Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan occurred following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War for a period of nearly two decades (1948 - 1967). The disputed areas of East Jerusalem, as well as Judea and Samaria (commonly called the "West Bank"), were at one point under the full control of the Arab Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
History: Turks, British, Arabs, Jews and the League of Nations
Historically, the British Mandate of Palestine included all of present-day Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan, (the Gaza Strip was also part of the British Mandate), and had been controlled by the Ottoman Empire of Turkey for hundreds of years from the early 1500s.
With the defeat of Turkey during World War I and the rise of British colonial power, the Balfour Declaration, 1917 was issued by the British government, granting the entire area of Palestine on both banks of the Jordan River to the Jews.
After the League of Nations issued the and the British were given the British Mandate of Palestine, it was Winston Churchill who guided a memorandum to the League of Nations stating that Transjordan (i.e. areas east of the Jordan River) would be excluded from all the provisions dealing with Jewish settlement, and this memorandum was approved on 11 September, 1922. From that point onwards, Britain administered the part west of the Jordan as "Palestine", and the part east of the Jordan as "Transjordan".
The Hashemite leaders had been the Arab's Sharif of Mecca (the chief custodians of Mecca, Islam's holiest city) since the 1100s. The Hashemite Sherif Hussein ibn Ali, who had previously declared himself king of the Hejaz in 1917, and also declared himself king of all Arabs, was defeated and expelled from Saudi Arabia by King Ibn Saud of the House of Saud in 1924.
Sherif Hussein ibn Ali's sons: Abdullah I of Jordan and Faisal I of Iraq also became newly-minted kings. They were rewarded by the British for their loyalty in expelling the Turks from the Arabian Peninsula, and because of their religious status (sons of the Sharif), they were seen as able to garner the support of the Arabs in Iraq, Transjordan, and even Syria for Britain. They were given the newly-established monarchies over Transjordan and over Iraq and Syria, (Syria was later given to France).
Faisal I of Iraq had actually signed the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement in 1919 as part of the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 ending World War I, accepting the Balfour Declaration on behalf of the Arabs and calling for a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, but there was still no official Jewish state by the time he died in 1933. The subsequent kings, Ghazi of Iraq and Faisal II of Iraq were either anti-British, pro-Nazi, anti-Israel, or under the control of regents opposed to Israel's existence. They actually also sent Iraqi troops to fight Israel in the West Bank in 1947-1948. (Only following the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003 have silent overtures resumed to create peace between Israel and Iraq.)
Abdullah I of Jordan became Emir of Transjordan in 1921 and King in 1923. During a visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem he was assassinated in 1951 (planned by a Colonel Abdullah Tell a cohort of the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni) supposedly because he was suspected of trying to bring peace between Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon, (at his side was the young future King Hussein of Jordan who eventually signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994).
Following the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948, the Jordanian Arab Legion under the leadership of Sir John Bagot Glubb (known as Glubb Pasha), was successful in pushing off and defeating the forces of the newly established State of Israel (see ) and proceeded to occupy and administer the West Bank territories from 1948 until 1967 as confirmed in the 1949 Armistice Agreements:
Jordan's victories
Jordan's rulers did not make any politically meaningful efforts during this period to establish a new viable independent Arab Palestinian state for its West bank "subjects"; in fact Jordan actually formally annexed East Jersulem and the West Bank for itself in 1950:
After the outbreak of the 1967 Six Day War, when Jordan joined Egypt and Syria in attacking Israel, Israel counter-attacked, defeated the Jordanian army, and took control of these areas.
According to the 1947 UN Partition Plan, the areas under Jordanian control should have been granted to the native Arab Palestinian inhabitants as the basis of an independent state. However, this never happened as Jordan was reluctant to create such a state for reasons relating to its own survival and viability because the majority of people in Jordan are actually Palestinians who would then likely seek to merge with a new Palestinian state and overthrow the ruling minority Hashemites.
Following the outbreak of the Six Day War in June 1967, Israel diplomatically requested that King Hussein not join Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser in opening a new front against Israel in the West Bank. Historians note [1] that Nasser placed pressure on a reluctant Hussein provoking him to open a new front against Israel, and in a well-known episode, a secret conversation between the two was recorded (by Israel) and released, in which Nasser and Hussein conspire to say that US and British planes had allegedly assisted Israel (see [1] for context and text.) Miscalculating the course of the battle, King Hussein ordered artillery fire on Israeli positions in West Jerusalem. The Israel Defense Forces counter-attacked and heavy urban fighting ensued.
The Israel Defense Force defeated the Jordanian army and completely pushed them out of the West Bank. The formerly Jordanian-controlled West Bank and its stateless Arab civilians were placed under Israeli military rule.
See Political status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
This is an Article on Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan Not implementing UN partition
King Hussein rules
During the time Jordan controlled the West Bank and East Jerusalem it desecrated Jewish religious sites such as cemeteries, uprooting Jewish tomb-stones. It also did not recognize or grant any real authority to the native Palestinian population as Jordan is essentially an autocratic monarchy run by the small Hashemite tribe. King Hussein built mansions for himself and his ministers in the more cultivated West Bank as Jordan itself is mostly arid desert, he was the official Islamic custodian of the Temple Mount and adorned the cupola of the Dome of the Rock with gold leaf tiles that remain to this day.Jews exluded from religious sites
From 1948 until 1967, Israelis and Jews were barred from praying at the most revered shrine in Judaism, the Western Wall. The Jordanian sentries would also take accasional shots at Jews on the streets of Jerusalem, in spite of Israel's protests against these violations.Six Day War loss
Rapprochement and peace
Prior to the arrival of the PLO in the West Bank as part of the diplomatic praparations for the 1993 Oslo Accords, King Hussein formally ended Jordan's pro-forma control over the West Bank in a ceremony with PLO chairman Yassir Arafat. Finally in 1994 Jordan signed the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace officially ending its conflict with Israel, even though occasional shootings against Israelis take place.See also
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