The Fida'iyyun Organization's Contribution to the Descent to the Six-Day War

In the years between the Sinai Campaign in 1956 and the Six-Day War in 1967, the Arab-Israeli conflict continued to simmer and intensify until it culminated in the outbreak of war. The Palestinian problem stood in the center of the Arab world's political discourse. The borders were not as quiet as Israel's leaders tried to make them appear. The guerilla Fida'iyyun organizations precipitated the descent to war by destabilizing the border situation, triggering Israeli retaliations, the climax of which came in the Samu' raid in Jordan on November 13, 1966 and the IDF's large-scale operation in Syria on April 7, 1967. Thus the Six-Day War was the fulfillment of Fatah's basic goal: to ensnare (tawarit) the Arab states in a war with Israel.