WI Israel takes Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1948

[danteheadman]

POD: Israel takes Latrun, beats the Jordanian army in the Battle for Jerusalem, and advances to the Jordan River. When the '48 armistice agreements are signed, Egypt keeps Gaza as OTL but the Jordanians get nothing.

How does the conflict proceed? Presumably the Nakba is worse, as it now also happens to Arabs in the West Bank. What are the consequences?

 

[mike of mass]

There is likely to be increased pressure on the Israelis to give up part if not all of the west bank to form a Palestine in 1949. The Hashemites will not be a power the WB The Israels will probably keep Jerusalem and the Jordan valley. They may try to create Palestinian emirates around the major population centers.

 

[Seleukeia]

Why not take the Gaza as well? From what I've read if the war continued like a few days Gaza, Rafah and El-Arish would've fallen to Israel.

Anyway, what happens here is a lot of the Palestinians will probably leave the Israeli segment of Mandatory Palestine. This happened in the regions taken by Israel in 1948, but later when they took the West Bank and the Gaza in 1967, most of them stayed. However, here, all of it falls in 1948, so they probably will leave now. Most of them will more than likely head to Jordan, where I could see them eventually overthrowing the Jordanian government and declaring a Palestinian state in Jordan. With a Palestinian state existing, Israel will not feel the pressure to give up the West Bank and Gaza to form part of a Palestinian state, and you may see legitimate peaceful relations much earlier between Israel and the rest of the Arab world.

 

[raharris1973]

Why not take the Gaza as well? From what I've read if the war continued like a few days Gaza, Rafah and El-Arish would've fallen to Israel.

Anyway, what happens here is a lot of the Palestinians will probably leave the Israeli segment of Mandatory Palestine. This happened in the regions taken by Israel in 1948, but later when they took the West Bank and the Gaza in 1967, most of them stayed. However, here, all of it falls in 1948, so they probably will leave now. Most of them will more than likely head to Jordan, where I could see them eventually overthrowing the Jordanian government and declaring a Palestinian state in Jordan. With a Palestinian state existing, Israel will not feel the pressure to give up the West Bank and Gaza to form part of a Palestinian state, and you may see legitimate peaceful relations much earlier between Israel and the rest of the Arab world.

Things won't be so convenient. The West Bank of Palestine will still be called lost Palestine and "real" Palestine, with Transjordan to the east considered something different, even if ruled by some people formerly who lived west of the river.

Also, with all Jerusalem, including the al-Alqsa mosque under Israeli jurisdiction earlier, public opinion in Muslim majority countries around the world might be more consistently and deeply fixed on the Israel-Palestine issue instead of it being of most initial concern for the Arab League states.

 

[Seleukeia]

Things won't be so convenient. The West Bank of Palestine will still be called lost Palestine and "real" Palestine, with Transjordan to the east considered something different, even if ruled by some people formerly who lived west of the river.

Also, with all Jerusalem, including the al-Alqsa mosque under Israeli jurisdiction earlier, public opinion in Muslim majority countries around the world might be more consistently and deeply fixed on the Israel-Palestine issue instead of it being of most initial concern for the Arab League states.

Meh, idk really. A lot of Arab nationalism was pretty secular and for that reason Jerusalem wouldn't be too important for them, and with the presence of a legitimate Palestinian state in the world there would be no pressure on the West (or Soviets) to force Israel to give up the territory. Gaza would definitely not be under any dispute and Arish may be under some because it was previously Egyptian territory but I don't think the people would be up in arms to reclaim it and the West Bank would be mostly Israeli in this timeline and I don't see the Arabs clamoring too hard for it. You don't see them demanding the Galilee for example. Judea (southern West Bank) would probably be majority Jewish and outlying areas of Samaria (northern West Bank) like Jenin would be similarly so and more inlying areas like Nablus would be mixed in population. Depends really on how many leave for Jordan.

 

[Father Maryland]

Things won't be so convenient. The West Bank of Palestine will still be called lost Palestine and "real" Palestine, with Transjordan to the east considered something different, even if ruled by some people formerly who lived west of the river.

Also, with all Jerusalem, including the al-Alqsa mosque under Israeli jurisdiction earlier, public opinion in Muslim majority countries around the world might be more consistently and deeply fixed on the Israel-Palestine issue instead of it being of most initial concern for the Arab League states.

I wonder what the Israeli policies would be regarding the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock versus the policies they pursued post 1967. In OTL post 1967 they took a rather pragmatic approach and allowed the temple mount to remain under the administration of the existing Islamic group during the Jordanian possession and essentially banned Jews from entering the Temple Mount. They've mostly kept that policy since.

Would they react differently in 1948 and what effects would emerge.

 

[raharris1973]

I wonder what the Israeli policies would be regarding the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock versus the policies they pursued post 1967. In OTL post 1967 they took a rather pragmatic approach and allowed the temple mount to remain under the administration of the existing Islamic group during the Jordanian possession and essentially banned Jews from entering the Temple Mount. They've mostly kept that policy since.

Would they react differently in 1948 and what effects would emerge.

Religious parties weren't any more powerful in the Zionist coalition at the beginning than in or after '67, so I think the policy would be the same. Now the inspirational effect of taking all the holy places early would probably spur early support for religious zionist parties.

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

There is likely to be increased pressure on the Israelis to give up part if not all of the west bank to form a Palestine in 1949. The Hashemites will not be a power the WB The Israels will probably keep Jerusalem and the Jordan valley. They may try to create Palestinian emirates around the major population centers.

There wouldn't be a West Bank here. IOTL the West Bank is the area between the armistice line and the Jordan River, it marks the limits of the Israel advance, in TTL that would end at the Jordan River. There is no reason to believe that they'd have held back on continuing the Nakba in their territory if they were winning even more on the ground, it's safe to assume they'd expel 90% or more in all their territories here as well.

Why not take the Gaza as well? From what I've read if the war continued like a few days Gaza, Rafah and El-Arish would've fallen to Israel.

Anyway, what happens here is a lot of the Palestinians will probably leave the Israeli segment of Mandatory Palestine. This happened in the regions taken by Israel in 1948, but later when they took the West Bank and the Gaza in 1967, most of them stayed. However, here, all of it falls in 1948, so they probably will leave now. Most of them will more than likely head to Jordan, where I could see them eventually overthrowing the Jordanian government and declaring a Palestinian state in Jordan. With a Palestinian state existing, Israel will not feel the pressure to give up the West Bank and Gaza to form part of a Palestinian state, and you may see legitimate peaceful relations much earlier between Israel and the rest of the Arab world.

That would be up to Israel. Would they stop expelling Palestinians when they advanced into the Palestinian side of the partition lines? They didn't do this IOTL.


If they already controlled the West Bank of the Jordan River and all of Jerusalem, it might make it less likely for Israel to become involved in the Suez Crisis, or to invade in 1967. If they chose to stay peaceful throughout the last half of the C20th, we'd be much further along in the peace process by now.

Or they could consider everything captured in 1948 to be 'core' territory (like they did in OTL), and still go to war just as often for the same reasons, to capture more strategic depth or sites for settlements later. But after a 1967 type invasion in this scenario, they'd be implementing the same policies to hold onto whatever they got on the East Bank of the Jordan, or possible demanding that the Palestinians or Jordanian government to renounce a right to return and refugee status.