Suppose that after a brief existence as a Jewish state, Israel had been overrun by it’s neighbors and ceased to exist. What would have happened to the territory comprising it? Would there have been an independent Palestine, would the land have been divided up between Jordan, Egypt and Syria, or would there have been some attempt to have it be part of a “Pan-Arab” superstate?
IIRC, Jordan and Egypt kept most of the land captured in the '48 war. If they’d taken the whole country, I imagine they would’ve kept the whole thing, with who gets what determined more or less by where the tanks stopped.
I don’t think Egypt would want anymore. They weren’t too happy with governing Gaza. Jordan certainly looked upon itself as the rightful guardian of Jerusalem and the holy sites of Islam, Christianity and Judaism so I see any holy lands going to Jordan along with the Negev.
I see Syria taking the NE part to secure it’s border and stop the road to Damascus. I don’t see Lebanon taking anything.
So you’d be left with a rump state facing the sea, totally dependent on Jordan. Depending on the course you could have Jews fleeing or a worked out deal, like in Lebanon, with this small state in a power share like Lebanon.
I can’t see there being any sort of pan-Arab superstate. Egypt and Syria tried that for a while with the United Arab Republic, but the Syrians hated it. And King Hussein never would have agreed to it. Given the circumstances, a unified Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian state would have meant a state dominated by Egyptians (which is what happened in the UAR.) You would have had partition, with Egypt taking the south of Israel, Syria the north, and Jordan the center.
An independent Palestine is also a non-starter. There’s nothing in that for the invading countries.
If I had to guess, I’d say Egypt takes the Negev, Syria takes the Galilee, and Jordan takes the coastal strip.
Well, looking over this article, Palestinians are (and presumably were more so pre-1967) roughly organized along tribal/clan lines, so I figure the invading powers would at some point have to deal with and come to rely on the demands of the more powerful family groups, as the Ottomans did. The Palestinians (I kinda doubt that particular title would have any meaning in the OP’s scenario) would tend to self-organize accordingly and form alliances with the major regional powers as needed, until somebody (Nasser, probably, assuming his part in the defeat of Israel delays his resignation and death) decides to try his hand at empire-building and grabs big chunks of the territory.
Meanwhile, Yassar Arafat’s Fatah dances around indecisively, forming and breaking alliances based on whatever looks good at that particular moment, until somebody from Egypt, Syria or Jordan loses patience and takes him out.
I was my understanding the “Palestinian State” was to have been Trans Jordan. Hussein had other ideas.
Just a nitpick, but Fatah didn’t really become important until after '67. The main group would have been George Habash’s Harakiyyin
This is the correct way to understand history in the Levant. Governments and empires rise and fall, but locally powerful families persist. I think the area became set in that pattern ages ago.
One cabal of Brits promised land to Jews, another to Palestinians, and another to the Hashemite family that came from Mecca.*
Meanwhile another cabal of Brits was organizing overthrow of the Hashemites in Mecca by the forces of Ibn Sa‘ud.* The Hashemites having lost their home base were elevated to the newly created thrones of neighboring countries.
**In the First World War, because the Ottomans supported the Al Rashid tribe in Arabia, the Brits began to support their arch-enemies, the Al Sa‘ud. Ibn Sa‘ud parlayed that support into taking over all of Arabia outside the British protectorates, except for Yemen, which was only partly a British protectorate/colony.
Fair enough. I’ll assume, though, that Arafat would eventually find himself butting heads with a regional power that is not Israel, and doesn’t live nearly as long as a result.