Deck 22: The Palestinian Intifada and the 1991 Gulf War

Question 1

Which of the following is NOT true about the 1987 Intifada?

A) It was an effort by the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to bring an end to the Israeli occupation
B) It was an effort to establish an independent Palestinian state
C) The PLO was in charge from the beginning
D) It was, in part, an effort to make the continued occupation a financial burden for Israel

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Which of the following is NOT true of Hamas?

A) It favored the two-state solution between Israel and Palestine
B) It framed its call to action in Islamic terms
C) It came into existence in 1988 as an offshoot from the Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood
D) "Hamas" is an Arabic acronym for "Islamic Resistance Movement"

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Why did the British, when defining the Iraq-Kuwait border in 1923, give Kuwait more territory in the north than it traditionally controlled?

A) To reward Kuwait and encourage its further relations with the British
B) To restrict Iraq's access to the Persian Gulf
C) To assure Iran that the British did not favor Iraq over other states
D) All of these answers are correct.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

The August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, according to Saddam Husayn, was justifiable because

A) Kuwait was wrongfully overproducing oil and exceeding assigned OPEC quotas, consequently benefiting Western buyers
B) Kuwait was wrongfully exploiting the Rumeila oil field, a petroleum deposit that straddled the border between Iraq and Kuwait
C) Kuwait refused to cancel Iraq's debts, which, Iraq claimed, were the direct result of Iraq's efforts to protect the Gulf states during the Iran-Iraq War
D) All of these answers are correct

Question 5

How did President George H.W. Bush justify its change of policy from "Desert Shield" to "Desert Storm"?

A) The Bush administration sought to keep the existing economic and political order in the Gulf because it ensured the continued supply of oil to the United States
B) The Bush administration sought to deny Iraq the fruits of its aggression and personally punish Saddam Husayn
C) The Bush administration emphasized a moral responsibility for liberating Kuwait
D) All of these answers are correct

Question 6

Which of the following was NOT true of the Gulf War of 1991?

A) The major Arab countries sided with the United States against their fellow Arab country, Iraq
B) The United States secretly encouraged Iraq to invade Kuwait in order to have a pretext to destroy Saddam Husayn and his weapons of mass destruction
C) The United States was primarily concerned about access to oil
D) Most of the 400,000 Palestinians living in Kuwait fled or were expelled as a result of the war

Question 7

What incident occurred in November 1990 in Saudi Arabia concerning forty Saudi women, most of them teachers in women's schools?

A) The women protested in Riyadh and won full citizenship rights
B) The women circulated socialist propaganda within their schools
C) The women protested an existing convention prohibiting women from driving by forming a convoy of cars and driving them through Riyadh
D) The women protested in solidarity with Kuwaiti women who also lacked full citizenship rights

Question 8

The 1990 Gulf War was begun by

A) the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and its annexation
B) the Kuwaiti air assault on Iraq, and Iraq's subsequent invasion
C) the expulsion of 400,000 Palestinians from Kuwait into Iraq
D) Kuwait providing assistance to Iraq Kurds and the subsequent Iraqi invasion

Question 9

To which country did the United States send over 200,000 troops in 1990, upon receiving a formal invitation to station troops there?

A) Kuwait
B) Saudi Arabia
C) Lebanon
D) Iraq

Question 10

Although Iraq's occupation of Kuwait was generally condemned throughout the Arab world, the US intervention was extremely unpopular. Why?

A) The intervention revealed the United States' double standard in the Middle East; Washington enforced UN resolutions against Iraq, but did not compel Israel to obey UN resolutions pertaining to the occupied territories
B) The Arab world saw that the United States only sent material assistance; it would not stay and aid in rebuilding the region
C) The Arab world believed the United States had wrongfully bought into Iraqi propaganda, and the conflict did not necessitate excessive military intervention
D) The Arab world saw that, while it wanted to end the invasion of Kuwait, the United States wanted Saddam Husayn to remain in power

Question 11

Which of the following is true of the intifada?

A) It began as an Islamist youth movement in Gaza in response to the Israeli military accidentally killing Palestinian civilians
B) It began as a unified movement across all strata of Palestinian society
C) From the beginning, it was a top-down effort of the PLO to demand a two-state solution for the Palestinians
D) It began in Gaza with youths protesting the deaths of fellow Palestinians in a road accident with the Israeli military, later broadening to the rest of Palestine

Question 12

Who was the prime minister of Israel during the 1980s, who intensified the construction of settlements and adopted new measures designed to isolate and subjugate the Palestinian inhabitants?

A) Yitzhak Rabin
B) Menachem Begin
C) Ariel Sharon
D) Yitzhak Shamir

Question 13

Which of the following most accurately characterizes the tactics supported by the intifada leaders of the UNL to achieve their goals at the outset of the intifada?

A) The UNL supported whatever tactics deemed necessary against the Israelis to achieve the goal of Palestinian statehood
B) The UNL confined their tactics to negotiations by PLO leaders, with limited direct action among society
C) The intifada leaders employed tactics of boycotts and civil disobedience designed to make the continued occupation a financial burden for Israel
D) The intifada leaders supported terrorist tactics against Israelis and Palestinians deemed sympathetic to the Israelis

Question 14

Which of the following most significantly factored into US President George H.W. Bush's decision to cut off negotiations with Arafat and the PLO?

A) Israel's supporters within the US and exerted substantial pressure on President Bush to do so
B) A splinter group of the PLO carried out a raid against Israel during negotiations, thus calling into question Arafat's renunciation of terrorism
C) Israeli Prime Minister Shamir refused to concede any of the occupied territories to the PLO, thus leaving negotiations unfruitful
D) All of these were significant factors in the US ending negotiations with the PLO under the administration of George H.W. Bush

Question 15

How did the 1990-1991 Gulf War become linked with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

A) Arabs noted the United States' double standard: Washington pushed to enforce UN resolutions against Iraq, but not against Israel
B) Kuwait had just signed a secret agreement with Israel
C) Kuwait, unlike Iraq, refused to accept any Palestinian refugees
D) Kuwait had just executed a number of terrorists with ties to Hamas

Question 16

President George H.W. Bush's personalization of his dislike of Saddam Husayn during the 1990-91 Gulf War was most reminiscent of ___________________.

A) the British Government's feelings toward Egypt's Muhammad Ali
B) the British Prime Minister Eden's fixation on Nasser during the Suez crisis
C) Consul-General Lord Cromer's animosity towards the Mahdi of Sudan
D) Yitzhak Shamir's distrust of Yasir Arafat during the same time

Question 17

Which of the following most accurately describes the rebellions within Iraq in 1991?

A) Kurds in the north rebelled against Saddam Husayn's use of chemical weapons in the city of Halabja that had killed 5,000 people
B) Iraqis throughout the entire country rebelled against Saddam Husayn's high military spending as the Ba‛thist welfare state's capabilities dwindled
C) Shi‛a soldiers in the south who felt they had been abandoned by the regime during Operation Desert Storm rebelled against Saddam Husayn and the Ba‛th party
D) Shi‛a with longstanding resentments against Arab Ba‛thism rebelled with the support of the United States

Question 18

All of the following are true of the oil for food program in post-Gulf War Iraq EXCEPT:

A) The funds lacked adequate international monitoring and restrictions, thus allowing Saddam Husayn to pilfer the majority of the money for his cronies and himself
B) The program allowed Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months for humanitarian supplies
C) 30 percent of the funds were used to pay Iraq's war reparations, with additional amounts allocated to UN operations in Iraq
D) Some money was designated specifically for humanitarian supplies for Kurds in the north

Question 19

Which of the following is NOT an accurate description of the 1992 Saudi Basic Law of Government?

A) It responded to the women's driving protest by expanding certain job opportunities for women in government
B) The law introduced sweeping changes in the process by which the king was chosen
C) It made it possible for younger, foreign educated princes to succeed the king
D) The centrality of the House of Sa‛ud and succession of the royal lineage through male descendants was all reaffirmed

Question 20

Which of the following accurately characterizes the challenges to Saudi rulers in the 1990s?

A) Islamists outside of the official ulama circles presented their demands more forcefully, and emphasized in particular Saudi ties to the West
B) A liberal reformist group of businessmen and writers signed a petition in late 1990 requesting the establishment of a consultative council
C) Islamists presented similar demands to those of the secular reformers, but they framed their demands in terms of the need to observe the shari'ah and to grant the ulama a greater role in the decision-making process
D) All of these statements accurately characterize the challenges to Saudi rulers in the 1990s

Question 21

The Likud Party of Israel was adamantly opposed to relinquishing any portion of the Gaza Strip or West Bank, and in the 1980s the Likud-dominated government constructed more settlements in the territories and adopted measures to isolate and subjugate the Palestinian inhabitants.

Question 22

In 1999, women won and retained full citizenship rights in Kuwait.

Question 23

The Palestinian Intifada achieved its full objectives by 1991.

Question 24

Iraq was the product of imperial map-making; it did not have any previous national identity.

Question 25

In 1990, negotiations between North and South Yemen cumulated in the unification of the two states as the Republic of Yemen.

A) True
B) False
5 fill-in-the-blank questions
For these questions, select the correct word or phrase to complete the statement.

Question 26

"Administrative detention" was a practice in Israel that permitted __________________ to be arrested without a warrant and held for up to six months without being charged.

Question 27

Arafat's __________________ authorized that the PLO drop its earlier insistence that all of Palestine should be liberated, and acknowledged Israel's right to exist within its pre-1967 borders.

Question 28

Yemen's attempt to remain neutral regarding Iraq's invasion of Kuwait-refusing to condemn it and withholding support for the decision to send Arab forces to join the coalition-prompted __________________ to begin expelling some 800,000 Yemeni workers.

Question 29

The display of US military technology during the Gulf War, combined with the collapse of the Soviet Union, elevated the United States to unilateral __________________ in the Middle East.

Question 30

Fearing extermination at the hands of a regime that had once used poison gas in the town of Halabja, an estimated 2 million __________________ refugees escaped to the Turkish and Iranian borders.

Question 31

In what ways did the Israeli occupation-in particular, under the Likud-dominated government of the 1980s-intrude on the daily lives of Palestinians?

Question 32

What event triggered the start of the 1987 intifada?

Question 33

What reasons did the Iraqi government provide for its invasion of Kuwait in 1990?

Question 34

Osama bin Laden was among the faction of Islamic activists in Saudi Arabia criticizing the regime in the 1990s. What were some of this group's grievances?

Question 35

Why did the United States intervene in the Gulf War?

Question 36

Israel did not normally remain passive in the face of Arab threats to its national security. Why did Israel not retaliate with military force against Iraq's attacks on Haifa and Tel Aviv in 1991?

Question 37

Briefly explain how the 1991 Gulf War affected Palestinians.

Question 38

Briefly describe the events that occurred in Yemen between 1990 and 1994.

Question 39

Why was Saddam Husayn able to retain power despite the economic sanctions on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War?

Question 40

Briefly compare the loss of life among Iraqis with that of the US-led coalition during the 1991 Gulf War.

Question 41

The US-led coalition's sanctions regime imposed on Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf War has been described as a form of collective punishment to the Iraqi nation. Explain why you find this to be an accurate or inaccurate characterization of the prolonged post-war period.

Question 42

While the Palestinian intifada began as a local response to local conditions, it developed an international dimension. What were the goals of the intifada, and how were the United States involved?