I have two very basic questions which I have always been curious about regarding the Middle East:
1/ From 1948 to 1967, the area known as the West Bank (of the Jordan River) was controlled by Jordan. In all that time, was there any outcry in the international community or among Palestinians about a Jordanian “occupation” of that land? Were Palestinians demanding that Jordan give up the land for a Palestinian homeland? Why wasn’t a self-governing Arab Palestinian state set up there from the time the UN agreed to the partition plan (1948) and 1967?
2/ Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war with Jordan et al. Jordan renounced claims to the land in the mid 80s, I think. What is Israel’s justification for maintaining control of the land? Are they just using it to get their (pretty hostile) neighbors to agree to a peace treaty? Is the West Bank important from a military defense point of view?
The West Bank, in the opinion of this outsider, is critical to the defense of the state of Israel, equal to if not greater than the importance of the Golan Heights.
The distance from Qaluilyah, at the extreme western end of the Bank, to the Mediterranean Sea is less than fifteen miles. It is in the perfect position to serve as a staging point for bisecting Israel, and in fact was supposed to be used for that purpose in 1967. Furthermore, the Bank sports a geographically important north-south ridge line that would prove essential for any defense of an invasion across the Jordan River. An east-west road network rising from the river also makes the West Bank attractive to both defender and attacker alike.
With political realities being what they are in the Middle East, it is easy to ignore the relatively warm relations that Israel and Jordan currently enjoy. As a country that has been invaded from three directions at once–in living memory, no less–I don’t think the Israel is going to let the West Bank go anytime soon.
Map
To answer your question #1. The West Bank, under the UN plan, was supposed to be part of the Palestinian state. After the 1948 war, there was no Palestinian state to rule it, so Jordan, which captured the area in 1948, kept it.
There is a large issue about Arab countries’ treatment of Palestinians after 1948. Not going to go into much detail, but it’s safe to say that most of Israel’s neighbors don’t have much to be proud of.
Jordan was, by and large, an exception. Unlike most of the Arab countries, it granted citizenship to Palestinian refugees, and persons of Palestinian descent make up a large minority, if not a majority (any help here?) of Jordan’s population. King Hussein granted the Palestinians wide-ranging autonomy.
Jordan and the Palestinians didn’t fall out until after Israel captured the West Bank. Two things occurred - the Palestinians started using Jordan as a launching ground for terrorist attacks, and Hussein wasn’t looking kindly to the possibility that retaliation by Israel could occur in Jordan. Second, the Palestinian armed groups, upset that Jordan was cracking down on their activities, started attempts to foster a coup or a rebellion against Hussein. Hussein responded with “Black September” - in September 1970, Jordan drove the Palestinian armed groups out of Jordan, killing about 5,000 of them in the process.
So, by the time Jordan’s and the Palestinian’s goals were not aligned, and the Palestinians would have been upset at Jordan’s control of the West Bank, Jordan no longer had the West Bank.
Sua
Sua,
What I don’t get is why no (Arab) Palestinian state was set up in 1948. From what I understand, the people living on that pre-1948 territory called Palestine weren’t self-governing. The Ottomans and then the Brits controlled the entire territory. Neither Arab Palestinians nor Jewish Palestians had self-rule.
So why didn’t Arab Palestinians jump at the chance to become self-governing when the Brits left and the UN create two Palestinian countries - one Jewish and one Arab? I still have never heard a good explanation for this.
I mean, if the Arab Palestinians really didn’t think that Jewish Palestinians should have their own self-governed territory, fine. Start a war and fight them. But while you’re doing that, why not set up your own state and become self-governing? I don’t understand why this wasn’t done.
It’s my understanding that this would have “normalized” the situation and given tacit approval of Israel’s existence. The Arabs wanted to maintain a united “war footing” which looked to the eventual reconquest of all of Palestine, after which the Palestinians supposedly would have gotten their state. But of course, the conflict with Israel merely obscured the power games among the various Arab regimes in which the Palestinians were pawns. So whichever Arab state held the military upper hand in the area after Israel’s defeat may indeed have kept it, as in Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank.
Short answer: Because they didn’t have to.
(by “they” I meant the Arabs in general, not the Palestinians)
