and some of them are failed states. Some of Israel’s enemies are determined to wipe it off the map. Moreover, some of these enemies, especially Iran, have vast resources and are able to acquire advanced weaponry either through arms purchases from leading arms producers or through local production. All of these components have to be taken into account while drawing Israel’s defensible borders.
“It is true, of course, that Israel has impressive military capabilities, but if they are not deployed in the right locations, their effectiveness may be significantly compromised. For example, Israel’s military deployment has to enable it to thwart attempts to bring in weapons (including rockets and drones) and trained terrorists or foreign military forces to the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank from across the Jordan River.
“This mission cannot be accomplished without Israel being able to deploy its forces in areas close to the river and on the eastern slopes of the mountain ridge dominating the Jordan River valley for purposes of observation and intelligence gathering that are necessary for permanent early warning and to thwart such attempts before they cause any damage. This will allow Israel to distance its population centers and critical infrastructure from these possible threats. In addition to “boots on the ground,” Israel will require full control over the airspace above the entire territory of the West Bank as well as control of the electromagnetic spectrum to guarantee that it is able to deal effectively with any threat.
“This does not mean that this deployment can hermetically prevent any infiltration of the border, but it should guarantee that any attempt to cross into the territory from the east, even if it is part of multi-front hostile activities, is met by sufficient power in time to prevent any considerable damage to the security of Israel and its population, even if the early warning is not perfect. Moreover, Israeli military presence has a strategically important effect on deterrence and stabilization beyond the eastern border.
“There have been various suggestions and creative ideas raised to establish a border along the 1967 lines with some local changes and to replace Israel’s military presence in some of the critical areas with foreign forces or to rely on electronic detection devices alone. However, this cannot provide Israel with adequate defense. Israeli forces have to be present on the ground to take immediate action against imminent threats. Israel cannot rely on foreign forces, and detection devices can at best give some early warning or signal in real time that the border has been penetrated, but these devices cannot do much about it. The idea that Israeli intelligence collection assets will be deployed in strategically important locations but access to these locations will be through Palestinian-controlled areas, is simply not feasible.
“The same is true when it comes to preventing terror and other military threats from within the territory controlled by the Palestinians. If Israel deploys it As forces more or less along the ’67 lines, it is not going to be able to protect its main cities and infrastructure and collect the information necessary for that purpose. Moreover, it is not going to be able to prevent significant deliveries of arms to the Palestinian-controlled territories or the local production of various weapons inside these territories.
“The argument that Israel’s armed forces are much stronger than the Palestinians and therefore it can afford to move to less defensible borders in the context of a peace agreement – and if this agreement is violated by the Palestinians Israel can recapture the territory – is baseless too. First of all, under such conditions, the Palestinians will be able to accumulate a considerable number of arms and military capabilities before they trigger hostilities, and once they do, recapturing the territory is going to be very costly in terms of casualties, not only to Israeli troops but also to the Israeli civilian population and critical infrastructure. Fighting a hybrid force that has both terror and conventional (and perhaps unconventional) capabilities that is fighting behind human shields is a huge challenge for every modern army. As long as many Palestinians continue to support the plan of fighting Israel in phases over time and regard the complete defeat of Zionism as their ultimate goal, any such moves that enable this are extremely irresponsible. The case of Gaza is an illuminating precedent, as are Afghanistan, Vietnam, Lebanon, Sinai, Somalia, and other arenas.
The Jewish-Arab partition was already implemented when Jordan was created out of British Mandate Palestine. This happened at the same time (and was done by the same British Empire) than the India-Pakistan partition. The Palestinians already have a State in Jordan
The British planned the India-Pakistan Partition in 1947 to solve the Hindu-Muslim conflict, and also at about the same time planned the partition of British Mandate Palestine into an Arab Kingdom (Jordan) next to a Jewish State.
The concept of creating “two states for two peoples” was seen as the best solution by the British rulers in the 1940s. The British planned the India-Pakistan Partition in 1947 and the creation of Jordan as an Arab Kingdom next to Israel about the same time. Globalsecurity.org describes the history of the India-Pakistan partition of 1947.
“Mohammad Ali Jinnah, a Western-educated Muslim lawyer, persuaded the participants at the annual Muslim League session in Lahore in 1940 to adopt what later came to be known as the Pakistan Resolution, demanding the division of India into two separate sovereign states, one Muslim, the other Hindu.. On June 3, 1947, Mountbatten, the viceroy (1947) and governor-general (1947-48), announced plans for partition of the British Indian Empire into the nations of India and Pakistan, which itself was divided into east and west wings on either side of India. The June 3, 1947 Partition Plan was prepared by Mountbatten in consultation with the British Government. It was based on a fundamental principle that transfer of power should take place according to the wishes of the people.”
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/indo-pak-partition.htm
“The principle of partition was specified in the plan : The all Muslim majority areas were to constitute part of Pakistan and similarly the Hindu majority areas were to go to India…(2)” “…What followed was “ethnic cleansing” – a term that was to gain currency later in the 20th century…Partition unleashed untold misery and loss of lives and property as millions of Hindu and Muslim refugees fled either Pakistan or India…Partition resulted in the forced movement of 20 million people (Hindus and Sikhs to India and Muslims to Pakistan). Most estimates of the numbers of people who crossed the boundaries between India and Pakistan in 1947 range between 10 and 12 million.”
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/indo-pak-partition1.htm
The same British who planned the India-Pakistan Partition in 1947 to solve the Hindu-Muslim conflict, also planned the partition of British Mandate Palestine into an Arab Kingdom (Jordan) next to a Jewish State. If Pakistan absorbed MILLIONS of Muslims from India, Jordan must absorb Palestinian refugees.
Why Muslims who escaped India during the Pakistan-India partition are not considered “refugees” today but Arabs who escaped Israel are?
The India-Pakistan partition was created with the idea of “Two States for two peoples” and it was understood Pakistan was supposed to absorb Muslim refugees from India, (at the SAME TIME) the British DELIBERATLY AND MALICIOUSLY SET ISRAEL FOR FAILURE when they separated Jordan from British Mandate Palestine without making it clear it was in the context of a “Two States for two peoples” framework under which JORDAN WAS EXPECTED TO ABSORB ARAB REFUGEES.
Before World War I Palestine was a part of the province of Southern Syria in the Ottoman Empire. In 1916, before WWI ended, the British and the French signed the secret Sikes-Pikot agreement defining their proposed spheres of influence in the Middle East if they won the war. According to the agreement France was allocated to Northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon while the British would rule over Palestine and southern Iraq.
In 1920, following the provision of the Mandate to France and Britain at San Remo, the UK took control of British Mandate Palestine (Mandatory Palestine) in what is today Israel and Jordan, land captured from the Ottoman Empire.
The McMahon-Hussein correspondence reveals details of a secret deal between Sir Henry McMahon, High Commissioner of the UK in Egypt, and the Sharif of Mecca, Hussain Bin Ali, by which the British would give control of lands captured from the Ottoman Empire to the Sharif of Mecca’s family if the Arabs assisted the British in fighting the Turks during WWI.
In 1921 the UK created the Emirate of Transjordan (Jordan) in the land of Mandatory Palestine East from the Jordan river and appointed Abdullah, son of the Shariff of Mecca, as King of Jordan. (Britain also appointed Abdullah’s brother Faisal as King of Iraq). Jordan was officially under British Mandate Palestine and obtained independence in 1946.
In 1948 when the British Mandate of Palestine finished and the Jewish State of Israel was created, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt (all puppet Kingdoms from the UK) attacked the newborn Jewish State.
Until 1948 Jews were a majority of the population in Jerusalem. On December 11, 2017 Amb. Dore Gold wrote in the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs “By the mid-19th century, the British Consulate in Jerusalem made the following determination, according to this report, which I found in the Public Record Office in Kew, it states that Jews were a majority in Jerusalem, when? already in 1863 – that’s long before Theodor Herzl, before the Britt’s arrived, or Lord Balfour.”
“See the guy on the right, William Seward, he was Secretary of State of the United States during the American civil war, under President Abraham Lincoln.
“When Seward’s term ended, he visited the holy land, he visited Jerusalem. And he wrote a memoir. And in his memoir, it is written, ‘There is a Jewish majority in Jerusalem.'” See William Seward, Travels Around the World (1873)
In 1948 British General Glubb Pasha lead the Jordanian Arab Legion commanded mostly by British Officers* to expel all the Jews from Hebron, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Not only they did ethnic cleansing but they destroyed dozens of ancient synagogues and 60,000 Ancient Jewish Tombstones in the Sacred Ancient Jewish Cemetery of Mount of Olives to try to erase all evidence of Jewish History in the West Bank. In 1956, after his service in Jordan, the criminal General Glubb, responsible for ethnic cleansing of Jews, was knighted by the Queen. General Glubb was appointed Knight Commander of The Order of Bath by Queen Elizabeth.
The Jewish Virtual Library describes how the Jordanian Arab Legion led by British general Glubb and staffed mostly by British officers ethnically cleansed Jews from Jerusalem. “Before the United Nations voted in favor of the Patition Plan on November 29, 1947, the Arab Legion of Jordan attacked Jerusalem.
Their forces blocked Jerusalem’s roads and cut off the city’s access to water.
After bitter fighting, the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City fell to the vastly superior arms and numbers of the Arab Legion. The surviving Jewish inhabitants fled to the “New City,” the four-fifths of the capital that Israel successfully held.
The Old City, including the Jewish Quarter, officially fell to Jordan on May 27, 1948.
Nearly twenty years later, during the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel’s army liberated Jerusalem’s Old City, finding the area completely neglected and virtually destroyed.
… All but one of the thirty five synagogues within the Old City were destroyed; those note completely devastated had been used as hen houses and stables filled with dung-heaps, garbage and carcasses.
The revered Jewish graveyard on the Mount of Olives was in complete disarray with tens of thousands of tombstones broken into pieces to be used as building materials and large areas of the cemetery leveled to provide a short-cut to a new hotel.
Hundreds of Torah scrolls and thousands of holy books had been plundered and burned to ashes…”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jordan-s-desecration-of-jerualem-1948-1967
The Jordanian Arab Legion which led the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Eastern Jerusalem was led by British General Glubb, most of the officers of the Jordanian Arab Legion were British.
Below is a list of British officers that commanded the Jordanian Arab Legion:
*(Divisional Headquarters (under Brigadier Lash), Artillery Batteries/troops (under Lt-Col Hearst),1st Brigade (under Col. Goldie), 1st Regiment (under Lt-Col. Blackden), 3rd Regiment (under Lt-Col Newman), 3rd Brigade (under Col. Ashton), 2nd Regiment (under Maj. Slade) (Details from Laffin (1982a), Lunt (1999), Collins & Lapierre (1972).
http://balagan.info/arab-order-of-battle-in-the-1948-arab-israeli-war
The Palestinian National Charter of 1964 defined Palestine as the pre-1967 territory of the State of Israel – specifically excluding the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, claiming they belonged to Jordan. When the area was part of Jordan, the Palestinians affirmed they did not want that land. In 1967, Israel ended the Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria (that had started in 1948). In 1968 the Palestinians changed their charter to claim Judea and Samaria (besides, of course, the rest of Israel).
“Palestine and Jordan are one…” said King Abdullah in 1948.
“The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan,”said King Hussein of Jordan, in 1981.
Jordan was created with land from British Mandate Palestine, 78% of the Jordanian population is Palestinian.
The Queen of Jordan is Palestinian, Jordan’s next King will be the son of a Palestinian.
Declaring that Jordan is Palestine seems to be supported by Saudi Arabia with fears the State of Palestine will be controled by Hamas. On June 30, 2022 David Singer wrote in Arutz 7 “Saudi Arabia has sent US President Joe Biden and the United Nations (UN) a clear message to abandon the idea of creating a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan in an article published in Al-Arabiya News on 8 June headlined: The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine…MBS has not sought to publically distance himself from Shihabi’s article. Shihabi lays the groundwork for his proposal: “The Palestinian problem can only be solved today if it is redefined. The issue in this day and age for people should be not so much the ownership of ancestral land but more the critical need to have a legal identity—a globally respected citizenship that allows a person to operate in the modern world. Labor in this day and age is mobile and having citizenship in a country that facilitates such mobility is critical to human development. The most logical vehicle for this redefinition and hence for the solution to the Palestine problem is the kingdom of Jordan. Over the last seventy-five years, Jordan has developed into a relatively well-governed state, although the impact of regional political turmoil has caused it to fail economically and become heavily reliant on foreign aid for its survival. It is this Jordanian governance infrastructure that needs to be captured and put to productive use in integrating the millions of Palestinians and Jordanians into a modern, reasonably well-functioning state that would, in an era of real peace and economic integration with Jordan’s neighbors, have a much higher chance of growth and prosperity. “This proposed enlarged kingdom would include present-day Jordan, Gaza, and the ‘West Bank’ (areas populated by Palestinians attached in a contiguous manner and physically connected to Jordan, i.e., not broken up into islands).” Shihabi dismisses Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Jordan claims to be separate entities: “Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighbourhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines.”
