In 1988, Saddam Hussein killed 5,000 Kurdish civilians with chemical weapons in a single afternoon. Over his 24-year rule, he would kill up to 290,000 people. As of September 2025, Benjamin Netanyahu has killed over 63,000 Palestinians in under two years, including 18,885 children. Hussein was executed for crimes against humanity. Netanyahu receives standing ovations from the U.S. Congress.
This discrepancy isn't about the nature of their crimes. It's about the structure of global power.
Both men understood that independent courts represent the primary institutional check on executive power. Hussein eliminated this threat in 1979 by forcing Ba'ath Party members to execute their colleagues on live television. Those who pulled the trigger became complicit, those who refused joined the victims. Netanyahu achieved the same outcome through legislation in 2023, passing laws that grant his government control over judicial appointments and allow simple parliamentary majorities to override Supreme Court decisions. Different methods, identical result: a judiciary that serves power rather than constrains it.
Control over information follows naturally from control over law. Hussein owned all Iraqi media directly, with his son Uday running state propaganda through Babil. Netanyahu cultivated billionaire Sheldon Adelson to launch Israel Hayom as his personal outlet while allegedly trading regulatory favors for positive coverage, corruption charges he still faces. When that proved insufficient, he banned Al Jazeera and orchestrated a government boycott of Haaretz. Hussein used force, Netanyahu uses market manipulation and regulatory capture. Both achieved populations that receive only information that justifies their leader's actions.
The security apparatus enforces this control. Hussein's Mukhabarat tortured and executed political opponents with industrial efficiency. Four thousand prisoners were killed at Abu Ghraib in 1984 alone. Netanyahu's Shin Bet and Mossad operate with different methods but similar purpose.
In Rise and Kill First, Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman documents that Israel "has assassinated more people than any other country in the Western world" since WWII, with over 2,700 operations killing more than 5,000 people. Beyond mass surveillance of Palestinians and, according to a 2025 affidavit by Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, surveilling Israeli protesters at Netanyahu's "political and personal" request, Israeli intelligence maintains a global assassination program. Hussein killed enemies in torture chambers. Netanyahu authorizes their killing via drone strikes and precision missiles. The technology differs, the logic doesn't: state security exists to eliminate threats and preserve the regime.
These structural similarities enable the core comparison. Hussein killed between 250,000 and 290,000 Iraqis over 24 years. The Anfal campaign alone eliminated between 50,000 and 182,000 Kurds through systematic execution, chemical weapons, and village destruction. He drained 90% of the marshlands and conducted mass executions of Marsh Arabs. These were deliberate campaigns to eliminate populations deemed threatening to Ba'athist power.
Netanyahu has killed at three times Hussein's rate. The Gaza Health Ministry reports over 63,000 dead as of September 2025, with more than 159,000 injured. The Lancet's peer-reviewed analysis found deaths from traumatic injuries alone reached 64,260 by June 2024, suggesting systematic undercounting. He's displaced 1.9 million people while systematically denying water in what Human Rights Watch concludes "likely resulted in thousands of deaths."
The justifications are identical. Hussein claimed Kurds were Iranian agents, Marsh Arabs harbored insurgents, repression prevented Iraq's dissolution. Netanyahu claims Palestinians are all terrorists, Gaza is an Iranian proxy, the campaign prevents another Holocaust. Every bombed hospital housed Hamas commanders, every dead child was a human shield. Both men perfected the same inversion: we had to kill them because they were about to kill us.
Here's an important difference: Hussein's atrocities required no public consent. Netanyahu's require democratic endorsement. Every bomb dropped on Gaza falls with the approval of a voting majority. It's one thing for a dictator to impose mass murder through fear. It's another for a democratic leader to persuade a population to choose it through ballots.
The international response reveals how this works. Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, threatening Western oil supplies. The response was total: UN sanctions that destroyed Iraq's economy, dropping GDP from $44 billion to $9 billion. He was invaded, tried, and executed in 2006. Though he killed up to 290,000 people, he was convicted specifically for killing 148 Shiites in Dujail.
Netanyahu faces the International Court of Justice finding "plausible" genocide and ICC arrest warrants for war crimes. The response? The United States increased military aid to $3.8 billion annually and threatened the ICC with sanctions. The EU maintains €34.3 billion in trade.
The international system doesn't punish war crimes; it punishes defiance of Western interests. Hussein's mistake wasn't mass murder but mass murder while controlling oil reserves the West wanted.
The nuclear dimension underscores this. Israel possesses 80-400 nuclear warheads, produced at Dimona, entirely outside international oversight. Netanyahu maintains this arsenal through strategic ambiguity while condemning Iran's nuclear program. Hussein desperately wanted nuclear weapons but settled for chemical ones. He had 600 metric tons of chemical agents he actually used. Yet it was the possibility of Iraqi nuclear weapons that justified invasion, while Israel's actual arsenal remains untouchable.
Both men understood that dehumanization precedes extermination. Hussein called Kurds "saboteurs" and "traitors." Netanyahu calls Palestinians "human animals" and threats to "Jewish character." This isn't emotional excess. It's mass-psychological preparation.
So is Netanyahu the modern Saddam? In methods, absolutely. In total deaths, not yet. Hussein killed 290,000 over 24 years, Netanyahu has killed 63,000 in two. But at his current rate, Netanyahu would match Hussein's toll in just a few more years. More significantly, he's proven that democratic societies will vote for mass killing if properly conditioned. Hussein showed that dictators could commit atrocities. Netanyahu is showing that democracies can choose them.
Hussein went to his execution believing every Kurd he gassed was an Iranian agent, that history would vindicate him. Netanyahu genuinely believes every Palestinian infant killed was a future terrorist, that he too will be vindicated.
Netanyahu's crimes aren't morally different from Hussein's. But Hussein was hanged by the Americans for defying their interests, while Netanyahu is funded by them for serving those interests. Eighteen thousand dead children should be an unexcusable atrocity.
The most crucial difference between the two is that Hussein forgot who writes the rules. Netanyahu didn't.
He probably won't hang for killing 63,000 Palestinians because he's killing them with American weapons, with democratic approval, with the West's blessing. The lesson of Hussein's rightful hanging wasn't "don't commit genocide." The lesson was "make sure you give the U.S. a cut of the profits.”
Netanyahu learned perfectly. He's not the modern Saddam. He's Saddam perfected, a war criminal who understood that atrocities aren't crimes if you commit them for the “right” side.
If you finished this article then you'd probably enjoy my book,
“Conservatism: America's Empathy Disorder”
https://a.co/d/0Z7Kiqn
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