ABSTRACT
The looming shadow of the Gulf crisis and the traumatic events of the Gulf War had a considerable effect on Israeli politics in 1991, although the country’s public life was influenced by other factors as well. The Gulf War brought into sharp relief the interaction between the country’s internal politics and its international relations, on the one hand, and between wars and the society’s relationship to its regime, on the other. A general state of apprehension over what might occur caused almost everyone in Israel’s Jewish population, irrespective of individual political views, to start talking very much the same political language. Israel’s indigent Arab population was severely cautioned by Police Minister Roni Milo against displaying any signs of active political support for Iraq or interfering in any manner with Israel’s preparations for dealing with the military threat it was confronting.
