Jordanian annexation of the West Bank
The Jordanian administration of the West Bank officially began on April 24, 1950, and ended with the decision to sever ties on July 31, 1988. The period started during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, when Jordan occupied and subsequently annexed the portion of Mandatory Palestine that became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The territory remained under Jordanian control until it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and eventually Jordan renounced its claim to the territory in 1988.[1][2][3]
West Bankالضفة الغربية
Aḍ-Ḍiffah l-Ġarbiyyah
Aḍ-Ḍiffah l-Ġarbiyyah
Area annexed by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Sunni Islam (majority)
Christian (minority)
14 May 1948
24 April 1950
5–10 June 1967
31 July 1988
Israeli occupation of the West Bank, claimed by Palestine, widely recognized as Palestinian territory.[a]
After the withdrawal of British forces from Palestine at the end of 14 May 1948, forces from seven Arab states (Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen) invaded the areas of Mandatory Palestine earmarked by the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947 for an independent Arab state, meant to be established alongside a Jewish state. Jordanian forces were under the command of King Abdullah I of Jordan. The Jordanian Arab Legion successfully took control of the Old City of Jerusalem and a significant portion of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, including cities such as Jericho, Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, and others.[4] Following the end of hostilities, the area that remained under Jordanian control became known as the West Bank.[b]
During the December 1948 Jericho Conference, hundreds of Palestinian notables in the West Bank gathered, accepted Jordanian rule and recognized Abdullah as ruler. The West Bank was formally annexed on 24 April 1950, but the annexation was widely considered as illegal and void by most of the international community.[6] A month afterwards, the Arab League, having received assurances from Jordan, resolved to treat the annexed area as being held in trust until the Palestine question was resolved. Recognition of Jordan's declaration of annexation was granted by the United Kingdom, the United States, Iraq, and possibly Pakistan,[6][7][8][9][10] and no objections were raised when Jordan was admitted to the United Nations in 1955.[11]
When Jordan transferred its full citizenship rights to the residents of the West Bank, the annexation more than tripled the population of Jordan, going from 400,000 to 1,300,000.[4][12] The naturalized Palestinians were given half of the seats of the Jordanian parliament.[13] [14] [15]
Background
Partition and 1947/48 diplomacy
Prior to hostilities in 1948, Palestine (modern-day West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel) had been administered by the British Empire pursuant to the Mandate for Palestine, having captured it from the Ottomans in 1917. The British, as custodians of the land, implemented the land tenure laws in Palestine, which it had inherited from the Ottomans (as defined in the Ottoman Land Code of 1858).[16] Toward the expiration of the British Mandate, Arabs aspired to independence and self-determination, as did the Jews of the country.[17]
Jordanian occupation and annexation
The road to annexation
After the invasion, Jordan began making moves to perpetuate the Jordanian occupation over the Arab part of Palestine. King Abdullah appointed governors on his behalf in the Arab cities of Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramla and the Arab controlled part of Jerusalem, that were captured by Legion in the invasion. These governors were mostly Palestinians (including Aref al-Aref, Ibrahim Hashem and Ahmed Hilmi Pasha), and the Jordanians described them as "military" governors, so that it would not anger the other Arab states, which opposed Jordan's plans to incorporate the Arab part of Palestine into the kingdom. The king made other smaller moves towards the annexation of the West Bank: He ordered Palestinian policemen to wear the uniforms of the Jordanian police and its symbols; he instituted the use of Jordanian postage stamps instead of the British ones; Palestinian municipalities were not allowed to collect taxes and issue licenses; and the radio of Ramallah called the locals to disobey the instructions of pro-Husseini officials and obey those of the Jordanian-backed governors.[22]
The December 1948 Jericho Conference, a meeting of prominent Palestinian leaders and King Abdullah I, voted in favor of annexation into what was then Transjordan.[23] Transjordan became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on 26 April 1949.[24] Military occupation concluded on 2 November 1949 via promulgation of the Law Amending Public Administration Law in Palestine whereby the laws of Palestine were declared to remain applicable.[25] In the Jordanian parliament, the West and East Banks received 30 seats each, having roughly equal populations. The first elections were held on 11 April 1950. Although the West Bank had not yet been annexed, its residents were permitted to vote.
Annexation
A 1949 amendment to the British Mandate's 1928 Nationality Law in 1949 effectively imposed Jordanian citizenship on the region's 420,000 local Palestinians, 280,000 Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and 70,000 Palestinian refugees in the East Bank, ahead of formal annexation on 24 April 1950. Then in 1954, Jordan's Nationality Law clarified the conditions under which Palestinian Arabs could obtain Jordanian citizenship.[26]
Unlike any other Arab country to which they fled after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Palestinian refugees in the West Bank (and on the East Bank) were given Jordanian citizenship on the same basis as existing residents.[27] Elihu Lauterpacht described it as a move that "entirely lacked legal justification."[28] The annexation formed part of Jordan's "Greater Syria Plan" expansionist policy,[29] and in response, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Syria joined Egypt in demanding Jordan's expulsion from the Arab League.[30][31] A motion to expel Jordan from the League was prevented by the dissenting votes of Yemen and Iraq.[32] On 12 June 1950, the Arab League declared the annexation was a temporary, practical measure and that Jordan was holding the territory as a "trustee" pending a future settlement.[33][34][35][36][37] On 27 July 1953, King Hussein of Jordan announced that East Jerusalem was "the alternative capital of the Hashemite Kingdom" and would form an "integral and inseparable part" of Jordan.[38] In an address to parliament in Jerusalem in 1960, Hussein called the city the "second capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan".[39]
Only the United Kingdom formally recognized the annexation of the West Bank, de facto in the case of East Jerusalem.[40] In 1950, the British extended formal recognition to the union between the Hashemite Kingdom and that part of Palestine under Jordanian control - with the exception of Jerusalem. The British government stated that it regarded the provisions of the Anglo-Jordan Treaty of Alliance of 1948 as applicable to all the territory included in the union.[40] The United States Department of State also recognized this extension of Jordanian sovereignty.[7][8] Pakistan is claimed to have recognized Jordan's annexation too, but this is disputed.[41][42][43] Despite Arab League opposition, the inhabitants of the West Bank became citizens of Jordan.
Tensions continued between Jordan and Israel through the early 1950s, with Palestinian guerrillas and Israeli commandos crossing the Green Line. Abdullah I of Jordan, who had become Emir of Transjordan in 1921 and King in 1923, was assassinated in July 1951 during a visit to the Jami Al-Aqsa on the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem by a Palestinian gunman following rumours that he was discussing a peace treaty with Israel. The trial found that this assassination had been planned by Colonel Abdullah el-Tell, ex-military governor of Jerusalem, and Musa Abdullah Husseini. He was succeeded by his son Talal and then his grandson Hussein.
Announcement in the UK House of Commons of the recognition of the State of Israel and also of the annexation of the West Bank by the State of Jordan
