More Arab-Israeli Fighting Likely; Palestinians Contest Hussein Power

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JERICHO (UPI)—Less than a year after 1967’s six-day war, Israelis in the kibbutzim (settlements) along the Jordan are spending as much time in their shelters as did their countrymen along the old Syrian frontier before last June. Some of them find it safer to go armed.

With a million Arabs within Israel’s present frontiers, many Jewish settlements may eventually find themselves as hard put to defend themselves against marauders as they did before 1948. This is some of what is happening since the Israeli attack of March 21 on the guerrilla operational base at Karameh on the east bank of the Jordan river.

The attack may slow down infiltration for a shorter or longer period. But more important it has had two side effects: it has brought home to Israelis that they face guerrilla war, and it has brought to a head the struggle for power in Jordan between King Hussein and the Palestinians.

Casualties Small The present casualties from infiltrators are not heavy—roughly not much worse than road accident casualty figures, and so far the population of the occupied territories is not cooperating with the guerrillas. But Israel is not prepared to accept infiltration as one of the hazards of modern life, as she feels some of her critics would like her to do.

One of the reasons why the number of soldiers killed in the Karameh raid—28—was regarded as high by the public was that the losses came so soon after a war Israelis expected would make life safer for them.

Before the March 21 raid it was estimated Israel captured about 80 per cent of the guerrillas crossing from Jordan, and since the six-day war about 500 El Fatah men have been killed in skirmishes. More than 1,500 guerrillas are in Israeli jails.

However, the 2,000 members of various organizations now in Jordan vastly outnumber the hundred or so guerrillas operating before last June. Not Negligible The arms, sabotage devices and explosives captured at Karameh were so much in excess of expectations that Israel no longer regards the guerrillas as a negligible force.

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"More Arab-Israeli Fighting Likely; Palestinians Contest Hussein Power," Leader-Telegram, 18 April 1968. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1968-015. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1968-015