"Two Banks Has the Jordan" - From the Other Side

One the main and principled political and ideological elements of the Revisionist Movement founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky is the claim for the integrity of the homeland.

In a practical sense, that meant that the Palestine Mandate should have extended to both sides of the Jordan River, instead of Article 25 of the Mandate decision allowing Great Britain to postpone the application of the reconsitution of the national Jewish homeland east of the Jordan River.

Jabotinsky wrote the words to a song on the matter.

A map representing the demanded borders was always prominent

And the Irgun adopted it as well.

Well, now I've found a Telegram account in Jordan and look at the map:

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Here Comes the "Jordanian Spring"?

And, on the other side of the Jordan River, at a traffic circle called the "Eighth"...

Clashes broke out on Friday between security forces and supporters of a former deputy who was arrested Thursday on charges of “undermining the regime”, as pro-reformers cancelled a planned protest in the capital.

Relatives of former MP Ahmad Oweidi Abbadi converged on the eighth circle Friday evening to hold an open-ended sit-in shortly after a rally at the tribe’s nearby diwan in support of the ultranationalist activist, who was arrested late Thursday following his public call last month for the establishment of a “Jordanian Republic.”

Upon their arrival, Abbadi's supporters clashed with anti-riot forces who had cordoned off the Eighth Circle - a vital west Amman intersection and, according to eye witnesses, used use tear gas to disperse the protesters.

Following the clashes, Abbadi supporters attempted to close the intersection by setting fire to trash cans, damaging nearby commercial outlets in the process, according to a Public Security Department (PSD) statement...nine persons were arrested for attempting to close the intersection and their involvement in the clashes, which left “several” security officers and policemen injured...pro-reformers in the governorates continued their protest-drive, with dozens of leftist and independent activists leading marches in Salt, Karak, Maan and Tafileh.

Under the slogan “we will not give up on reform,” dozens of activists in the southern cities in Karak and Maan protested against recent decision to raise electricity tariffs and called for an end to corruption.

We'll keep an eye out for developments.

After all, eventual unification of all the regions of the Land of Israel is an option.


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And the Borders of "Palestine" Are...

Well, according to Mahmoud al-Zahar, who supports Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas's UN membership bid and establishment of a Palestinian State within the 1967 borders, they are "well known".

Do you know what those borders are?

No?  Here:-

"But, the occupying regime should not be recognized and even a span of Palestine's soil should not be ignored," Zahar noted.

"If efforts are directed towards establishment of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, we should unify our efforts. Of course this is not our borders, our borders are well known and cover the entire Palestine and even more than Palestine," Zahar stated.

In in other words, no borders for Jews.

And more land for Arabs.  I presume he means...Jordan.

Abdallah, "Jordan is Palestine" indicates Hamas?


(k/t=IMRA)

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On the Other Side of the Jordan

Wikileaks provides this insight (with thanks to Victor S):-

¶15. (C) The right of return is certainly lower on the list of East Banker priorities in comparison with their Palestinian-origin brethren, but some have thought the issue through a little more. NGO activist Sa'eda Kilani predicts that even (or especially) after a final settlement is reached, Palestinians will choose to abandon a Palestinian state in favor of a more stable Jordan where the issue of political equality has been resolved. In other words, rather than seeing significant numbers return to a Palestinian homeland, Jordan will end up dealing with a net increase in its Palestinian population.

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So, Is Jordan "Palestine", Or What?

From an interview conducted by Yoel Meltzer, published in the American Thinker with a Jordanian/Palestinian dissident named Mudar Zahran. Mudar fled Jordan and currently lives in England.  He's very critical of the regime in Jordan and amongst other things he openly says that Jordan is Palestine. In other words, he's an Arab speaking out against the so-called "two-state solution" since he believes that there already is a Palestinian state on the eastern side of the Jordan River.

Excerpt:

YM: What would you suggest vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian issue? What should Jordan do?


MZ: ...Jordan has been excluding its Palestinian majority from jobs, government positions and even from joining the police force and now practices serious apartheid policies against them in education, medical treatment, etc. The results are the Palestinians are constantly feeling as outsiders in their country thus bringing up the so-called right of return issue, which just complicates the peace process as it is not feasible or legally acceptable...

YM: So you're saying that the King is encouraging Palestinian Jordanians to leave Jordan and move to the other side of the Jordan River in order to "flood" Israel. Do I understand correctly?

MZ: Yes. Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Nayef al-Qadi defended an official policy of stripping Jordanians of Palestinian heritage of their citizenship, a policy that has resulted in the denaturalization of more than 2,700 so far according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. In an interview with a London-based Arabic newspaper, Qadi said that "Jordan should be thanked for standing up against Israeli ambitions of clearing the Palestinian land of its people" which he described as "the secret Israeli aim to impose a solution of Palestinian refugees at the expense of Jordan."

YM: So where exactly is "Palestine"? Is it west of the Jordan River or is Jordan also Palestine?

MZ: What we should apply here is the law. The international law under the League of Nations identified Palestine as the area between the Mediterranean and the desert of Iraq. Maps say so and that is where all things started with international law. Jews were promised all of this under international law, and then the Arabs were given two thirds of it. Then the Hashemites occupied the land and changed its name and now they are claiming the Palestinians who moved there from Israel are not Jordanians...what is not Palestinian in Jordan? Amman is more Palestinian than Ramallah. The only un-Palestinian thing in Jordan is the king and his family, a group of 50 people.

One more:

YM: Let's assume tomorrow you or someone like you is running Jordan. What would you suggest regarding the Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria?...Truth is the region would probably have more stability if Israel had sovereignty from the Sea to the River and Jordan was to become Palestine. No?

MZ: I cannot comment on that yet I can tell you this much. A democratized Jordan where the Palestinian majority gets their rights and where money is spent on economy rather than a big army and where the Jordan River is a good fence - good fences make good neighbors - that alone can establish peace in the Middle East...

Read it all here.

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Will Both Banks of the Jordan Be Joined?

I wonder what the thinking is over on the other side of the Jordan River?

Oh, here is one view:

Arab world unrest has Jordan’s king under pressure


Unrest ripping across the Arab world is putting pressure on Jordan's King Abdullah II, a key U.S. ally who has been making promises of reform in recent days in an apparent attempt to quell domestic discontent over economic degradation and lack of political freedoms.

After two weeks of widespread protests inspired by the revolt that overthrew Tunisia's autocratic president, Abdullah has promised reforms in meetings with members of parliament, former prime ministers, civil society institutions and even Jordan's largest opposition group, the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood Movement.

But his promises appear unlikely to quash the opposition's daring calls to elect their prime minister and Cabinet officials, traditionally appointed by the king.

The Muslim Brotherhood called for fresh demonstrations on Friday to press its demand for political and economic reforms.

...When Abdullah ascended to the throne in 1999, he said he envisioned Jordan as one day becoming a constitutional monarchy, similar to Britain.

..."There must be real political reforms to allow the people to have a direct involvement in matters affecting their lives," said Hamza Mansour, the head of the Islamic Action Front, the Brotherhood's political arm...

Maybe Israel can help out here?

After all, the regions on both banks of the Jordan River were once to become the Jewiosh National Home.

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On Jordan, The Kingdom Of

An opinion:

...the Hashemites should never have become the so-called “sovereign” of Jordan. That was a dirty British trick initiated by Churchill and the Colonial Office he headed in 1921-1922, that was absolutely prohibited under the very terms of the article upon which this trick was based – i.e., under Article 25 of the Mandate for Palestine, as well as under Article 5; both articles forbade a permanent territorial partition of the country as well as granting sovereignty to a foreign Power over an integral part of Palestine.

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Poof! You're A "Palestinian"

Over on the other side of the Jordan River:-

Some Palestinian Jordanians Lose Citizenship

Muhannad Haddad grew up here, went to school here, got a job in a bank here and traveled to foreign countries with a passport from here. Then one day the authorities said he was no longer Jordanian, and with that one stroke they took away his citizenship and compromised his ability to travel, study, work, seek health care, buy property or even drive...he was being stripped of his citizenship to preserve his right to someday return to the occupied West Bank or East Jerusalem.
“They gave me a paper that said, ‘You are now Palestinian,’ ” he said, recalling the day three years ago that his life changed.

...Human Rights Watch said that 2,700 people in Jordan lost their citizenship from 2004 to 2008, and that at least another 200,000 remained vulnerable...

Critics and human rights advocates...said the Jordanian government acted to preserve its own interest, trying to appease non-Palestinian Jordanians concerned about the growing economic and political influence of citizens of Palestinian descent, a charge Mr. Sharif denied. They say it also appears that Jordan is frightened by talk of declaring Jordan a Palestinian homeland as an alternative to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

But of course Jordan is part of the original "Palestine" that was intended to become the reconstituted Jewish national home.

Jordan cannot be excluded from any political and geographical resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict.

That Sunday Walk in Jerusalem

The phrase "a Sunday walk in Jerusalem" has a special meaning in Zionist historiography.

It refers to a meeting, held subsequently to the famous Cairo Conference which had been chaired by Churchill as Colonial Secretary when the fate of the post-World War I Middle East as Britain viewed it was laid out, in Jerusalem some 10 days later.

Thanks to a recent article by Martin Gilbert, some more precise information is available.

The Cairo Conference was primarily oriented to fixing the future of Iraq. Forty advisors, premier among them the 'Arab Bureau' deliberated and the future of what was to be the 'Palestine Mandate' as a result of the Balfour Declaration, the Versailles Peace Conference, the San Remo Conference decisions and the appointing of Sir Herbert Samuel, culminating in the League of Nations decision in 1922, finalized in 1923.

The date of the operative action by Churchill to found a state where there had not been more previously, and, at the very least, had not been an Arab state ever, a state to be ruled by a Saudi Arabian and who was to shortly become a refugee from his own country, his father losing out to Ibn Saud assuring the Hashemite Huesseinis, the Sherafians, could never return, was March 29, 1921 it would seem.

Or, perhaps it was a Shabbat stroll, on March 28th?

...Since the French were already installed in Damascus, and were not willing to make way for Feisal or any Arab leader, Churchill proposed giving Feisal, instead of the throne of Syria, the throne of Iraq, and at the same time giving Feisal’s brother Abdullah the throne of Transjordan, that part of Britain’s Palestine Mandate lying to the east of the River Jordan. Installing an Arab ruler in Transjordan would enable Western Palestine—the area from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan, which now comprises both Israel and the West Bank—to become the location of the Jewish National Home under British control, in which, in Churchill’s words, the Jews were to go “of right, and not on sufferance.”11

Briefed by Lawrence at the March 17, 1921, Cairo Conference, Churchill explained to the senior officials gathered there that the presence of an Arab ruler under British control east of the Jordan would enable Britain to prevent anti-Zionist agitation from the Arab side of the river. In support of this view, Lawrence himself told the conference, as the secret minutes recorded: “He [Churchill] trusted that in four or five years, under the influence of a just policy,” Arab opposition to Zionism “would have decreased, if it had not entirely disappeared.”12

Lawrence went on to explain to the conference that “it would be preferable to use Trans-Jordania as a safety valve, by appointing a ruler on whom we could bring pressure to bear, to check anti-Zionism.” The “ideal” ruler would be “a person who was not too powerful, and who was not an inhabitant of Trans-Jordania, but who relied upon His Majesty’s Government for the retention of his office.”13 That ruler, Lawrence believed, would best be Emir Abdullah, Feisal’s brother...

...On March 27, 1921, ten days after Lawrence’s suggestions in Cairo, Churchill sent him from Jerusalem to Transjordan to explain to Abdullah that his authority would end at the eastern bank of the River Jordan; that the Jews were to be established in the lands between the Mediterranean and the Jordan (“Western Palestine”); and that he, Abdullah, must curb all anti-Zionist activity and agitation among his followers.

The next day, in Jerusalem, Lawrence, Churchill, and Abdullah were photographed at British Government House: Churchill bundled up against the cold, Lawrence in a dark suit and tie, Abdullah in army uniform with Arab headdress. At their meeting that day, Abdullah agreed to limit the area of his control to Transjordan and to refrain from any action against the Jewish National Home provisions of the Palestine Mandate west of the Jordan.

11. British White Paper of June 1922, cited in Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p. 46.
12. Colonial Office Papers 935/1/1, cited in Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p. 51.

Gilbert also highlights the attitude of TE Lawrence vis-a-vis Zionism:

In an article entitled “The Changing East,” published in the influential Round Table magazine in 1920, Lawrence wrote of “the Jewish experiment” in Palestine that it was “a conscious effort, on the part of the least European people in Europe, to make head against the drift of the ages, and return once more to the Orient from which they came.”6

Lawrence noted of the new Jewish immigrants: “The colonists will take back with them to the land which they occupied for some centuries before the Christian era samples of all the knowledge and technique of Europe. They propose to settle down amongst the existing Arabic-speaking population of the country, a people of kindred origin, but far different social condition. They hope to adjust their mode of life to the climate of Palestine, and by the exercise of their skill and capital to make it as highly organized as a European state.”7

As Lawrence envisaged it in his Round Table article, this settlement would be done in a way that would be beneficial to the Arabs. “The success of their scheme,” he wrote of the Zionists, “will involve inevitably the raising of the present Arab population to their own material level, only a little after themselves in point of time, and the consequences might be of the highest importance for the future of the Arab world. It might well prove a source of technical supply rendering them independent of industrial Europe, and in that case the new confederation might become a formidable element of world power.”8

6. T.E. Lawrence, “The Changing East,” The Round Table, September 1920. Available at http://telawrence.net/telawrencenet/works/articles_essays/1920_changing_east.htm
7. Lawrence, “The Changing East.”
8. Lawrence, “The Changing East.”

Oh, That Jordan

Here

The Correct History - Rejoinder to Benny Morris

Thanks to a good friend, Yonatan Silverman, who translates, I now possess a copy of Benny Morris' new "One State, Two States" (it's not really a book but an extended essay/overview). See here and here.

On page 44, you can read that Jabotinsky spoke at the 17th Zionist Congress, held in 1931, and wished to resurrect the historic borders of the Land of Israel, on both banks of the Jordan. However, writes Morris, "the Zionist majority rejected Jabotinsky's call". There is a footnote there relating to Arye Naor's book, "Greater Israel".

His 'history' is off.

Jabotinsky proposed more specifically that the aim of Zionism, the endziel, be "a Jewish state, the creation of a Jewish majority in Palestine on both sides of the Jordan". He did so propose in response to Chaim Weizmann's throwawy line, in an interview with the JTA, "I have no understanding of, an no sympathy for a Jewish majority in Palestine". (see Schechtmann, JB, The Jabotinsky Story, Vol. II, pp. 147 - 154)

So, there were three elements: a Jewish state and not just some cultural center; a Jewish majority and no just a few 'colonies'; and a territory -not just historic Jewishly but the area even Weizmann himself had supported.

And what happened?

In a roll-call vote of 121 to 57, the Congress decided not to vote at all on the resolution and to keep it off the agenda.

The Congress had a choice to amend the resolution, to keep "Jewish State" in, or "Jewish majority" or "both banks of the Jordan" or any combination. But no, they preferred not to deal with the issue.

By the way, Weizmann was not re-elected as WZO President.