Up until 1967, revolutionary movements sought to carry out their operations from within historic Palestine, using the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a base to wage a liberation struggle along classic anti-colonial lines. The Israeli takeover of the entirety of historic Palestine following the Six Day War led to a radical change in strategic vision. For Fateh, it immediately began the plan for a second inṭila’qa (launch), the first inṭila’qa having been announced on 1 January, 1965.
Two courses of action were pursued simultaneously. First, the focus was placed on establishing cells and carrying out operations in the West Bank and Gaza, in the hope it would arouse popular feeling and culminate in a broad popular uprising. The testimony by ʿAbd al-Hamid al-Qudsi discusses this effort. He was one of the cadres smuggled into the occupied Palestinian territories to lay the groundwork on 9 June, 1967. As he recalls, volunteers from the West Bank were being smuggled to al-Hama camp in Damascus for training. This work was complemented with the procurement of weapons.
Once a number of fighters and rifles were in place, Fateh sent Yasser Arafat to lead them. At that time, this future Chairman of the PLO played, along with Khalil al-Wazir and Abu ʿAli Iyad, a central role in the development of Fateh’s armed wing al-ʿAsifa. Arafat operated out of several headquarters, with the main ones in Jerusalem, and travelled extensively across the occupied Palestinian territories. Al-Qudsi highlights how guerrilla units were set up, operated, and received social support, and also gives a sense of the ways in which the Israeli authorities were tightening their grip over the Occupied Territories with great force. By September 1967 they had discovered several cells and arrested leading cadres.
This did not signify the end for armed struggle: a second strategy was to establish a fidaʾi presence bordering historic Palestine, with bases created along the Jordanian border as staging posts for reconnaissance units, with armed revolutionaries crossing the Jordan River. Every major Palestinian group had one or more bases. The story of how one (the earliest PFLP base) was created is described here by Hamdi Matar. The revolutionaries were aided by two major factors arising out of the recent war: the temporary weakening of Jordanian state surveillance, and the enthusiasm and sympathy within both the Jordanian army and society for the idea of armed struggle in response to the 1967 defeat.
The Jordanian authorities continued to block fidaʾi presence, but were unable to stifle it, and these failed attempts to repress the fidaʾi phenomenon can be seen in a range of local incidents. The Jordanian government had worked hard to stop the development of revolutionary activity in the border areas even before 1967, and this recollection by Nasir Yusuf illustrates how local families from the Jordan valley area who participated in revolutionary work were vulnerable to close surveillance and punishment for years prior to the Six Day War. The rapid growth of fidaʾi presence made this policy more difficult to implement, although (as Yusuf shows), arrests continued. Large scale confrontations tended to be avoided. One of these, an attempt by security forces to empty Karameh refugee camp of its fighters, is given in testimony from a local Fateh resident of the camp.
As this account shows, the attempted suppression failed as a result of two distinct factors: the degree to which local citizens of the camp had been mobilised into the revolution, and the consolidation of new relationships between Palestinian fighters and the Jordanian army and society. A careful mobilisation process had been developing since the 1950s and, as shown here, Karameh residents were highly politicised, belonging to a wide range of political and civic groups. By 1966, a significant number were recruited to Fateh, and they played a key role in welcoming and hosting revolutionaries from outside the refugee camp, while ensuring farms in the area could be used effectively to give cover. The revolutionaries organised agricultural workers in the farms bordering the Jordan River, garnering their cooperation, developed relationships with the local Jordanian tribes in the area, and began to liaise with Jordanian military figures in the region. Above all, the social policy they pursued played a key role in mobilisation, including educational experiments such as the creation of scout units, the Ashbāl (cubs) and Zahrāt (flowers), which provided a range of activities for young people. The focus here, in the words of Salah al-Taʿmari, was on the cultural dimension: “developing the connection between the youth and their cause.”
This growth of revolutionary activity along the Jordanian border was viewed by the Israelis with growing alarm, and they began to prepare for a major operation to uproot the revolutionary units from the Jordan Valley. Given Karameh’s role as an active centre, an imminent attack was anticipated there and the choice to remain or withdraw was fiercely debated by the revolutionaries. From a military perspective, withdrawal was the ‘correct’ option. One of the axioms of guerrilla warfare was not to fight a war of positions against a much larger traditional army. However, from a political perspective, making a stand and fighting was the better course, as another withdrawal so soon after the 1967 defeat would have devastated morale. Some units, most importantly the PFLP (which was then led militarily by Ahmad Jibril) chose to withdraw. Others, including Fateh and the Palestine Liberation Army’s Popular Liberation Forces, remained. As Salah al-Taʿamari recounts, these units liaised with the Jordanian Army, which had heavy artillery stationed in the hills above the Jordan Valley.
The invasion of Israeli forces began just after dawn on March 21, 1968. The damage was enormous: most of Karameh camp was destroyed, and 175 homes razed to the ground. Palestinian fighters inside the camp fought to the end, and many were killed or captured as prisoners of war. The lists of the names and backgrounds of the Palestinian fighters and Jordanian soldiers that fell are given here, the latter playing an essential role in fighting alongside the Palestinian revolutionaries, despite Israeli predictions that they would remain on the side-lines. Their heavy artillery and good defensive positions meant that they were able to inflict serious casualties on the Israeli side, eventually forcing the invading army to withdraw. Jordanian participation came as a result of General Mashur Haditha al-Jazi’s initiative, who describes here the essential role of his units in the fighting. Al-Jazi’s sympathetic attitude to Palestinian armed struggle was shared by numerous officers within the Jordanian army, and he discusses here the debates within official circles on the armed struggle. On the one hand, his position (shared by several senior officers) was that fidaʾi work should be complementary to the efforts of the army and that “the role of the Jordanian armed forces was to preserve the fidaʾi and preserve the citizen”. This contrasted with the position of official figures who were vehemently opposed to the fidaʾi presence.
Even before the battle, General al-Jazi established effective coordination with Palestinian forces, opening a direct channel with Yasser Arafat, ensuring the battle could be effectively conducted. In spite of the death of dozens of revolutionaries and Jordanian soldiers, and the destruction of refugee camp itself, the battle represented a major political victory for Palestinians.
The response to the victory at Karameh was immediate, and it was celebrated across the Arab and Afro-Asian world, as seen in the reports in leading Arab newspapers. It also heralded international attention to the emergence of the Palestinian revolutionaries as a major regional force, as seen in a Time Magazine cover from the time. Most of all, the victory meant that the strategy of armed struggle was vindicated, and it was now very difficult for the Jordanian regime openly to prevent Palestinian revolutionary forces from operating. An outpouring of popular support swiftly followed, with thousands of fighters and cadres joining fidaʾi units. This included hundreds of women fighters and cadres. May Sayigh here recounts the development of this aspect of Palestinian revolutionary work, offering a portrayal of the role of women within the revolution, as well as the impact of the revolution on active women in Jordan at the time.
The question of how effectively to incorporate the new volunteers provided an immense challenge. In the pre-Karameh period, Palestinian revolutionary groups were clandestine networks that developed slowly: their cadres tended to be highly trained, disciplined, and motivated. In the post-Karameh period, all Palestinian groups, especially Fateh, grew at a phenomenal rate. Within a week revolutionary work became a mass social phenomenon involving tens of thousands of people. Numerical growth brought collective energies and capacities to the revolution, especially in a place like Jordan, which became known as the ‘reservoir of the revolution.’ Revolutionary action united the Palestinians (who were a majority in that country since 1948) with their East Bank Jordanian compatriots who had long enjoyed strong historical, social, and economic ties to Palestine.
As the revolution became a mass phenomenon, its presence went beyond the Jordan Valley into the main urban centres with the largest population concentrations. Between 1968 and 1970, all major sectors of Jordanian civil society joined the revolution, with only the state institutions (and those structures and networks that supported it) remaining outside the arena of revolutionary mobilisation. This new dynamic afforded a great deal of intellectual freedom: after years of censorship, classics of international political thought as well as critical Arab writings began to openly circulate.
Debates raged over every tactical question, with one of the most heated on the issue of plane hijackings. One wing of the PFLP (the second largest fidaʾi group), was beginning to practice this tactic (with a declared emphasis on not hurting civilians) under the banner of ‘chasing the enemy everywhere’. This tactic was rejected by some currents within the PFLP, as well as by the other revolutionary groups as an instance of ‘adventurism’ that was harming the revolution. Besides these critical tactical issues, every political question was discussed, and there were open expressions of republicanism and anti-monarchism, which increased the anxiety of the monarchical regime in Jordan. It was not only losing its monopoly over force, but it was in the midst of a deep crisis of legitimacy. Now unable to confront fidaʾi activity as a matter of principle, it announced its support for pro-fidaʾi work, while reaffirming its opposition to all ‘lawlessness’. An increasing number of small-scale clashes between regime forces and revolutionary units took place throughout the post-Karameh period under this banner. The most significant of these are found in a list of confrontations compiled by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).
The regime also consolidated local networks of support, pitting its ‘East Banker’ subjects against those of Palestinian origin. This policy was carried out through tribal patronage along with extensive work in the smaller cities and the countryside. Revolutionary presence was weaker in those areas, as can be seen in the recollection by Mahjub ʿUmar, an Egyptian doctor who was leading Fateh work in the south of Jordan. An important insight here concerns the rural areas in the south, and their potential sympathy to the Palestinian revolution, especially wherever social development projects were introduced. Yet the lack of a strong revolutionary presence in those areas meant they remained vulnerable to pro-regime activity.
Indeed, the Jordanian army recruited mainly from those areas. For the regime, ensuring army support in any operation against the revolutionaries was essential, and it therefore launched a major propaganda effort focused on the theme of revolutionary disrespect for the authority and dignity of soldiers. Notwithstanding its success, a number of relatively high ranking officers began to organise in support of the revolutionaries, as detailed in an interview with Abu Musa, which shows the growing concern that small skirmishes between the regime and the revolutionary forces could explode into a full-blown crisis at any moment. Those calling for fidaʾi-army cooperation were becoming increasingly marginalised, even including General al-Jazi who had been appointed (in the aftermath of Karameh) as overall commander of the Jordanian armed forces. This conciliatory figure did not fully control the military, and more hawkish officers were refusing his orders for calm, taking confrontational positions in urban areas.
By September 1970, the regime believed it was in a strong enough position to launch an all-out assault against the fidaʾi presence: a heavy bombardment and siege of the large urban areas that had become strongholds of the revolution. The next source, given by an Egyptian doctor working in Amman’s largest hospital, describes the severe civilian casualties of this bombardment. Continued military pressure led the revolutionaries to arrive at an agreement with the regime (overseen by the Arab League), requiring fidaʾi withdrawal from the cities in return for regime acceptance of fidaʾi operations in designated rural areas (mainly in the forests of Jerash and Ajloun). This decision led to a wide-ranging and intense Palestinian debate which suggested that remaining in the cities could have prevented the regime from eradicating the armed revolutionary presence in Jordan. At any rate, Jordanian forces continued their operations against the fidaʾi presence, launching a key assault on the fighters that had been redeployed to the forests of Jerash and Ajloun. After the defeat of fidaʾi forces in these areas in 1971, initiating the armed struggle from Jordan had become impossible. The fighters of the Palestinian revolution, along with units that had defected from the Jordanian army, relocated to begin a new phase of the struggle in Lebanon.