Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

Osirak, 25 Years Later

Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the Osirak bombing, when Israeli fighter planes bombed a French-built nuclear plant near Baghdad. The destruction of the near-completed reactor, which Israel believed was designed to make nuclear weapons to destroy Israel, was met with strong denunciation from the world community. A quarter-century later — with Iraq’s potential threat as a terrorist nation having led the United States into war — some see Osirak in a different light. One such person is Daniel Birk, a 30-year-old father of two from Seattle. Inspired by the 2004 book ‘Raid on the Sun: Inside Israel’s Secret Campaign That Denied Saddam the Bomb’ (Broadway), by Rodger Claire, Birk decided to commission a painting to commemorate the raid. He hired Jack Fellows, a Washington State-based painter known for his renderings of aerial combat scenes from the Pacific during World War II. The result is ‘Operation Babylon’ (seen above). Birk is now selling high-quality lithographs of the paintings at his Web site, www.birkartwork.com. The first 550 limited copies are signed by Fellows and can be purchased for around $100 per copy.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.