Summary
The Palestinian town inside Jordan raided across the Jordan River by regular Israeli forces in March 1968, whose day-long battle Said marks as the first post-1967 and post-1948 battle between regular Israeli forces and Palestinian irregular forces, and the beginning of the phase of the quickest Palestinian growth.
Details
- Until March 1968 the Palestinian effort is best seen as enclosed by the general Arab, specifically Nasserist or Baathist, national development; in March 1968, after the June War of 1967, the Palestinian movement acquired a new suit which politically and symbolically set it apart from the Arab setting (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.179 / printed p.158).
- The Palestinian fighters at Karameh were backed up later in the day-long battle by Jordanian army regulars, but, the Palestinian account goes, the brunt of the fighting was Israeli-Palestinian; the defenders stayed and fought and inflicted much damage and many casualties on the Israeli armored columns, who until then had been accustomed to amble in with impunity, as in the West Bank village of as-Sammu (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.179 / printed p.158).
- Karameh was the beginning of the phase of the quickest Palestinian growth; volunteers poured in from all parts of the Arab world, and within a year Palestinian fedayeen were the force to be reckoned with in Jordan (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.179 / printed p.158).
- During the post-Karameh period the Palestinian movement alternated between revolutionary vision and practical nationalist maneuvering (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.185 / printed p.164).
Related pages
The Question of Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization, Fateh