Press Release against the Israeli attack on Karameh

This statement was issued when the target of the Israeli attack – Karameh, was not yet known.

Statement to the israeli and foreign press by The Israeli Socialist Organization (Matzpen)

This morning, 21 March 1968, less than ten months after the 1967 June war, Israel launched a large-scale attack east of the Jordan River. This attack, described in official Israeli statements as “a police action against bases of Al-Fatah”, is in fact a huge terrorist attack directed against the Palestinian people and in particular against refugee centers east of the Jordan River.

These events expose the falsehood of the argument that an Israeli military victory is capable of achieving peace or of bringing about a normalization of Israeli-Arab relations. Israel’s victory in the June war only intensified the conflict and deepened the gulf between Israel and the Arabs.

The present attack, still going on as this statement is being written, furnishes further proof of the total bankruptcy of Israeli policy. The casualties now falling on both sides are victims of a pointless Israeli policy.

No person in his right mind will accept the claim that mass slaughters are capable of “pacifying” the occupied territories, quite the reverse is true.

The only way to normalization is to get out of all the occupied territories at once.