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On 21 March 1968, nine months after the Six-Day War, the IDF launched a military operation against the Jordanian town of Karameh, which served as the headquarters of the Fatah terrorist organisation and a springboard for attacks against Israel. Yet rather than deal Fatah a crushing blow, the operation boosted its strength and prestige. Coming in the wake of the astounding June 1967 victory, the Karameh battle underscored the operational difficulties awaiting the IDF in its prolonged low-intensity warfare against non-state terror organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the vast resources poured by the international community into the construction of Palestinian institutions, the PA has failed to build and maintain the infrastructures required for the establishment of a vital, democratic and functioning state. By most common parameters, the PA is a failed entity. Taking into account this experience and the consequences of the last six years of Arab upheavals, characterized by the increasing phenomenon of failed states, there is a need for a paradigm shift that will increase the likelihood of a functioning Palestinian state after a peace agreement with Israel is signed and reduce the risk of its being a failed state that would pose a complex, dangerous challenge for Israel and the neighbouring Arab states. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As with other Arab identities, Palestinian identity is a product of myriad converging ideologies. In retrospect, its development was accompanied by dominant Middle Eastern ideologies, such as Arab nationalism, pan-Islamism and the rise of political Islam. Against this backdrop, the article discusses Islam's historical affinity and social role in the formative period of the Fatah revolutionary national movement. Both ideologically and socially, Islam was central to Fatah's ethic and served as an important tool for recruiting the masses to the Palestinian revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article begins by discussing various criteria considered by different authors as indicators of the onset of a civil war, such as the number of combat deaths and the duration of the war. It then examines whether the Hamas-Fatah conflict can be considered a civil war, before assessing the impact of this conflict on the Palestinians and exploring its implications for the wider Arab-Israeli conflict. The article further investigates the reverberations of this conflict at the regional level and appraises its future course in terms of optimistic versus pessimistic views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]