Jackson Lennock
Well-known member
A thing I find interesting about a lot of Israel-Palestine debates is how the sense of identity and the land just takes the Mandatory borders subsequent to Jordan being established as a given.
There wasn't a unique Palestinian identity at first (as a national one, rather than perhaps a local one) - with the predominate preferences appearing to be support for a United Syria or a United Hashemite Syria-Iraq state - and it was the forces of history that created it. From what I can tell, the identity first started to catch fire in the 1930s, around the time of the Arab Revolt, though it became solidly predominate by the late 60s. In some ways, it has three parents - the British (defining the boundaries), the Zionists (through conflict), and the Arab States (by using the Palestinians' plight. I was somewhat moved by when Caspian Report pointed out that the creation of the PLO in 1964 was in a sense a declaration of independence from Arab nations.
And it's interesting how the identity is inseparably tied to the mandate, Jewish economic development prompting movement of Arab populations, and the Nakba. 1/4 of Arab population growth during the mandate was arab migration. Much of the Arab population along the coast lived further inland before Zionists improved the land (with the inland being where there was more rain capture, less malaria, etc - hence why you see a line of cities like Nazareth, Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethelehem, and Hebron along the mountains). Beersheba was a little village before the Ottomans made it into a garrison. Jerusalem was a Jewish majority city from the mid nineteenth century onward, but the area around it was not. The Damascus Railroad went to the Galilee and Nablus/Jenin because those were the major cities in the area - with Jerusalem (and Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah) still sleepy backwaters before the urbanization of the mandate (and with urbanization comes nationalism, generally). Again, none of this is to deny anybody's sense of identity - it's just to emphasize all the convergence of forces and elements that created the modern Palestinian people and Palestinian history.
Anyways, this was just a way of setting up the following question: what if Britain had made Jordan bigger in 1921?
Jordan was created by carving off a part of the Mandate (and it isn't as if traditionally Cis and Transjordan were super separate entities geopolitically), so carving off *more* of the Mandate for Jordan to limit the Mandate to something smaller doesn't seem like a difficult adjustment. I draw the following line based off of Peel Commission and 1948 lines.
Jordan, plus a Yaffa exclave. Red marks off a Jewish autonomous Canton within Jordan, which IIRC was where a lot of Zionist settlement was under the First and Second Aliyas.
There wasn't a unique Palestinian identity at first (as a national one, rather than perhaps a local one) - with the predominate preferences appearing to be support for a United Syria or a United Hashemite Syria-Iraq state - and it was the forces of history that created it. From what I can tell, the identity first started to catch fire in the 1930s, around the time of the Arab Revolt, though it became solidly predominate by the late 60s. In some ways, it has three parents - the British (defining the boundaries), the Zionists (through conflict), and the Arab States (by using the Palestinians' plight. I was somewhat moved by when Caspian Report pointed out that the creation of the PLO in 1964 was in a sense a declaration of independence from Arab nations.
And it's interesting how the identity is inseparably tied to the mandate, Jewish economic development prompting movement of Arab populations, and the Nakba. 1/4 of Arab population growth during the mandate was arab migration. Much of the Arab population along the coast lived further inland before Zionists improved the land (with the inland being where there was more rain capture, less malaria, etc - hence why you see a line of cities like Nazareth, Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethelehem, and Hebron along the mountains). Beersheba was a little village before the Ottomans made it into a garrison. Jerusalem was a Jewish majority city from the mid nineteenth century onward, but the area around it was not. The Damascus Railroad went to the Galilee and Nablus/Jenin because those were the major cities in the area - with Jerusalem (and Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah) still sleepy backwaters before the urbanization of the mandate (and with urbanization comes nationalism, generally). Again, none of this is to deny anybody's sense of identity - it's just to emphasize all the convergence of forces and elements that created the modern Palestinian people and Palestinian history.
Anyways, this was just a way of setting up the following question: what if Britain had made Jordan bigger in 1921?
Jordan was created by carving off a part of the Mandate (and it isn't as if traditionally Cis and Transjordan were super separate entities geopolitically), so carving off *more* of the Mandate for Jordan to limit the Mandate to something smaller doesn't seem like a difficult adjustment. I draw the following line based off of Peel Commission and 1948 lines.
Jordan, plus a Yaffa exclave. Red marks off a Jewish autonomous Canton within Jordan, which IIRC was where a lot of Zionist settlement was under the First and Second Aliyas.