AHC: Give Israel land east of the Jordan
- Thread starter SvoHljott
- Start date
The Irgun claimed both Mandate Palestine and Mandate Transjordan for Israel, so the idea was around at the time.
OTL there was a partitioning of Mandate Palestine which only had land in Cisjordan, and the Zionists had dealings with the Transjordanians concerning who got what lands thereof.
To get an Israeli conquest of then Transjordanian areas, you need for them to disagree violently, or at least not come to any agreement whatsoever.
Perhaps the best PoD here might be to have the UN 1947 partition plan include Transjordanian areas, so all of Palestine/Transjordan are regarded as one area to be split 50/50 in some similary impractical checquered way as OTL, with the Israelis acquiring 50+ % after some periods of fighting.
OTL there was a partitioning of Mandate Palestine which only had land in Cisjordan, and the Zionists had dealings with the Transjordanians concerning who got what lands thereof.
To get an Israeli conquest of then Transjordanian areas, you need for them to disagree violently, or at least not come to any agreement whatsoever.
Perhaps the best PoD here might be to have the UN 1947 partition plan include Transjordanian areas, so all of Palestine/Transjordan are regarded as one area to be split 50/50 in some similary impractical checquered way as OTL, with the Israelis acquiring 50+ % after some periods of fighting.
Herod the Great was Idumean and Edom (in the southeast) had been forcibly converted to Judaism by the Maccabees, so there were more Jewish areas than the colored ones on that map.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
Have the Syrians and their Palestinian proxies take over Jordan during Black September. The Israelis in response to the collapse of the Jordanians, make a move to annex the East Bank and prevent it from being used as a place to launch attacks on Israel.
Who has greater potential to stir up big trouble for the West -- the Muslim world (with large numbers of people within the rather-nervous British Empire, with overwhelming majorities in many areas that will soon become States, and with vast quantities of oil in several countries), or the Jews (a very large fraction of whom demonstrably aren't even very committed to Zionism, who have rather little overall political unity across the many nations where they are scattered, and who lack significant group authority anywhere)?
if giving Israel land east of Jordon is thought likely to be ill-received in the Muslim world, it either won't happen, or will swiftly lose any support it was briefly granted and then fail.
Unless the POD is scores or hundreds of years earlier, such that butterflies change all factors.
if giving Israel land east of Jordon is thought likely to be ill-received in the Muslim world, it either won't happen, or will swiftly lose any support it was briefly granted and then fail.
Unless the POD is scores or hundreds of years earlier, such that butterflies change all factors.
two things I think the Jordan is the most naturally defendable line in the east, second I don't know that 1970 Israel would be willing to take on more Arab subjects as surely taking the East bank would lead to, in 1967 they took the Arab territories assuming they'd give back the vast majority for peace with Jordan, Egypt and Syria, by 1970 it was clear the Arabs weren't gonna talk and Israel had to settle into running things for the long term.
Israel having some small lands west of the Jordan was ill-received in the Muslim world, so what would be the difference except locally for the Transjordanians?
Israel was not given any land, it used the circumstances to establish itself and conquer selected areas.
The prospect of Israel attaining even the proposed area of the 1947 partition plan demonstrably caused an uproar in the Muslim (primarily Arab Muslim) world. If they push for even more, you don't think the reaction would be even greater? And not just locally, as the OTL reaction was far from local.
As for the term "give", don't tell me -- take it up with the OP, because I was merely using the terminology provided.
But the PoD I am talking of does only mean instantly "more" than OTL, not "even more" in TTL. To people at the time there would be little difference.
It does mean no OTL-style deal with Transjordan, obviously, which makes things more difficult for the Zionists, but in TTL they must have had a reason for including some eastern areas when making the UN map. One obvious reason is that the territories involved are very small for a country.
We are limited to post-1945 changes here, so we still have these two mandate areas, and all actions until then.
In OTL Ben-Gurion was heavily insisting on getting the Negev desert. If he instead had wanted a more realistic map for a defensible state, perhaps he could have exchanged the Negev for northern Transjordan, which gives Israel better hold on the upper Jordan river, while avoiding the future Aqaba gulf problems that initiated several wars, and the future south Jordanian state gets a mediterranean coastline and a definite power over its Palestinians.
Well, if it occurs early on, then the issue is an even larger displaced population of Arabs, or its a much larger population of Arabs incorporated into Israel, either as Israeli citizens, or as stateless undermensch.
With that much larger displaced population, you will probably see a faster disintegration of Lebanon, and larger and more expensive refugee communities straining the resources of the Arab world, more agitation, and a harder line among Arab states. You may see much more concerted political and military coordination between Syria and Egypt.
With a larger population of citizen arabs, I could see social issues emerging in Israel, if the arab minority is actually large enough to sway Israeli politics. How do you keep them from doing that.
If it's a larger population of stateless untermenschen, more and larger intifadas, more social conflict, and much more investment in keeping them down.
If it comes later, and the territory is acquired in 1967, we see the effective destruction and disintegration of Jordan as a buffer state. It's likely that the remnants would come under the control of Syria, Iraq and/or Egypt, or be violent little statelet hellholes.
The border with Uber-Israel would be much larger, much more permeable and harder to control. Arms and people would flow back and forth much more easily. The Israeli's have proven themselves neither wise nor enlightened colonial masters, but people altogether too ready to reach for truncheon and jackboot.
Controlling twice the hostile territory and population, and settling it.... expensive and nasty and less successful.
Just seems like a bad idea.
With that much larger displaced population, you will probably see a faster disintegration of Lebanon, and larger and more expensive refugee communities straining the resources of the Arab world, more agitation, and a harder line among Arab states. You may see much more concerted political and military coordination between Syria and Egypt.
With a larger population of citizen arabs, I could see social issues emerging in Israel, if the arab minority is actually large enough to sway Israeli politics. How do you keep them from doing that.
If it's a larger population of stateless untermenschen, more and larger intifadas, more social conflict, and much more investment in keeping them down.
If it comes later, and the territory is acquired in 1967, we see the effective destruction and disintegration of Jordan as a buffer state. It's likely that the remnants would come under the control of Syria, Iraq and/or Egypt, or be violent little statelet hellholes.
The border with Uber-Israel would be much larger, much more permeable and harder to control. Arms and people would flow back and forth much more easily. The Israeli's have proven themselves neither wise nor enlightened colonial masters, but people altogether too ready to reach for truncheon and jackboot.
Controlling twice the hostile territory and population, and settling it.... expensive and nasty and less successful.
Just seems like a bad idea.
Last edited:
Keep in mind that the 1948 borders it established were, realistically, all the land that it could steal at the time.
We're talking almost doubling that land here. How?
We're talking almost doubling that land here. How?
I mean in the 1940s, there aren't any Jews in Jordan, at all, none
as you can see the Jewish state that was formed in 1948 largely conforms to areas of Jewish settlement (and the Negev) the West Bank had very little Jewish settlement, the East had none
well there was Naharayim, an hydroelectric power-plant on the Jordan-Israel border that before the war generated most of the power for Mandate Palestine, tries by Golda Meir to keep king Abdullah out of the 1948 War were centered there, but failed Naharayim was evacuated, and the Jordanians and Iraqis attacked it, and the Israelis blew the dam to deepen the river to stop Jordanian/Iraqi infiltration of Israel to attack Jewish villages
you might see a slight push over the border to defend Naharayim and keep it working, but I mean given its importance in OTL, if they could have, they would have, it would be a big pocket even if they were stronger to manage it
as you can see the Jewish state that was formed in 1948 largely conforms to areas of Jewish settlement (and the Negev) the West Bank had very little Jewish settlement, the East had none
well there was Naharayim, an hydroelectric power-plant on the Jordan-Israel border that before the war generated most of the power for Mandate Palestine, tries by Golda Meir to keep king Abdullah out of the 1948 War were centered there, but failed Naharayim was evacuated, and the Jordanians and Iraqis attacked it, and the Israelis blew the dam to deepen the river to stop Jordanian/Iraqi infiltration of Israel to attack Jewish villages
you might see a slight push over the border to defend Naharayim and keep it working, but I mean given its importance in OTL, if they could have, they would have, it would be a big pocket even if they were stronger to manage it
I'm not going to touch on your (incorrectly spelled) use of the incredibly loaded term "untermenschen", but I do want to point out - the population of Transjordan is 200,000 in 1920 (compare 600,000 Muslims and Christians in Cisjordan Palestine) and under 300,000 in 1947 before the Israeli independence war (compare: 1.4 million). So, no, it's not really a "much larger" population, proportionally. Most of that population was in and around Amman and Irbid, so it would have been very possible to give Israel more land (say, both sides of the Jordan river valley, or or even some beyond) without adding much population.
This. They won't seize control over the heavily-populated north of Jordan (the Irbid-Amman corridor), but could easily take control of the country's south, which is mostly Bedouin, and sparsely inhabited. The IDF could seize control to prevent Palestinian access to the Red Sea, prop up a puppet Bedouin government, and eventually annex the territory after 20-30 years of strategic settlement.
Okay. So "how about, there was a finite upper limit of land that the incoming settler population could feasibly unilaterally and without consent displace the indigenous population from, by settlement or force of arms or intermediate means of intimidation or coercion."
Last edited:
Thank you for your correction.
As to population, you know how it goes. A hundred thousand here, a hundred thousand there, pretty soon, we're talking real populations.
Last edited:
History shows us that this is incorrect, by the way.
For example, the 1948 borders were set not by any Israeli ability to displace residents, but rather by ceasefire lines between Israel and Egypt and Jordan.
This response, while excitingly flippant, is quite silly in the context of history. A state that is capable of expelling 700,000 persons is very likely just as capable of expelling 900,000.
Well, in the global sense, yes and no. After all, Europeans managed to completely displace the indigenous population of the United States but it took a few centuries.
In terms of battle ceasefire lines - I can't imagine that it was goodwill on either side that established those lines, but merely what each side could hold. So history is basically on my side.
But my point is that an extra few hundred thousand refugees getting their land stolen, or 'involuntarily displaced from under them' are just going to create extra problems.
You can't wave a couple of hundred thousand people away as trivial.
Am I not taking this seriously enough?
Or is there something else?
There's no good will on either side anyway, and the Egyptian and Jordanian commanders really don't care about the Palestinians, and the positions are largely independent of populations - in the east, it's the extent of the hilly region (minus the Jerusalem Corridor). In the west, it's a narrow strip along the sea. I really don't see how it could be argued to involve populations in either situation.
My point is that I find it really hard to believe that 900,000 displaced persons is going to create much more outrage than 700,000. Maybe if we get to 1 million, that'll cause some sort of magic number. So, yes, a couple hundred thousand people is "trivial" here, in my opinion. If it was a 100% increase, sure. But since it's about 20% more on top of a number that's already so large most people have trouble understanding the meaning? Please recall that there have been far larger population displacements than that of the Palestinians without people making much of a fuss, so from where I stand, it seems that the very fact of the displacement is what creates concern, and that a moderate increase isn't going to have much of an effect on people.