ABSTRACT
The specific issue at question is whether the conflict helped consolidate the external and domestic infrastructures for the effective pursuit by the United States of a coercive course vis-a-vis Israel. The fact that President Bush had succeeded in forging a broad inter-Arab coalition against Iraq, further reinforced his desire that Israel maintain "a low profile" in the course of the crisis. Consequently, Israel had to follow the crisis in the Gulf from a position of weakness, disarmed of much of its ammunition and infrastructure of support in American public opinion. The area, in which these changes in the very structure of the American-Israeli dyad were most clearly manifested during 1991, was that of economic assistance. The backdrop of this initial American refusal to compensate Israel for the direct and indirect costs of the war, Israel attempted to appeal directly to American public opinion for support.
