In 1990 the Soviet Union collapsed. 1 million Soviet Jews, part-Jews and non-Jews immediately left to Israel. Then Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir, a former Irgun fighter/"terrorist" who had fought the British in the 40s, planned to settle them all in the West Bank/Judea & Samaria.
This would create an instant fait accompli Jewish majority and ensure that there would be no possibility of there ever being a Palestinian state. There would have been no Oslo Accords and Arafat would have remained and died in Tunisia.
Instead President George Bush Sr, an Episcoplian mild judophobe, announced threateningly that if the settlement of these 1 million in the West Bank went ahead, the USA would deny Israel its $10 billion in loan guarantees.
Shamir needless to say caved in, and the Russians were settled elsewhere, with the result that the current West Bank demographics are 1.5 million Arabs and 350,000 Jews.
WI Shamir had held his ground? The next stage would be Bush stopping the $3 billion it outright gave Israel each year. The Israeli economy would be hit but not devastated. If Shamir still held out, Bush would refuse to sell Israel weaponry, especially F16Is.
If he still held out economic sanctions and even a shipping blockade, and maybe even a US military threat would be in the offing eg US airborne divisions in to the West Bank.
Topic: 1992: USA vs Israel gets hairy (Read 392 times)