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Unlock This CourseBefore 1967 the Palestinians relied mostly on the Arab states to win back their land. The defeat in the Six-Day War showed how weak those armies were. Many Palestinians decided that they must fight for themselves. About a million of them were now living under Israeli military rule, and many more were refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Key terms:
At first the PLO was controlled by Egypt and other Arab governments. After 1967 this changed. Fatah, the guerrilla group led by Yasser Arafat, became the strongest force among the Palestinians. In February 1969 Arafat was elected chairman of the PLO. The PLO's rules were also changed to say that armed struggle was the only way to win back Palestine.
Israeli forces attacked a Fatah camp at Karameh in Jordan. Jordanian guns helped the Palestinian fighters. Israel lost men and vehicles and withdrew. Karameh means "dignity" in Arabic, and the battle made Fatah famous across the Arab world.
After Karameh thousands of young Palestinians joined the guerrilla groups. The PLO built up bases in Jordan, close to Israel, and launched raids from there.
The PLO was not one united army. It included other groups, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), led by George Habash, which chose more extreme methods.
Guerrilla raids could not defeat the Israeli army. The PFLP and other groups looked for ways to gain world attention. In July 1968 PFLP members hijacked an Israeli airliner flying from Rome to Tel Aviv and forced it to land in Algeria. Hijackings made headlines everywhere and made the world ask who the Palestinians were and what they wanted. They also made many governments angry and afraid, and they put ordinary passengers in danger.
The biggest came in September 1970, when the PFLP seized several airliners within a few days. Three were flown to Dawson's Field, a desert airstrip in Jordan. The passengers were taken off and later released, but on 12 September the empty planes were blown up in front of the world's cameras. This happened inside King Hussein's country, and it made him look powerless.
By 1970 the Palestinian fighters in Jordan had their own weapons, checkpoints and offices. Many Jordanians felt that they ran a "state within a state". King Hussein feared he was losing control. Israeli reprisals for raids from Jordan also brought danger to his people.
After Dawson's Field, Hussein ordered his army to act. Fighting began on 17 September in Amman and other places. Syrian tanks crossed the border to help the Palestinians, but pulled back. Israel and the USA made clear that they would not accept an outside invasion of Jordan.
Thousands of people were killed, most of them Palestinians, and many were refugees once again. Nasser arranged a ceasefire in Cairo on 27 September. He died the next day. In the months after, the Jordanian army pushed the fighters out. By July 1971 the PLO had been driven out of Jordan and moved to Lebanon.
Some Palestinians formed a group called Black September, named after the defeat. In November 1971 it killed Jordan's prime minister, Wasfi al-Tal, in Cairo.
On 5 September 1972 eight members of Black September entered the Olympic Village in Munich, West Germany, where the Games were being held. They killed two members of the Israeli team and took nine others hostage. They demanded the release of more than 200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Israel refused to give way.
That night the hostages and their captors were taken to a military airfield. A rescue attempt by German police failed, and all nine hostages were killed, along with a German police officer and five of the attackers. In total eleven members of Israel's team died. Three attackers were captured.
The Games were stopped for a day, then went on. Israel carried out air strikes on bases in Syria and Lebanon, and its agents later hunted down some of those it held responsible.
Change: the fight against Israel was no longer led only by Arab states, because Palestinian groups now acted for themselves. Continuity: the quarrel over land stayed unsolved, and outside powers such as the USA still limited what each side could do.
Explain TWO causes of the fighting between the Jordanian army and the Palestinian fighters in September 1970. [8 marks]
For each cause, name it, give precise facts and then show how it led to the fighting. One cause only can score no more than half marks.
One cause was the growing power of the Palestinian fighters inside Jordan. After the battle of Karameh in 1968 thousands of recruits joined the guerrilla groups, which set up bases, checkpoints and offices in Jordan. Many Jordanians felt that they ran a "state within a state", so King Hussein feared losing control of his own country. This made a clash between his army and the fighters very likely.
A second cause was the PFLP hijackings of September 1970. In early September the PFLP hijacked several airliners and flew three of them to Dawson's Field, and on 12 September they blew up the empty planes in front of the world's press. This made Hussein look powerless in his own country. It led him to give his army the order to act, and fighting began on 17 September.
This is a top answer because each cause has specific facts and shows how it led to the fighting.
Finish each paragraph with a link such as "this led to the fighting because ...". Facts alone, with no link to the outcome, stay in the middle level.