Linkage: War in the Gulf, Israel, and the Palestinians

"The US will ... have to address the Palestinian problem because [it] will be the core of any stability in the region .... If it does not address that particular issue ... granting the Palestinians their unalienable right for self-determination, there will be another Saddam Hussain that will come up in the region a few years from now."

—Ibrahim Oweiss, Georgetown University professor, Jan. 21, 1991

"Once the war is won, there will be a general recognition by all parties to the Arab/Israeli dispute that the time has come for some new thinking ... This will be crucial to the search for stability in the region as a whole."

—British Prime Minister John Major, Jan. 21, 1991

"My expectation is that a psychological linkage between the Gulf crisis and the Arab-Israeli situation has developed... [and] it's not far-fetched to believe that there will be an enhanced level of pressure on Israel to deal with its conflicts when this is over."

—Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), quoted Jan. 18, 1991

"All those powers that know us, know that we are immune against pressures ... We would like to have business as usual."

—Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Jan. 31, 1991

"Israel has built up tremendous goodwill. Hopefully the administration will remember this when it's all over."

—Malcolm Hoenlein, executive director of the Conference of American Jewish Organizations, quoted Jan. 25, 1991

"Shamir is only the hero of the week. When it comes to Jerusalem and an international peace conference, Bush will have a short memory."

—unnamed Israeli diplomat, quoted Jan. 25, 1991

"Israel will not bend over backwards to accommodate America's concerns for the alliance if it anticipates a kick in the pants once the current crisis is over. It will expect an appropriate quid-pro-quo in the post-Saddam era.

—The Forward, New York, Jan. 25, 1991

"This cooperation we're seeing has been imposed on the administration because they have no choice if they want to see Israel stay on the sidelines.

—Former domestic policy adviser to Jimmy Carter and pro-Israel activist Stuart Eizenstat, quoted Jan. 25, 1991

"The president has made some very strong statements about Israel. But you have to remember the traditional views of the Arabists at the State Department, and the line that the administration has been following up until now. When the crisis is over, and they want to piece back together the whole region, they may be ready to make further accommodations to the Arabs. At that point, I'm absolutely certain the Israelis will be offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of peace."

—Rep. Larry Smith (D-FL), quoted Jan. 25, 1991

"Israel, without any intimidation, should immediately work for a process to end the Israeli occupation. The land that both people call their homeland should be big enough for both people to live in dignity in a two-state solution. The initiative today is in the hands of the Israeli government; it should respond to the peace overtures of the Palestine National Council of November 1988."

—Hanna Siniora, publisher of the Palestinian newspaper Al Fajr, Jan. 24, 1991

"With Iraq ruined, Jordan impoverished and cut off from its sources of trade and aid, the Palestinians in despair, and millions of new refugees in Jordan, Yemen, the West Bank and Egypt, there will be great seeds of radicalism and revolution in the region. Having cheered us on and held our coat, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia will demand the US now take up the 'Palestinian problem'. . . But, will George Bush, whose prestige in the US Jewish community and Israel has soared after sending the Patriots to protect Tel Aviv, want to risk all that goodwill, as '92 approaches, to advance the cause of Palestinians? ... Not likely."

—Former White House aide and syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan, Jan. 25, 1991

"There will not be any imposition. Israel will not be dictated to."

—Shoshana Cardin, chairperson of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jan. 31, 1991

"To me, the greatest danger Israel faces [is] not from Arab despots, whom Israel could handle on its own, but from the isolation it [will] face at an international peace conference at which America and moderate Arabs would squeeze her, forcing her to give up territory necessary for her security."

—Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY), quoted Jan. 18, 1991

"There's a chance we could build up sufficient trust ... that could last beyond when peace comes. The US has seen the vulnerability of Israel. The papers are filled, finally, with tributes to Israel's sacrifice and trust. It's sort of an international Montessori lesson."

—Mark Talisman, Washington director of the Council of Jewish Federations, quoted Jan. 26, 1991

"There will be an attempt by Israel to capitalize on this. But there is an international consensus on [the Palestinian problem], and they won't be able to keep it off the agenda."

—Hasan Rahman, director of the Palestine Affairs Center, Washington, DC, quoted Jan. 26, 1991

"The Palestinian problem is not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that all these Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are still at war with Israel.... After this crisis, they should be persuaded to sit down and talk peace with us. The Palestinian problem will be taken care of as an aftermath of that."

—Israeli Ambassador to the US Zalman Shoval, Feb. 8, 1991

"Perhaps, if Israel had deported several hundred Palestinians on day one of the intifada, things would be different. But it is no longer day one. By now, the intifada is in the heart of virtually every Palestinian. And why not? There is likely no more absolute law in history than that Uncle Tom will one day become Nat Turner."

—Columnist Leonard Fein, The Forward, Jan. 4, 1991

"The call for a settlement that would lead to sovereignty for the Palestinians has never been about what the Palestinians deserve, but what Israel needs. And in coming years Israel will need peace close to its borders, so that it can handle conflicts farther away; it will need to remove the Palestinian issue from the Arab agenda, lest it provide ammunition for the fundamentalist, anti-Western forces that simmer barely below the region's surface; and it will need international goodwill, to attract the millions of dollars in aid and investment it will need to pay for the absorption of a million Soviet Jews."

—Washington Jewish Week, Jan. 24, 1991