WI: Jordan retains Half of the West Bank in 1967

[Jackson Lennock]

What if Israel had only captured about half of the West Bank in 1967? Let's assume Jordan enters the fray a few hours later, or the following morning. Historically, Nasser ordered the Jordanian forces to retreat and avoid complete destruction. But a few hours later, King Hussein learned of Security Council Resolution 233 which called for a ceasefire. Hussein ordered troops to not retreat, but the confusion of conflicting orders and the inability to reclaim positions that had already been abandoned meant it was a done deal in the West Bank. But if the Jordanians held their positions, the Israelis would literally be fighting uphill. When the fighting stops after six days, Jordan holding positions around Nablus and in the south seems possible.

One noteworthy difference is that the prospect of annexing the occupied portions of the West Bank outright would be more tenable. Doing some quick math on my part, about 1.2 to 1.4 million people live in the areas identified out of 3.3 million in the West Bank.

Another difference is in Palestinian politics. The 1968 Battle of Karameh wouldn't occur, meaning that Arafat's Fatah becoming such a leading force among Palestinians may not happen. Karameh was a battle in the War of Attrition in which Israel raided into Jordan to clear out a PLO Camp, and the Jordanians drove them off. Hussein let the Fedayeen take the credit for a battle which poked a hole in the myth of Israeli invincibility - catapulting Arafat's significance. OTL he got 5,000 now recruit applications within 48 hours and had 20,000 Fedayeen in Jordan by the end of the month of March. Within a year, Fatah had offices in almost 80 countries. No Karameh means no rise of Fatah, which means the PLO isn't as organized as OTL.

There are also fewer Palestinian refugees in Jordan. 245,000 people fled into Jordan historically. Here many of those people would remain in the West Bank. A lot of the radicalism that emerged as a result of the flooding of refugees in to Jordan and Lebanon after 1967 wouldn't occur here. Less radicalism + no Karameh could butterfly away Black September entirely.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Proposals like the Allon Plan wouldn't be made here. My guess is the Israelis might opt to just annex what they grab in the West Bank here. Most of the West Bank settlements ended up being in the areas the Israelis grab here, as they served the function of creating buffer space for the Gush Dan metro region along the coastal plain. And unlike OTL, in which annexing the whole West Bank and giving people citizenship would have impacted the demographic balance of the country considerably, here it would be easier to swallow. And while the border isn't as tidy as on the Jordan River, controlling the highlands in the heart of the West Bank is arguably more important for securing Israel's economic and demographic core along the coast. Dayan proposed Israel annexing Ramallah and Bethlehem and giving citizenship OTL. For comparison, this would be about 700,000 people in 2024 numbers. In contrast, the West Bank lands here would be between 1.2 and 1.4 million.

As for Gaza, given that Egypt didn't want it, my guess is it either (1) goes to Jordan or (2) is a kind of autonomy of Israel in which people have self-rule and free movement with Israel but be functionally separate for internal administrative purposes. Begin raised the idea of Palestinian autonomy starting in 1977 OTL, and by 1979 something like Oslo's structure of internal governance was being boiled up. Until 1989, Palestinians had freedom of movement into Israel 20 hours a day (the exception being between 1AM and 5AM), so something like that for a Gaza autonomy seems plausible.

Some kind of return of a slice of Jerusalem to Jordan seems possible if the border is much closer. The Christian and Muslim quarters of the Old City plus the Temple Mount above ground as some kind of exclave of Jordan seems like a potentiality. Jordan would have transit rights for police and official purposes and so forth.

The Jordan option probably doesn't get as undermined here. Desire for some Cisjordanian autonomy seems to have been bubbling before 1967, but desire for a specifically separate Palestinian State emerged after Israeli capture of the West Bank. Here that may be dampened. From what I can tell, the PLO-affiliated candidates didn't do particularly well in the 1972 West Bank elections that the Israelis organized, and the Pro-Jordanian factions were the ones which made out well. Then in the 1976 elections the PLO won big in all cities except Bethlehem, with its then-mostly-Christian population.

As for my butterflying away of Karameh idea - it's plenty possible that there would still be something like Karameh. There would still be a war of attrition, still be a PLO camp along the border for raiding purposes, etc. If anything, something like the reprisal operations of OTL might be nastier and go on longer. Israel seems more likely to do raiding than try to occupy more territory however.

Jordan's economy won't take as much of a hit. The loss of the West Bank cost Jordan 40% of its economy OTL. Several major cities (Bethlehem, Nablus, Hebron) remain Jordanian. Meanwhile, Jordan would have the whole of the Jordan Valley for agricultural development purposes.

If Israel keeps Gaza, the idea of a canal through Gaza to the Dead Sea by flooding Wadi Gaza may have more water (pun intended).

Ironically, it would be Likud that probably annexes the territory in 1977. I say ironically because an influx of voters would probably change things considerably. The country would be about 23% Arab instead of 16% in 1981 when an election was called OTL. This would mainly benefit Alignment, the United Arab List (no relation to Ra'am), Hadash (Communists), Ratz, and the Left Camp of Israel. I also assume there would be different new parties which pop up, but they would be on the left side of the political spectrum mainly. Maybe Likud extending citizenship would get them votes from the New Israeli Arab population (Begin despite being of the right was the main opponent of continued martial law of the Arab population in the first two decades, so Begin reaching out to new people seems possible), but I sort of doubt it would result in much electoral gain for Likud.

 

[Wendell]

Ironically, it would be Likud that probably annexes the territory in 1977. I say ironically because an influx of voters would probably change things considerably. The country would be about 23% Arab instead of 16% in 1981 when an election was called OTL. This would mainly benefit Alignment, the United Arab List (no relation to Ra'am), Hadash (Communists), Ratz, and the Left Camp of Israel. I also assume there would be different new parties which pop up, but they would be on the left side of the political spectrum mainly. Maybe Likud extending citizenship would get them votes from the New Israeli Arab population (Begin despite being of the right was the main opponent of continued martial law of the Arab population in the first two decades, so Begin reaching out to new people seems possible), but I sort of doubt it would result in much electoral gain for Likud.

Fascinating discussion, but I wanted to ask how much of that enlarged Israeli Arab population would opt to vote in Israeli elections? It's not as though either side is really consulting them on their fate. Also, I don't think that division of the Old City is likely or tenable.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Fascinating discussion, but I wanted to ask how much of that enlarged Israeli Arab population would opt to vote in Israeli elections? It's not as though either side is really consulting them on their fate. Also, I don't think that division of the Old City is likely or tenable.

Many might just do what East Jerusalem's Arab population does and refuse to participate. But assuming a fraction does participate, the 1981 election could still go a bit differently. Begin's coalition secured 63 seats, with the parties in his bloc securing 50.37% of the vote. Maybe he makes up for it with support from Dayan's Telem (2 seats, 1.58%) or Shinui (2 seats, 1.54%) but either makes his coalition wobblier and slightly more moderate.

Jordanian custodianship of the muslim and christian holy sites in Jerusalem seems plenty likely at least. If Israel was willing to give up East Jerusalem and 3/4 of the old city OTL under Ehud Barak, giving up a portion of the old city for some kind of Jordanian exclave seems tenable to me.

 

[raharris1973]

In OTL, Israel did not start the Golan campaign until the fight on the West Bank (and the Sinai) was pretty much done and all tidied up. Moshe Dayan was very reluctant. Might there be good chances that changes delaying and raising the difficulty of the West Bank operations and pushing their end up closer against the cease-fire could alter the outcome on the Golan front?

 

[Jackson Lennock]

In OTL, Israel did not start the Golan campaign until the fight on the West Bank (and the Sinai) was pretty much done and all tidied up. Moshe Dayan was very reluctant. Might there be good chances that changes delaying and raising the difficulty of the West Bank operations and pushing their end up closer against the cease-fire could alter the outcome on the Golan front?

Syria only jumped into the war on the fifth day. I think Israel taking the Golan after the other theatres were finished had more to do with the fact that those theatres had been finished by the fifth day than with Israel waiting to be done in those theatres before heading into the Golan.

 

[raharris1973]

Syria only jumped into the war on the fifth day. I think Israel taking the Golan after the other theatres were finished had more to do with the fact that those theatres had been finished by the fifth day than with Israel waiting to be done in those theatres before heading into the Golan.

Syria never *jumped in* with ground attacks. It just started bombarding all of Israel within range of its artillery from the point Israeli tanks started to roll on Egypt. Their infantry stood there in foxholes and tanks never rolled. The Israelis initiated ground maneuver combat on that front.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Syria never *jumped in* with ground attacks. It just started bombarding all of Israel within range of its artillery from the point Israeli tanks started to roll on Egypt. Their infantry stood there in foxholes and tanks never rolled. The Israelis initiated ground maneuver combat on that front.

I think you're taking my words (jumped in) a little too literally. The point is that Israel attacked Syria because Syria entered the conflict by bombarding Israel.

 

[raharris1973]

I think you're taking my words (jumped in) a little too literally. The point is that Israel attacked Syria because Syria entered the conflict by bombarding Israel.

Probably so, and the reasoning and causation is exactly as you state.

 

[raharris1973]

So Jackson, do you think that in terms of tactical and operational proficiency, if *not* ordered to retreat prematurely, but rather trying to defend the high ground where the could, the Jordanians of 1967 had the skills and hardware and firepower it would have taken to hold on to half the West Bank through the time the Israelis had to stop for the UN and internationally sponsored ceasefire?

Which would arrive at the same date and hour as OTL?

And the Israeli offensive would have netted them in that time the classic scene of their soldiers at the foot of the Wailing Wall, and gained the miles of buffer space for the central coastal plain shown on your map? And between the satisfaction of those gains, spiritual and practical, and international pressures, the Israelis would have complied with the international pressure to ceasefire?

I imagine with Jordanians fighting more stubbornly to defend, that more artillery shells and bombs are falling back and forth in the West Bank. Even though the war is still short, only 5 or 6 days on the West Bank, greater intensity and 'grind' of combat might encourage more Palestinian flight from Israeli lines to Jordanian lines. But Palestinians would see no need to flee east of the Jordan, or those who did so for a couple nights could return back over the river immediately upon ceasefire, at least if their home or relatives' homes or viable shelter was present on the Jordanian side of the fresh ceasefire line.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

So Jackson, do you think that in terms of tactical and operational proficiency, if *not* ordered to retreat prematurely, but rather trying to defend the high ground where the could, the Jordanians of 1967 had the skills and hardware and firepower it would have taken to hold on to half the West Bank through the time the Israelis had to stop for the UN and internationally sponsored ceasefire?

Which would arrive at the same date and hour as OTL?

And the Israeli offensive would have netted them in that time the classic scene of their soldiers at the foot of the Wailing Wall, and gained the miles of buffer space for the central coastal plain shown on your map? And between the satisfaction of those gains, spiritual and practical, and international pressures, the Israelis would have complied with the international pressure to ceasefire?

I imagine with Jordanians fighting more stubbornly to defend, that more artillery shells and bombs are falling back and forth in the West Bank. Even though the war is still short, only 5 or 6 days on the West Bank, greater intensity and 'grind' of combat might encourage more Palestinian flight from Israeli lines to Jordanian lines. But Palestinians would see no need to flee east of the Jordan, or those who did so for a couple nights could return back over the river immediately upon ceasefire, at least if their home or relatives' homes or viable shelter was present on the Jordanian side of the fresh ceasefire line.

Honestly, I cannot be 100% sure. But if you look at what the Israelis captured in the West Bank by the morning of June 7th when the withdrawal order was called, it looks like the image on the left. The first areas they captured a couple hours after looked like the picture in the center. Then a couple hours after that were the areas on the right. This was with no resistance. As can be observed, they followed the geography and also focused on the northern portion of the West Bank. It was only after the North was secured that the Israelis pressed south.



The Israelis had taken east Jerusalem before Nasser's order to retreat across the Jordan. The taking of the Old City, on the other hand, was a last minute decision. There was (1) a concern that fighting would wreck the place and (2) that the UN might force the Israelis to leave, which would be embarrassing for national pride. It was sort of a last minute "oh crap, the ceasefire is coming" move to go into the Old City.

While antizionists and the Zionist right have generally forgotten this, the Israelis between 1948 and 1967 basically accepted the Jordanian boundary as permanent. Jordan was seen as a nonthreatening neighbor interested in peaceable relations. What territorial ambitions Israel did have were directed south at Eastern Sinai (because Nasser's funding of Gazan and Sinai-based fedayeen and his blockading the Strait of Tiran), the Syrian-occupied portions of the mandatory Palestine (such as the east bank of the Sea of Tiberias due to water concerns, and bits of the Hula Valley). Ben Gurion also mused about grabbing up South Lebanon in 1956 so as to solidify the Christian majority in Lebanon and secure access to the Litani River's Waters, and to partitioning Jordan along the Jordan River with Iraq, but this was just spitballing that everybody else slapped down when he suggested it. The Israelis were uninterested in grabbing West Bank land before 1967, even though Ben Gurion lamented that the generals (due to politicians) hadn't able to grab more territory in 1948.

The gist of this is that the Jordanians were never really perceived as the big threat to Israel and the Israelis weren't super interested in picking fights to grab land from them. When the Six Day War started, the Israelis radio'd the Jordanians and asked them to stay out of it. When the Jordanians kept shooting at them, they radio'd again asking the same thing and promising not to attack. Hussein's response was "the die was cast" and it was too late to stop. There were back and forth Israeli and fedayeen raids into the West Bank before 1967, but the desire for quiet isn't the same as the desire for conquest. If the Israelis reach the canal on schedule like OTL, my guess is the ceasefire line in the West Bank would be wherever the two sides are and the Israelis won't be pushing for much beyond that. So long as Jordan is a stable polity, the Israelis aren't going to be interested in starting trouble there.


I suppose more Palestinians would flee from the cities like Qalqilya, Jenin, Nablus, Ramallas, Tulkarm, Bethlehem, etc. than OTL due to the grind.

Benny Morris estimates 200,000 to 250,000 the West Bank after 1967, but only 70,000 left during the fighting - most of which from the Jericho areas (ergo, right by the border). About half of those who left were people who were refugees from 1948, suggesting, they didn't have as many roots which could keep them around. The Israelis on July 2 announced that those who left in June could come back so long as they did so by August 10 (later extended to September 13) but only 120,000 applied and only 14,000 were allowed back in by the September deadline, with 3000 allowed in after in so called "special cases." Villages that were destroyed tended to be the ones that got caught in the first couple of days of fighting (Latrun, southwest of Jerusalem, and Qalqilya) and Dayan apparently said he could motivate 300,000 people to get out of the way - but in Latrun at least these people were ordered to go to Ramallah. Israeli soldiers destroyed homes in these areas without authorization, but Israeli authorities ordered them rebuilt after the war. So it seems the Israelis were mainly interested in ordering civilians to get out of the way during the fighting.

Morris doesn't explain why people weren't allowed to return, but did mention that Jordan was probably encouraging people to apply to return to Israel in order to relieve a burden. My guess is the Israelis expected their land for peace offers after the Six Day War to be accepted, and after the Khartoum Resolution (the "three nos" of September 1967), the kicking off of the War of Attrition in July 1967, and the PLO's beginning to take off as a force in the War of Attrition - the Israelis changed their minds about relieving Jordan of the cost of taking care of refugees. Immediate Israeli radio calls in the Latrun areas for example told villagers who left for Ramallah that they could come back after, but Rabin rescinded the order and Dayan later determined that the hilltop was too strategically important.

Anyways, my guess is more people might flee from the combat zone (Ramallah, Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas), fewer people would flee other areas (like the Jericho area/Jordan Valley), perhaps more people would voluntarily opt to just go to the Jordanian side of the line because it's closer, and more people would be able to accept the Israeli return offer before the Israelis change their mind because it's easier to walk back from one part of the West Bank to another than to swim across the Jordan.

Much of the radicalism that emerged from concentrated camps on the East Bank may still exist TTL, but my guess is that a lot more of it would be concentrated in West Bank Jordanian cities.

As a separate matter, Bethlehem, Nablus, Hebron, and especially Jericho would be bigger cities here.

Also spitballing - of the 1.2 to 1.4 million estimate from my OP, I guess it might make sense to revise that figure down a bit. Maybe 1 to 1.2 million is more likely.

 

[raharris1973]

The Israelis had taken east Jerusalem before Nasser's order to retreat across the Jordan. The taking of the Old City, on the other hand, was a last minute decision. There was (1) a concern that fighting would wreck the place and (2) that the UN might force the Israelis to leave, which would be embarrassing for national pride. It was sort of a last minute "oh crap, the ceasefire is coming" move to go into the Old City.

East Jerusalem and the Old City are two different things? I thought they were one and the same? I thought the Israelis were at the Wailing Wall at 10 AM of the first day of fighting with the Jordanians.

the Israelis between 1948 and 1967 basically accepted the Jordanian boundary as permanent.

Well your later Ben-Gurion quote points to other thoughts as well, and in the lead-up to war, Eshkol had to let Herut into govt which had both banks of the Jordan in its flag.

Benny Morris estimates 200,000 to 250,000 the West Bank after 1967, but only 70,000 left during the fighting - most of which from the Jericho areas (ergo, right by the border).

So 130k to 180k left in the days, weeks, months after the fighting, during the occupation?

 

[Jackson Lennock]

East Jerusalem and the Old City are two different things? I thought they were one and the same? I thought the Israelis were at the Wailing Wall at 10 AM of the first day of fighting with the Jordanians.

The old city is an itty bitty portion of East Jerusalem. They had it surrounded very quickly, but didn't go in until the very end.

Well your later Ben-Gurion quote points to other thoughts as well, and in the lead-up to war, Eshkol had to let Herut into govt which had both banks of the Jordan in its flag.

If you have an existential war going on, why would you have a divided government? They formed a Unity Government for the current ongoing Hamas War too.

So 130k to 180k left in the days, weeks, months after the fighting, during the occupation?

Weeks, not months. But yeah.

At one point the Israelis were bussing people from Jerusalem to the border crossing for free. They then required them to sign a form saying they left voluntarily, which at a minimum meant "weren't rounded up and sent off." Whether a state of concern about how the government will treat you, wanting to avoid headaches related to potentially being separated from people you're close with in Jordan, or having concerns about (unauthorized) Israeli soldiers driving around with loudspeakers yelling to leave counts as voluntary is debatable. The Israelis don't seem to have gone around forcing people to the border though.

That between 40% and 50% of people didn't even apply to return to the West Bank stands out too.

 

[raharris1973]

Very informative post on the West Bank busing and reapplications, and the like.

But most of all:

The old city is an itty bitty portion of East Jerusalem. They had it surrounded very quickly, but didn't go in until the very end.

It just seems mind-boggling to me that there could have been an Israeli-Jordanian War in 1967, with a significant change in the West Bank border, but not erasure of the West Bank [not too mind-boggling so far], where Israel has seized the metro Jerusalem area, but the entire Old City, including the historic Jewish Quarter and Wailing Wall, remains a Jordanian enclave/exclave in perpetuity with the armistice and any later peace settlement!

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Very informative post on the West Bank busing and reapplications, and the like.

Whether it was the Nakba or the Naksa, the example of Indian partition suggests that a large number of people were going to leave just because they wanted to be in a country with a certain demographic profile running things. The Israelis offered to take a large number of people back after 1948 too (there was a 100,000 person proposal, and a separate 200,000 person proposal in exchange for getting to annex the Gaza Strip) but this was contingent on peace agreements and recognition of Israel which never happened.

The impression I get is the Palestinians often got shafted by the fact that Israel conditioned doing stuff for them on Arab States recognizing Israel and/or giving concessions of a sort, and Arab States proceeded to not do that and so Palestinians ended up with nothing. This is what produced Fatah'ism to begin with - the idea that Palestinians couldn't trust Arab States to take care of them or serve their interests, so they needed their own institutions and organizations.

But most of all:

It just seems mind-boggling to me that there could have been an Israeli-Jordanian War in 1967, with a significant change in the West Bank border, but not erasure of the West Bank [not too mind-boggling so far], where Israel has seized the metro Jerusalem area, but the entire Old City, including the historic Jewish Quarter and Wailing Wall, remain a Jordanian enclave/exclave in perpetuity with the armistice and any later peace settlement!

History is weird like that.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

An interesting tidbit on why the Israelis started with Latrun and Jenin. The Israelis were mainly concerned about protecting the airports in Lod (near the Latrun) and Ramat David (near Jenin) from Arab fire. Here is Wikipedia.

In the north, a battalion from Peled's division checked Jordanian defences in the Jordan Valley. A brigade from Peled's division captured the western part of the West Bank. One brigade attacked Jordanian artillery positions around Jenin, which were shelling Ramat David Airbase. The Jordanian 12th Armored Battalion, which outnumbered the Israelis, held off repeated attempts to capture Jenin. However, Israeli air attacks took their toll, and the Jordanian M48 Pattons, with their external fuel tanks, proved vulnerable at short distances, even to the Israeli-modified Shermans. Twelve Jordanian tanks were destroyed, and only six remained operational.

Just after dusk, Israeli reinforcements arrived. The Jordanians continued to fiercely resist, and the Israelis were unable to advance without artillery and air support. One Israeli jet attacked the Jordanian commander's tank, wounding him and killing his radio operator and intelligence officer. The surviving Jordanian forces then withdrew to Jenin, where they were reinforced by the 25th Infantry Brigade. The Jordanians were effectively surrounded in Jenin.

Jordanian infantry and their three remaining tanks managed to hold off the Israelis until 4:00 am, when three battalions arrived to reinforce them in the afternoon. The Jordanian tanks charged and knocked out multiple Israeli vehicles, and the tide began to shift. After sunrise, Israeli jets and artillery conducted a two-hour bombardment against the Jordanians. The Jordanians lost 10 dead and 250 wounded, and had only seven tanks left, including two without gas, and sixteen APCs. The Israelis then fought their way into Jenin and captured the city after fierce fighting.

That the Jordanians were able to hold off repeated attempts to take the city seems noteworthy.

As for the Old City.

On 7 June, Dayan ordered his troops not to enter the Old City but, upon hearing that the UN was about to declare a ceasefire, he changed his mind, and without cabinet clearance, decided to capture it. Two paratroop battalions attacked Augusta-Victoria Hill, high ground overlooking the Old City from the east. One battalion attacked from Mount Scopus, and another attacked from the valley between it and the Old City. Another paratroop battalion, personally led by Gur, broke into the Old City and was joined by the other two battalions after their missions were complete. The paratroopers met little resistance. The fighting was conducted solely by the paratroopers; the Israelis did not use armour during the battle out of fear of severe damage to the Old City.

It appears I was mistaken. It wasn't on the Sixth day that the Israelis took the Old City, but the Third following Dayan's learning of the impending ceasefire.

As for the pace of things after the capture of Jenin and Latrun...

On 7 June, Israeli forces seized Bethlehem, taking the city after a brief battle that left some 40 Jordanian soldiers dead, with the remainder fleeing. On the same day, one of Peled's brigades seized Nablus; then it joined one of Central Command's armoured brigades to fight the Jordanian forces; as the Jordanians held the advantage of superior equipment and were equal in numbers to the Israelis.

Again, the air superiority of the IAF proved paramount as it immobilized the Jordanians, leading to their defeat. One of Peled's brigades joined with its Central Command counterparts coming from Ramallah, and the remaining two blocked the Jordan river crossings together with the Central Command's 10th.

One thing I didn't notice previously was this:

After the Old City was captured, Dayan told his troops to "dig in" to hold it. When an armoured brigade commander entered the West Bank on his own initiative, and stated that he could see Jericho, Dayan ordered him back. It was only after intelligence reports indicated that Hussein had withdrawn his forces across the Jordan River that Dayan ordered his troops to capture the West Bank. According to Narkis:

First, the Israeli government had no intention of capturing the West Bank. On the contrary, it was opposed to it. Second, there was not any provocation on the part of the IDF. Third, the rein was only loosened when a real threat to Jerusalem's security emerged. This is truly how things happened on June 5, although it is difficult to believe. The end result was something that no one had planned.

So absent the Jordanian withdrawal order, the Israelis wouldn't have tried to take the entirety of the West Bank at all. Maybe I'm being too optimistic about the Jordanians' ability to hold Bethlehem and Nablus, but if the Jordanians held out it seems like at a minimum the Jordanians would have held on to Jericho and Hebron absent the withdrawal order.

The Israeli army's focus on the Jerusalem region also seems to be reflected in what Dayan's preferred policy was after the 6 Day War: Annexing Ramallah and Bethlehem and making the people there citizens, while returning Nablus and Jenin to Jordan.

 

[raharris1973]

It appears I was mistaken. It wasn't on the Sixth day that the Israelis took the Old City, but the Third following Dayan's learning of the impending ceasefire.

upon hearing that the UN was about to declare a ceasefire, he changed his mind,

It is interesting though that this is the second instance during the war when the announcement or rumors of impending cease-fire stimulated rather than restrained Dayan or the broader Israeli government's land-greed. The other case was the offensive against the Golan Heights, which some Israelis (I think Rabin's people and Labour settlement aligned folks in northern command) called for from the beginning) and Dayan held off on doing, but then rushed to do when he heard about a ceasefire. So, it is like he was determined to not be hasty about doing it, but to get it done before the war, and the excise to do it was over.

What do you keep quoting from?

So absent the Jordanian withdrawal order, the Israelis wouldn't have tried to take the entirety of the West Bank at all.

Interesting concept/assertion

aybe I'm being too optimistic about the Jordanians' ability to hold Bethlehem and Nablus, but if the Jordanians held out it seems like at a minimum the Jordanians would have held on to Jericho and Hebron absent the withdrawal order.

Although the net result of your final map would the majority of the West Bank population and territory and farmland falling to Israel in 1967, but with Jordan holding on to a sort of "Gaza Strip east", a "Hebron to Jericho Strip", partly made of Hebron and environs, partly made or northern Judaean desert, partly made of the Dead Sea salt pans of Sodom, and a little Jordan Vally farmland around Jericho and its suburbs.

while returning Nablus and Jenin to Jordan.

Well, those would be enclaves in the middle north and *far* north of the Israeli occupied West Bank in your new map, or if connected back to Jordan, only by a long, thin, territorial "strand".

It appears I was mistaken. It wasn't on the Sixth day that the Israelis took the Old City, but the Third following Dayan's learning of the impending ceasefire.

There are youtube animated maps illustrated the wars progress by the hour, or close to it. I *thought* I have correctly identified when the Old City/Wailing Wall had been taken, but might have incorrectly estimated that particular point in time based on when the Israelis occipied the eastern city write large. See: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...st-bank-at-the-end-of-the-six-day-war.441936/

I chose to freeze the battle-line on the Jordan front as it was at 1000 on June 7th at 10 AM, assuming the Old City was in the pocket. It appeared to me that at that moment, the Israelis had Jenin and Ramallah, but not Nablus, nor Bethlehem, nor Jericho, nor Hebron. The map is visible in the thread link. Maybe your sources say whether the Israelis were in the Old City by 10 AM on the 7th or not. The link to the original youtube is not right there, but it is probably easy to find, and to take a snapshot of where the battle-lines were when the Old City was taken. Or in the hours before or after the withdrawal orders.

 

[raharris1973]

If you have an existential war going on, why would you have a divided government? They formed a Unity Government for the current ongoing Hamas War too.

Had Eshkol gone to war *faster* by a couple days, it might have still been after Nasser provided the excuse (UNEF withdrawal and blockade), but before he had to accede to pressure for the unity government and before Jordan formally signed the alliance with Nasser and accepted the Egyptian commander Nasser sent on over (who ordered the panicked withdrawal). Part of what forced Eshkol to do the unity government was that from the moment Nasser got militantly involved and mouthing off [and maybe even with some of the earlier Syria escalation], the Israeli public, media, opposition, started calling Eshkol a weakling for not smashing Nasser already to shut him up.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

@raharris1973 I was quoting from Wikipedia.

I was relying on the same YouTube video you did. I don't think the video was zoomed in enough to see what is basically a 4 or 5 blocks in Jerusalem.

Gaza Strip east is an interesting comparison. I'm not sure that comparison is quite accurate, and the area generally isn't as packed. Plus, I imagine there would be ferries to the area across the Dead Sea.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

An additional thing I failed to consider.

From Tom Segev's 1967. Israel, the War and the Year that Transformed the Middle East observed the following:

"Hebron was considered a holy city; the massacre of Jews there in 1929 was imprinted on national memory along with the great pogroms of Eastern Europe. The messianic fervor that characterized the Hebron settlers was more powerful than the awakening that led people to settle in East Jerusalem: while Jerusalem had already been annexed, the future of Hebron was still unclear."

The capture of Hebron by Israel triggered religious nationalist feelings in a way as strong as East Jerusalem, if not stronger. Jerusalem was the reunification of a city already partly under Israeli control from the Israeli point of view, whereas Hebron was a city which had been lost entirely. To many Jews, Hebron was seen as "liberated" or "retaken" rather than "conquered" because of the continuous Jewish population that existed there until 1929. That sort of cultural symbolism simply wasn't present for places like Nablus, Jenin, Bethlehem, etc. even though there were traditional Jewish shrines in some of them (Joseph's Tomb near Nablus, Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, etc.). But the messianic zeal of the settlers of Hebron led to imitations of their practices in Nablus and Bethlehem - setting up settlements before the IDF could approve or deny them, and then putting the political burden on the Israeli government to explain why they were uprooting Jews from holy sites. The Israeli destruction of the infamous "steps" up to Cave of the Patriarchs - in which since 1267 if a Jew or Christian went past the seventh step toward the Cave, it was the obligation of the nearest muslim to beat them because infidels were not allowed near the Holy Site - was itself seen as a massive thing, culturally speaking.

Heck, even David Ben-Gurion (who believed the West Bank had to mostly be returned to Jordan) considered Hebron to be the one area of the conquered territories in the West Bank - other than East Jerusalem - that should remain under Jewish control and be open to Jewish settlement.


The general thing I'm getting at is that if the Israelis don't capture Hebron, much of the messianic zeal which characterized a good chunk of the Israeli settler movement wouldn't be present here. Israel would still shift right after the Yom Kippur War (assuming it still happens as OTL), but the nature of religious nationalist politics would be much less aggressive.