193. What influence did the Persian Gulf War 1990-1991 have over the Palestinians?

In August 1990, the President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, occupied Kuwait and argued that the territory belonged historically to Iraq. In 1961, the western powers had created a puppet country (Kuwait) to control their oil. Behind these arguments, there was the Iraqi necessity of exploiting Kuwait to solve their damaged economy after their war against Iran (1980-1988). Saudi Arabia refused to facilitate the rehabilitation of Iraq, Syria was interested in getting close to the west after the fall of the USSR and Jordan tried to keep a neutral position; a coalition against Iraq had been confirmed, led by the United States, which was the “sheriff” of the world after the Soviet fall. To break this coalition, Saddam Hussein conditioned his withdrawal from Kuwait to Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Iraq threatened to attack with chemical missiles to demonstrate that their war was a pro-Palestinian crusade. Yasser Arafat and the PLO welcomed the intentions of Saddam Hussein and positioned themselves openly in favor of Iraq. This situation would confront Arafat with Saudi Arabia, the main economic collaborator of the PLO. The support of Arafat to Saddam Hussein was a political and economic suicide. On Jan/15/1991, the ultimatum ended for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and on Jan/17/1991, the allied attack against Iraq began. During the Gulf War, there were 39 Scud missiles launched at Israel that resulted in material damages with a value of several million dollars. Saddam Hussein did not charge these missiles with chemical heads, a situation that would have pushed Israel into war. Only one Israeli citizen died and three other people died of heart attacks. The Palestinians went to the roofs of their houses to celebrate, rooting for the missiles that were heading to Israel. On the other hand, American batteries (Patriot) proved not to be very effective to destroy the Iraqi missiles.