In Riyadh, the pressure for action was strong; in Tel Aviv, it was explosive. The Scud attacks had filled Israeli civilians with terror and outrage. They wanted revenge. Traditionally, Israelis did not delegate military action, and their traditional strategy was an eye for an eye. At the minimum, they expected to send their excellent air force against the Scuds. More dangerously, there was a real possibility that they would retaliate with nuclear weapons.

Hoping to put a lid on all this, Horner sent a delegation to Tel Aviv—including his deputy, Major General Tom Olsen, and one of the four TACC operations directors, Colonel Mike Reavy—to explain how Americans were working to suppress the Scuds. He also wanted high-level people there to consult in the event of an Israeli attack. If the Israelis weighed in, tangles between Israeli and Coalition air forces would have been very possible, and would have only helped the enemy. Washington wanted Coalition forces out of their way. Meanwhile, Washington was putting full diplomatic pressure into preventing Israeli action.

Chuck Horner observes:

Israeli retaliation would have been a terrible political mistake, and its chances of military success were not high, either.

Though Israeli pilots were among the best in the world, they were less well-equipped than we were to hunt mobile Scuds. Consequently, their only real contribution to the war would have been to boost the morale of their own people. Far more important, however, the Coalition was always a very fragile thing. Any Israeli retaliation on an Arab state—especially nuclear retaliation—no matter how justified, would have at best weakened the Coalition. At worst, it would have destroyed it. Though it is my belief that the Chief of the Israeli Air Force, General Ben-Nun (a dear friend and first-rate F-15 pilot), understood all this, he was under pressure to act. So planning went on day and night in Tel Aviv.

Relief in Tel Aviv came with the arrival of the U.S. Army’s Patriot missiles. Though many will claim that the Patriots failed to stop the Scuds, the question about their success is really beside the point. The Scuds themselves failed to perform well, except to bring terror. By bringing relief from terror to the people in Israel, the Patriots succeeded magnificently. The relief was important enough to allow the release of Tom Olsen and Mike Reavy to come back to run the air war, where they were sorely needed.

On the downside, Israeli worries meant pressure on Schwarzkopf from Washington to start a ground war in the west just to shut down Scud attacks on Israel. This also would have been a terrible mistake, and a logistical horror.