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Greater Palestine (Template:Lang-ar) is an irredentist notion used by some Palestinian nationalists seeking to establish a Palestinian nation state over the whole of former Mandatory Palestine. It is also an expression of aspirations to unify both banks of the Jordan River over time. Some Palestinian nationalists limit their demands to the lands on which Israel was established, which is expressed in the phrase from the river to the sea.

In a statement by Salah Khalaf, the deputy chief of the PLO at the time, about the unity of the two banks of the river, he said:

I say that the day immediately after the establishment of the Palestinian state, we will begin unity with Jordan. I don't care what kind of unity this may be, because we are one people and have the same history.

History

The idea of Greater Palestine has existed since the times of the Roman Empire, in the form of the province of Syria Palestina. It included the Golan Heights, northern Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and southern Lebanon. The idea persisted through the Byzantine Empire, as the province of Palaestina Prima, later succeeded by the provinces of Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Salutaris. The area of these provinces extended over huge distances, from the Sinai Peninsula to the Golan Heights.

In 1920, during the later stages of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom established Mandatory Palestine in the south of the Levant. The Emirate of Transjordan was set up as a British protectorate within the Mandate, but outside the stipulations of the Balfour Declaration.

Jordan

In a press conference, Ahmad Shukeiri declared that Jordan is "the homeland of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Jordan's people are its people." He also reminded that "the return of the East Bank to the motherland, in mind and conscience, and in spirit and body, is a basic step on the road of the return of the stolen homeland."

During the Jordanian Civil War between Palestinian guerrilla groups and the Jordanian Army, the Palestinians managed to take control of cities such as Ar-Ramtha, Irbid, and Jerash. This was seen as an attempt to take over all of Jordan as a first step to liberate the rest of "historical Palestine" as seen by the PLO. However, the PLO would be defeated in mid-1971 and exiled to Lebanon.

In the early 1970s, the Palestinians began to be stereotyped in Jordan. Jordanians started to refer to Palestinian-Jordanians as Baljikiyyah (Belgians). This epithet continues to be used as a national insult against Palestinian Jordanians today.

A 1975 article by the PLO:

North Vietnam, which was used as the base for the success of the revolution in the South, must be our model. ... Since we cannot use all Arab countries to that end, for fear of collision between the strategy of our resolution and that of those countries, we must change the regime in Transjordan or topple it, in order to turn that territory into the firm base of our Revolution. ... We must then strive to abrogate the Jordanian entity and substitute for the revolutionary entity... We ought not, however, fall into the trap of the Israelis who claim that Jordan is the homeland of the Palestinians where they can establish their state. ... But Palestinian Transjordan can only be the first towards Greater Palestine, insofar that it will be a base for our expansion west of the River .

Yasser Arafat in letter to Jordanian Students' Congress in Baghdad on 12 November 1974:

Jordan is ours, Palestine is ours, and we shall build our national entity on the whole of this land after having freed it of both the Zionist presence and the reactionary traitor's presence.

Until the late 1980s, the PLO continued to make irredentist claims by expressing their desire for Jordan to be part of the next Palestinian state.

See also

• Palestinian nationalism
• Paulet–Newcombe Agreement
• Treaty of London (1946)
• King Hussein's federation plan
• Jordanian disengagement from the West Bank

Bibliography

• Ayoob, Mohammed (2014). The Middle East in World Politics (Routledge Revivals). Washington D.C.: Routledge, 2014. ISBN 978-1317811275.

References

1. Pipes, Daniel (26 March 1992). Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195363043 – via Google Books.
2. "خلفية: الفلسطينيون في الأردن: معطيات وبيانات وأرقام".
3. Magnus, Ralph H. (18 January 1990). "The Hashemite Connection: Current Issues in Jordanian-Palestinian Relations".
4. Massad, Joseph A. (11 September 2001). Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231505703 – via Google Books.
5. Migdal, Joel S. (18 February 2014). Shifting Sands: The United States in the Middle East. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231536349 – via Google Books.
6. Massad, Joseph (26 May 2009). Heacock, Roger (ed.). Producing the Palestinian as Other : Jordan and the Palestinians*. Contemporain publications. Presses de l’Ifpo. pp. 273–292. ISBN 9782351592656 – via OpenEdition Books.
7. Massad, Joseph (26 May 2009). "Producing the Palestinian as Other : Jordan and the Palestinians". In Heacock, Roger (ed.). Temps et espaces en Palestine : Flux et résistances identitaires. Contemporain publications. Presses de l’Ifpo. pp. 273–292. ISBN 9782351592656 – via OpenEdition Books.
8. Karsh, Efraim; Kumaraswamy, P. R. (12 September 2018). Israel, the Hashemites, and the Palestinians: The Fateful Triangle. Psychology Press. ISBN 9780714654348 – via Google Books.
9. Pipes, Daniel (26 March 1992). Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195363043 – via Google Books.

• Palestine
• Jordan
• Israel

• Irredentism
• Palestinian nationalism