The Jordanian administration of the West Bank officially began on 24 April 1950, and ended with the decision to sever ties on 31 July 1988. The period started during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, when Transjordan occupied and subsequently annexed the portion of Mandatory Palestine that became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The territory remained under Jordanian control until it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War and eventually Jordan renounced its claim to the territory in 1988.Raphael Israeli, Jerusalem divided: the armistice regime, 1947–1967, Volume 23 of Cass series – Israeli history, politics, and society, Psychology Press, 2002, p. 23."Under Jordanian occupation since the 1948 Palestine war," Chicago Tribune, 3 June 1954
During the December 1948 Jericho Conference, hundreds of Palestinian notables in the West Bank gathered, accepted Jordanian rule and recognized King Abdullah I as ruler. The West Bank was formally annexed on 24 April 1950, but the annexation was widely considered as illegal and void by most of the international community, including the Arab League, which ultimately decided to treat Jordan as a temporary trustee pending future settlement. Recognition of Jordan's declaration of annexation was granted only by the United Kingdom, Iraq, and possibly Pakistan.It is often stated that Pakistan recognized it as well, but that is disputed; see S. R. Silverburg, Pakistan and the West Bank: A research note, Middle Eastern Studies, 19:2 (1983) 261–263. The United States while avoiding public approval, also recognized this extension of Jordanian sovereignty, except for Jerusalem.
When Jordan transferred its full citizenship rights to the residents of the West Bank, the annexation more than tripled the population of Jordan, going from 400,000 to 1,300,000.Mishal, Shaul. "Chapter 4. Conflictual Pressures and Cooperative Interests: Observations on West Bank-Amman Political Relations, 1949–1967". Palestinian Society and Politics, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980, pp. 169-184. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400854479.169 The naturalized Palestinians were given half of the seats of the Jordanian parliament.
Background Partition and 1947/48 diplomacy Prior to hostilities in 1948, Mandatory Palestine (modern-day West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel) had been administered by the British Empire pursuant to the Mandate for Palestine, having captured it from the Ottomans in 1917. The British, as custodians of the land, implemented the land tenure laws in Palestine, which it had inherited from the Ottomans (as defined in the Ottoman Land Code of 1858).The Survey of Palestine under the British Mandate: 1920–1948, British Mandate government printing office, Jerusalem 1946, vol. 1, p. 225, of chapter 8, section 1, paragraph 1 (Reprinted in 1991 by the Institute for Palestine Studies), which reads: "The land law in Palestine embraces the system of tenures inherited from the Ottoman regime, enriched by some amendments, mostly of a declaratory character, enacted since the British Occupation on the authority of the Palestine Orders-in-Council." Toward the expiration of the British Mandate, Arabs aspired to independence and self-determination, as did the Jews of the country.A Survey of Palestine (Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry), vol. 1, chapter 2, British Mandate Government of Palestine: Jerusalem 1946, p. 24
On 29 November 1947 the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181 which envisaged the division of Palestine into three parts: an Arab State, a Jewish State and the City of Jerusalem. The proposed Arab State would include the central and part of western Galilee, with the town of Acre, the hill country of Samaria and Judea, an enclave at Jaffa, and the southern coast stretching from north of Isdud (now Ashdod) and encompassing what is now the Gaza Strip, with a section of desert along the Egyptian border. The proposed Jewish State would include the fertile Eastern Galilee, the Coastal Plain, stretching from Haifa to Rehovot and most of the Negev desert. The Jerusalem Corpus separatum was to include Bethlehem and the surrounding areas. The proposed Jewish State covered 56.47% of Mandatory Palestine (excluding Jerusalem) with a population of 498,000 Jews and 325,000 Arabs while the proposed Arab State covered 43.53% of Mandatory Palestine (excluding Jerusalem), with 807,000 Arab inhabitants and 10,000 Jewish inhabitants and in Jerusalem, an international trusteeship regime where the population was 100,000 Jews and 105,000 Arabs.
In March 1948, the British Cabinet had agreed that the civil and military authorities in Palestine should make no effort to oppose the setting up of a Jewish State or a move into Palestine from Transjordan.CAB/128/12 formerly C.M.(48) 24 conclusions 22 March 1948 The United States, together with the United Kingdom, favoured the annexation by Transjordan. The UK preferred to permit King Abdullah to annex the territory at the earliest date, while the United States preferred to wait until after the conclusion of negotiations brokered by the Palestine Conciliation Commission.Foreign relations of the United States, 1950. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, p. 1096
Entry of Transjordan forces into Mandate Palestine Following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine and Israel's declaration of independence on 14 May 1948, the Arab Legion, under the leadership of Sir John Bagot Glubb, known as Glubb Pasha, was ordered to enter Mandatory Palestine and secure the UN-designated Arab area.Sir John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs, London 1957, p. 200
Armistice By the end of the war, Jordanian forces had control over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. On 3 April 1949, Israel and Jordan signed an armistice agreement. The main points included: Jordanian forces remained in most positions they held in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Old City. Jordan withdrew its forces from its front posts overlooking the Sharon plain. In return, Israel agreed to allow Jordanian forces to take over positions in the West Bank previously held by Iraqi forces. A Special Committee was to be formed to make arrangements for safe movement of traffic between Jerusalem and the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, along the Latrun-Jerusalem Highway, free access to the Holy Places, and other matters. The committee was never formed, and access to the Holy Places was denied to Israelis.
The remainder of the area designated as part of an Arab state under the UN Partition Plan was partly occupied by Egypt (Gaza Strip), and partly occupied and annexed by Israel (West Negev, West Galilee, Jaffa). The intended international enclave of Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan.
Jordanian occupation and annexation The road to annexation After the invasion, Jordan began making moves to perpetuate the Jordanian occupation over the Arab part of Palestine. King Abdullah appointed governors on his behalf in the Arab cities of Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem and the Arab controlled part of Jerusalem, that were captured by Legion in the invasion. These governors were mostly Palestinians (including Aref al-Aref, Ibrahim Hashem and Ahmed Hilmi Pasha), and the Jordanians described them as "military" governors, so that it would not anger the other Arab states, which opposed Jordan's plans to incorporate the Arab part of Palestine into the kingdom. The king made other smaller moves towards the annexation of the West Bank: He ordered Palestinian policemen to wear the uniforms of the Jordanian police and its symbols; he instituted the use of Jordanian postage stamps instead of the British ones; Palestinian municipalities were not allowed to collect taxes and issue licenses; and the radio of Ramallah called the locals to disobey the instructions of pro-Husseini officials and obey those of the Jordanian-backed governors.Yoav Gelber, Independence Versus Nakba; Kinneret–Zmora-Bitan–Dvir Publishing, 2004, , pp.262–263
The December 1948 Jericho Conference, a meeting of prominent Palestinian leaders convened by King Abdullah I voted in favor of annexation into what was then Transjordan. Transjordan became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on 26 April 1949. Military occupation concluded on 2 November 1949 via promulgation of the Law Amending Public Administration Law in Palestine whereby the laws of Palestine were declared to remain applicable. In the Jordanian parliament, the West and East Banks received 30 seats each, having roughly equal populations. The first elections were held on 11 April 1950. Although the West Bank had not yet been annexed, its residents were permitted to vote.
Annexation A 1949 amendment to the British Mandate's 1928 Nationality Law effectively imposed Jordanian citizenship on the region's 420,000 local Palestinians, 280,000 Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and 70,000 Palestinian refugees in the East Bank, ahead of formal annexation on 24 April 1950. Then in 1954, Jordan's Nationality Law clarified the conditions under which Palestinian Arabs could obtain Jordanian citizenship.
Unlike any other Arab country to which they fled after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Palestinian refugees in the West Bank (and on the East Bank) were given Jordanian citizenship on the same basis as existing residents. Elihu Lauterpacht described it as a move that "entirely lacked legal justification." The annexation formed part of Jordan's "Greater Syria Plan" expansionist policy, and in response, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Syria joined Egypt in demanding Jordan's expulsion from the Arab League. A motion to expel Jordan from the League was prevented by the dissenting votes of Yemen and Iraq. On 12 June 1950, the Arab League declared the annexation was a temporary, practical measure and that Jordan was holding the territory as a "trustee" pending a future settlement. On 27 July 1953, King Hussein of Jordan announced that East Jerusalem was "the alternative capital of the Hashemite Kingdom" and would form an "integral and inseparable part" of Jordan. In an address to parliament in Jerusalem in 1960, Hussein called the city the "second capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan".
Only the United Kingdom formally recognized the annexation of the West Bank, de facto in the case of East Jerusalem. In 1950, the British extended formal recognition to the union between the Hashemite Kingdom and that part of Palestine under Jordanian control - with the exception of Jerusalem. The British government stated that it regarded the provisions of the Anglo-Jordan Treaty of Alliance of 1948 as applicable to all the territory included in the union. The United States Department of State also recognized this extension of Jordanian sovereignty.Joseph Massad said that the members of the Arab League granted de facto recognition and that the United States had formally recognized the annexation, except for Jerusalem. See Pakistan is claimed to have recognized Jordan's annexation too, but this is disputed. Despite Arab League opposition, the inhabitants of the West Bank became citizens of Jordan.
Tensions continued between Jordan and Israel through the early 1950s, with Palestinian guerrillas and Israeli commandos crossing the Green Line. Abdullah I of Jordan, who had become Emir of Transjordan in 1921 and King in 1923, was assassinated in July 1951 during a visit to the Jami Al-Aqsa on the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem by a Palestinian gunman following rumours that he was discussing a peace treaty with Israel. The trial found that this assassination had been planned by Colonel Abdullah el-Tell, ex-military governor of Jerusalem, and Musa Abdullah Husseini. He was succeeded by his son Talal and then his grandson Hussein.
Access to holy sites