-year-old daughter, and a ventilated plastic tent for his baby son. Despite his skepticism about the need for such equipment, he says, it's better to be on the "safe side."

Here, at one of 36 such centers in a country of 6.6 million people, soldiers distribute thousands of protection kits every day. For the time being the government is addressing the needs of its citizens first; foreigners who live in Israel must wait until the government declares an "emergency situation" until they can obtain a gas mask, and, unlike citizens, they will have to pay a refundable fee for their protection kits. Palestinians who hold Israeli identity cards and those who live in parts of the territories under Israeli civil administration are entitled to free masks now.

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