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While Palestinian support for Saddam confounds many Americans, the U.S. may have no choice but to seriously address their plight soon after the liberation of Kuwait. Reason: the U.S. will owe at least that much to its Arab allies, who, though infuriated by the Palestinians' crowing for Saddam, remain publicly committed to the idea of a Palestinian homeland.
The prospects for progress are small, given Jerusalem's strong opposition even to discussing the idea of withdrawing from the occupied West Bank and Gaza, much less allowing a Palestinian homeland. The U.S., whose $3 billion annually in aid accounts for 7% of Israel's GNP, could bring definitive pressure on Jerusalem to relent, but the Palestinians do not expect that to happen.
If the Palestinians feel let down again, they will almost certainly become still more militant. Among the likely results are an aggravation of international terrorism and more bloodshed in the occupied territories. Already the moderate elements of the P.L.O. have been hit hard. Chairman Yasser Arafat has managed to lose both the backing of his wealthy Arab patrons (for supporting Saddam) and that of the street (for not supporting Saddam enough). Last week Arafat's faction suffered a crushing blow when a Palestinian, apparently working for P.L.O. dissident Abu Nidal, assassinated Abu Iyad, the organization's No. 2 leader, and Abu Hol, its chief of internal security.
JORDAN. King Hussein's worst fear is that Iraq and Israel will use his country as their battlefield. The most dangerous threat is that Israel will fly through Jordanian airspace to retaliate for Iraqi missile strikes. Hussein has vowed to repulse any intrusion, but that would draw him into a conflict in which he has nothing to gain. Even if Jordan manages to stay out of the actual fighting, there are other possibilities for its destabilization. Aggravated by the gulf conflict, tensions between the country's Palestinian majority and Bedouin minority, to which the King belongs, could spark an uprising.
Many Palestinians are concerned that Israel will use a war to expel thousands of them, though this is unlikely unless Israel and Jordan become involved in a major conflict. Some Israeli right-wingers have long advocated the creation of a Palestinian homeland in Jordan. The current government realizes that wholesale deportations would inflame world opinion. But should they occur nonetheless, they would provoke unrest on the east bank of the Jordan River.
The failure to deal with the Palestinian problem could likewise stir rebellion in Jordan. Even if Hussein weathers such storms, the Jordanian economy has been wrecked by the cutoff of trade with Iraq prescribed by U.N. sanctions; the specter of the 1989 riots prompted by government austerity measures still looms large.
As much as the King is cursed among Saddam's opponents for his neutrality in the gulf conflict -- often miscast as support for Baghdad -- the probable alternatives to his rule would scarcely suit their interests. Among the leading contenders would be a radical Palestinian administration or a fundamentalist regime.