WHEN THE ALLIES CARVED UP THE MIDDLE EAST, THE BRITISH GOT "PALESTINE".
HERE IS THE MAP THAT SHOWS WHAT, BRIEFLY, WAS TO HAVE BECOME ISRAEL, BUT THEN WAS CUT UP 2 YEARS LATER TO CREATE TRANSJORDAN FOR PALESTINIANS, AND ISRAEL FOR THE JEWISH PEOPLE, ROBBING JEWS OF OVER 75% OF THE LAND MASS INITIALLY SET ASIDE FOR THEIR RESTORATION.
NOTICE THE YEAR OF THE MAP BELOW WAS 1920.
NOW SEE WHAT HAPPENED JUST 2 YEARS LATER AS BRITAIN TRIED TO APPEASE THE SAUDIS BY GIVING THEM 3/4ths OF WHAT ISRAEL HAD BEEN PROMISED.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN AND WHY?
At the center of this cutting up, this sudden "transformation" was the British effort to build alliances for its war effort against Germany. London gave vaguely-defined promises of Ottoman territory in the Levant to three different parties. In the Husayn-McMahon Correspondence, ten letters exchanged between July 1915 and March 1916, it promised portions of geographic Syria to the Ottoman governor of Mecca, the Sharif al-Husayn ibn 'Ali, but exact boundaries were not specified. The secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 1916 divided the same area (and more) between Britain and France. The Balfour Declaration of November 1917 endorsed "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
But after the war, the apparent mutual exclusivity of these agreements caused considerable trouble. In an initial effort to balance commitments to Arabs, Frenchmen, and Zionists, the British divided the Levant into three military administrations in October 1918. London administered a zone roughly equivalent to what later became Israel and opened Jewish immigration to it. The French assumed control of the coastal region between Israel and Turkey. The sharif's son, Prince Faysal, received what became known as Transjordan, as well as everything away from the Mediterranean in today's Lebanon and Syria. Damascus served as his capital.
In accord with the Sykes-Picot agreement, however, the French government aspired to control Damascus and the interior, so it expelled Faysal from Damascus in July 1920. But the French did not claim the southern part of Faysal's territory, which now fell under British jurisdiction.
The British called their whole territory in the Levant the "Mandate for Palestine." In other words, starting in July 1920, what is now Jordan formed part of Palestine, as least as far as the British were concerned.
In March 1921 Winston Churchill, the colonial secretary, found it "necessary immediately to occupy militarily the eastern bank of the Jordan River (Trans-Jordania)." Rather than use British troops to do this, he decided to control it indirectly. Toward this end, Churchill divided the Palestine Mandate into two parts along the Jordan River, creating the Emirate of Transjordan on the east bank and excluding Jewish immigration there. Churchill offered this territory to Faysal's older brother, 'Abdallah, who after some hesitation accepted. The Hashemite dynasty of 'Abdallah, his son Tallal, and his grandson Husayn have ruled Transjordan (or Jordan, as it was renamed in 1949) ever since.
After March 1921, the east bank was no longer Palestine!
AFTER 1922, ISRAEL WAS REDUCED BY 3/4ths!
THE REST OF ARABIA WAS DUMBFOUNDED BY THE HASHEMITE KINGDOM OF THIS NEW LAND CALLED JORDAN!
WHY HAD BRITAIN ENTRUSTED TO SAUDIS THE CREATION OF A PALESTINIAN HOMELAND, A PALESTINIAN STATE?
IMMEDIATELY THE SAUDIS MOVED TO CALM THEIR MUSLIM BROTHERS BY SAYING "JORDAN IS PALESTINE AND PALESTINE IS JORDAN!"
The NEW Jordanians stressed the connection between the two regions.
Both of Jordan's two major rulers, 'Abdallah (who ruled from 1921 to 1951) and Husayn (1953 to the present), have been outspoken on this issue. As early as 1926, 'Abdallah asserted that "Palestine is one unit. The division between Palestine and Transjordan is artificial and wasteful," a view he later repeated many times.
The establishment of Israel in 1948 hardly affected Hashemite claims to Palestine. The Jordanian prime minister declared in August 1959: "We here in Jordan, led by our great king [Husayn] are the government of Palestine, the army of Palestine, and we are the refugees." The king himself stated in 1965 that "the two peoples have integrated; Palestine has become Jordan, and Jordan Palestine."
Losing the West Bank in 1967 also made little difference for Jordanian claims. Prime Minister Zayd ar-Rifa'i told an interviewer in 1975:
"Jordan is Palestine. They have never been ruled as two separate states except during the British Mandate. Before 1918 the two banks of the Jordan River were a single state. When they returned to being a single state after 1948, it was a matter of building on the earlier unity. Their families are one, as are their welfare, affiliation, and culture."
King al-Husayn asserted again in 1981 that "Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan."
Anwar al-Khatib, former Jordanian mayor of East Jerusalem, echoed these sentiments later in 1986:
"Palestine, Jordan and Syria constituted one family until the British and French occupation in 1918, which drove the wedge of boundaries among us. We do not differentiate between our people, whether they live in Jordan, Syria, or Palestine."
One could go on endlessly citing such language; it is as common as honeybees on clover.
Those who yearn for a settlement should plead for a change of course from JORDAN, not Israel.
Unless that happens, unless Jordan allows the establishment of the Palestinian State, there is no prospect of improvement over today's unhappy scene.
PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD RECOGNIZED EAST OF THE JORDAN RIVER IN 1987!
Few are aware of a clandestine agreement in 1987 between the Likud party and Faysal al-Husayni, which recognized Palestinian sovereignty EAST of the Jordan River.
According to a report from Palestinian circles, key provisions included:
~The land of Israel east of the Jordan River shall be the Palestinian state.
~In the first stage, the Palestinian state shall be established east of the Jordan River. This state shall enjoy all the characteristics of sovereignty.
Broaching of this subject raised tensions among Arabs, as King al-Husayn scurried to make sure that Yasir Arafat and the Iraqi leadership did not plan to go along with it.
THE "REAL PALESTINE" WAS PORTRAYED ON A STAMP BY THE JORDANIAN GOVERNMENT IN 1949...HAVE A CLOSE LOOK...SEE WHAT JORDAN WAS AFTER!
THIS CAME ONE YEAR AFTER ISRAEL WAS ESTABLISHED AS A JEWISH STATE!
THAT was the "palestinian" Mandate...THAT was ISRAEL's!
And it was recognized as such by Arabs!
YES, JORDAN PROMISED ITS ARAB BROTHERS TO CREATE A PALESTINIAN NATION, BUT THAT WAS A LIE. THE NEW "KING" OF JORDAN HAD NO INTENTION OF GIVING UP HIS NEWLY ACQUIRED KINGDOM AS A HOMELAND FOR PALESTINIANS!
THE PLO SOON RECOGNIZED THIS FACT.
<<The Palestine Liberation Organization has often declared Jordan a part of Palestine, and occasionally lays formal claim to it.
On 1 September 1970, there were several failed attempts to assassinate the king.
The eighth conference of the Palestine National Council (PNC), meeting in February-March 1971, resolved that "what links Jordan to Palestine is a national bond and a national unity formed, since time immemorial, by history and culture."
The draft program of tenth PNC conference (in April 1972) was even more forthright, speaking clearly of "The need for struggle to overthrow the agent regime in Jordan, which is a front line of defense for the Zionist state and organically linked to Israel..." >>
WHEN ISRAEL MADE FURTHER CONCESSIONS AND AGREED TO DIVIDE STILL FURTHER THE TINY SPIT OF LAND LEFT TO IT AFTER THE SAUDI APPEASEMENT, AGREED TO ALLOWING FURTHER "PARTITIONING", JORDAN'S KING RUSHED TO MAKE SURE THE PLO DID NOT AGREE TO THAT!
LOOK AT WHAT ISRAEL GAVE UP AND COMPARE IT TO WHAT THE SAUDIS GARNERED FROM BRITAIN!
LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THE NEW SAUDI KING'S LAND, NOW CALLED JORDAN!
THE AREA IN GRAY WAS NONE THAT JORDAN GAVE UP.
THIS WAS THE BEGINNING OF "ALL HELL BREAKING LOOSE IN THE MIDDLE EAST".
THE PLO SAW THE BETRAYAL, IT CLASHED WITH THE JORDANIAN KING, AND JORDAN ATTACKED THE PLO INSIDE ITS BORDERS, KILLING BETWEEN 15,000 TO 35,000 PLO MEMBERS AND SYMPATHIZERS IN WHAT BECAME KNOWN AS "BLACK SEPTEMBER".
THE KILLINGS WENT ON FOR OVER 9 MONTHS!
THE PLO AND ITS SUPPORTERS WERE EXPELLED TO LEBANON.
<<The group Black September was established by Fatah members in 1971 to serve as a terrorist organization for revenge operations and international strikes after the September events. On November 28, 1971, in Cairo, four of its members assassinated Wasfi al-Tal. The group would go on to perform other strikes against Jordan, and against Israeli and Western citizens and property outside of the Middle East, such as the Munich massacre in 1972.
These developments helped precipitate the Lebanon Civil War, in which the PLO would be engrossed from 1975 until well after the mid-1980s.>>
LEBANON EXPELLED THE PLO.
King Hussein of Jordan was maligned throughout the Arab world for having attacked the Palestinian resistance, and although he had now averted the physical threat to his throne, his legitimacy had suffered a crippling blow among Palestinian refugees and on the regional Arab scene.
THE PLO, LEFT WITHOUT ANYWHERE ELSE TO GO, RETURNED TO ISRAEL, BUT BEGAN TO TARGET EGYPTIANS, LEBANESE, OTHER PALESTINIANS, LIBYANS, AMERICANS, JORDANIANS, AND SYRIANS.
THE PLO AND ITS OFFSHOOT GROUPS HAVE BEEN NAMED AS TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS BY THE EUROPEAN UNION, THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, GERMANY, THE UNITED KINGDOM, JORDAN, AND AUSTRALIA, AND HAS BEEN ACCUSED OF STEALING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS DONATED TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE BY FELLOW ARABIC/MUSLIM NATIONS.
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT IF ONLY JORDAN HAD MEANT WHAT IT SAID WHEN ITS LEADERS ASSURED ALL THAT "JORDAN IS PALESTINE"?
WOULDN'T PALESTINIANS HAVE BEEN ENJOYING A LARGE, PEACEFUL, WORLD-RECOGNIZED STATE FOR OVER 80 YEARS BY NOW?
IS THE OLD BATTLE BETWEEN WAHHABI SAUDIS AND THE REST OF ISLAM TO BLAME, OR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THAT HASHEMITE KINGDOM BY THE THREE-FACED BRITS?
WHY ISN'T JORDAN PALESTINE?
WHY ISN'T JORDAN ISRAEL?
