Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The outcome of the Israeli elections in 1988 was similar to the outcome in 1984: Likud had
forty seats; Labor had thirty-nine. The result was another national unity government, with
Shamir as prime minister and Peres as deputy prime minister and fi nance minister. Having
given up on the Jordan option, Peres wanted to explore negotiations with Palestinians who
were close to the PLO without being members. Shamir opposed that idea. This government
collapsed in March 1990, when Peres walked out in the belief that he could form a majority
government on his own.
His walkout became widely known as the “stinking maneuver.” Some saw it as devi-
ous; others, as a failure. Since Peres could not fi nd the necessary support, on June 8, 1990,
Shamir formed a new, more conservative government that rejected a U.S. proposal for di-
rect talks between Israeli and Palestinian delegations. These developments, however, were
soon overshadowed by two major events — the Soviet bloc's collapse and the Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait — that changed the strategic picture.
The U.S.-PLO dialogue fi nally ended in May 1990, when Arafat was caught supporting and
praising a terrorist attack intended to kill civilians in Tel Aviv but intercepted by Israel's navy
off the coast. The operation's deputy commander, Muhammad Ahmad al-Hamadi Yusuf, told
interrogators that his order had been “Don't leave anyone alive. Kill them all . . . children,
women, elderly people.” By this time, too, the intifada had petered out without forcing any
change in Israeli policy or causing signifi cant damage to the State of Israel.
THE COLD WAR'S END AND THE WAR OVER KUWAIT
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the concomitant end of the Cold War had largely
positive implications for Israel. First, the Arab states at war with Israel and the PLO lost their
strongest ally and arms supplier, the now-disintegrated Soviet Union. Second, the emergence
of democratic countries — formerly part of the Soviet Union or within the Soviet sphere of
infl uence — that wanted to reverse Communist-era policies meant that Israel had new friends
in central Europe and the Caucasus. Starting with Hungary in September 1989, the emerg-
ing states and Russia itself opened diplomatic and commercial relations with Israel. Third
World states — especially in Africa — that had broken relations with Israel after the 1967 war re-
stored them.
Third, the Soviet Union's collapse brought a dramatic increase in Jewish immigration from
its former territory. More than one million people, many of them highly skilled, immigrated
to Israel from the former Soviet Union in the biggest infl ux since the early 1950s. The upsurge
in population built Israel's confi dence and internal markets while presenting its enemies with
a stronger Israel that would be more dangerous to confront in war. Perhaps they would be
persuaded that time was on Israel's side, not theirs — a possible new incentive to move toward
peace.
In August 1990, Iraq seized and annexed Kuwait in a bid to grab that country's oil wealth
and to become the Arab world's leader. Most Arab governments, horrifi ed at the perceived
threat to their own states, turned to the United States for protection. Building an international
coalition, the U.S. government demanded that Iraq pull out of Kuwait by January 15, 1991, or
face an attack.
