Talk:Jordanian annexation of the West Bank

Requested move 4 January 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Colonestarrice (talk) 08:15, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Jordanian annexation of the West Bank → Jordanian rule of the West Bank – More than a renaming, I propose an expansion of the scope of this article. It was previously named "Jordanian occupation of the West Bank", which didn't make sense since the occupation lasted 1948-1950, but the entirety of Jordanian presence lasted 1948-1967, so it was renamed "Jordanian annexation of the West Bank". However, this also doesn't really make sense, as it limited the scope of the article to the 1950 annexation act. So, instead of creating a new article dealing with the scope of the Jordanian 1948-1967 presence, why not just rename this article to "Jordanian rule of the West Bank", where the 1950 act of annexation would have a dedicated and detailed section. It should be noted that this would prove a controversial renaming/repurposing, as it would lent arguments to rename Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem. So, it might be better after all to create a new article named "Jordanian rule of the West Bank" instead. These are two options the discussion should focus on. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:05, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

There are many things that could be included in such article. 1948 Abdullah-Meir collusion, 1953 Qibya massacre, 1956 Suleiman Nabulsi democratically elected government, 1958 Arab Federation with Iraq, 1964 PLO formation, 1966 Samu incident, 1967 Six Day War, even the 1959-1966 Miss Jordan beauty pageant; maybe also 1988 Jordanian disengagement. Basically a unified history of Jordan and the West Bank. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:05, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose This proposal is not dissimilar to that proposed in 2017 -> Jordanian West Bank which yielded a consensus for the current title instead. Then in 2020, the RFC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration included in its close "Although I do not agree that the no-consensus outcome of a requested move discussion in April 2020 should affect our word choices, editors do prefer "annexation" over both "occupation" and "rule"." Nothing has changed since then. There is already a location for the items nom wishes to add, namely West Bank. Selfstudier (talk) 14:53, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * They might be some alternative terms to play with. While rule carries certain sovereign connotations, a word like 'governance', for instance, does not - on the contrary, a word such as 'governance' might be truer to the sense of the meaning that is being angled towards here - that is political control and policy setting regardless of the legal guise of the setup. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:29, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see that "administration" was already discussed further up. Yes, it does seem like simply starting a new article along these lines may be simpler. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:48, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Too many details to be added to a subsection, needs either a renaming here, or another standalone article; and if it's the latter then what would it be called? Makeandtoss (talk) 20:14, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment The current structure of the article is very focused on the 1948->1950 period. (Then it jumps straight to post-1967.) I can see the case for an article on the period of Jordanian administration (and its aftermath), but at the moment I lean to disagreeing that repurposing this article is the best way to go about it. CMD (talk) 16:34, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Holy sites
Thanks for acknowledging good faith. Your revert was also in good faith. The text we are disputing is below:

Much of it was added in this edit in 2010, with non-RS sources, and other sources have since been added. But they don’t quite say what it says here. And the “Letter Dated 68/03/05 from the Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-General” is certainly not WP:RS in wikivoice.

A couple of years ago a good exchange of sources on part of the above was held at Talk:Islamization of Jerusalem.

The paragraph is not fit for purpose in its current form.

Onceinawhile (talk) 07:21, 11 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I altered it a bit, how about? Selfstudier (talk) 07:33, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 31 March 2024
Can someone add a link to Jordan in the first prargraph? thank you! דג ירוק (talk) 07:26, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It might be absent because there is a link in the infobox and the infobox comes before the lead (maybe...). I don't know the norms, so I await with interest someone who does. I agree a link there would be better than no link there. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:40, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It could also be unlinked because MOS:OVERLINK says country names generally shouldn't be linked. I think there's a strong case for making an exception for Jordan, which could easily be misinterpreted as a person, the river, etc. However, given that it's in the title of this article it might be reasonable to assume that readers are familiar. Jamedeus (talk) 17:25, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles should be based on source material and give proper context
I have undone four edits by Zero that do not reflect the cited sources.

Here are the main differences: 1) Zero claims at the Jericho Conference, "hundreds of Palestinian notables in the West Bank gathered and accepted Jordanian rule." This makes it seem like a bunch of Palestinians decided among themselves spontaneously to accept Jordanian rule.

1) In fact, as the sources clearly show, King Abdullah carefully invited selected leaders that he knew would endorse him and Jordanian rule. The Conference result was pre-ordained. When an authoritarian monarch who occupies your land invites a selected group of local leaders to endorse him, that is hardly a spontaneous outpouring of support. It should be mentioned in the article that Abdullah convened and chose the participants at the conference.

2) Zero claims that the Arab League "having received assurances from Jordan, resolved to treat the annexed area as being held in trust until the Palestine question was resolved." It sounds like the Arab League was OK with the annexation. That is false.

2) In fact, as the sources clearly show by their own records, The Arab League censured Jordan for its "illegal and void annexation" and decided to treat Jordan's status in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) as no more than that of a "trustee" pending a future settlement. The trusteeship was never a "resolution" of what the Arab League unequivocally considered illegal and void annexation.

3) Zero says the USA accepted the annexation. 3) Sources show the USA never accepted the annexation.

4) Claim of no discrimination against Palestinians under Jordanian-rule of West Bank is simply not reflected in contemporary sources. There were many documented claims of discrimination.GreekParadise (talk) 18:00, 19 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm away from home and won't have time to do much for a few days. Most of these things are not my text but were restored by me after they were removed without adequate explanation. Anyway... (1) More on the Jericho conference, including the various views about it, could be included. (2) The Arab League made two decisions regarding the annexation, and the sentence is a fair summary of the second one. (3) The USA informed Jordan through diplomatic channels that it did not usually give formal recognition to border changes but the annexation met its approval. This is documented in both primary and secondary sources. (4) "more than 600,000 of them (about 1/4 of the Palestinians in Jordan) rendered stateless with no citizenship and no rights"--two problems. The source this comes from does not say they were rendered stateless. This 600,000 refers to the Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip who were not given citizenship when the West Bank was annexed. Also the source says "rights of citizenship" not "rights". That part of the article needs revision from better sources. (x) "legal or illegal" in another place is an editorial comment not present in the source. (y) Probably more stuff but I have to run. Zerotalk 03:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 * See this source Selfstudier (talk) 12:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Four edits follow the sources. Please do not revert without any source to back it up.

1) The Jericho Conference was convened by King Abdallah of Transjordan. Does anyone seriously dispute this? Because the entire wikipedia article on the Jericho Conference says so and cites sources.

2) The USA never officially legally recognized Jordan's annexation of the West Bank. That one minor diplomat said the de facto status quo was "accepted" while expressly denying the USA gave official legal recognition to it does not make an official legal recognition. When the USA officially legally recognizes something, it says so expressly. As a matter of U.S. domestic law, the Supreme Court has held that “the power to recognize foreign states and governments and their territorial bounds is exclusive to the Presidency.” Zivotofsky v. Kerry, 135 S. Ct. 2076, 2094 (2015). (For example, when the USA legally recognized Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights in 2019, it did so by Presidential Proclamation (9852). Both Trump and Biden said so officially. Not some minor diplomat.) If you can find me a single official statement by then-President Truman or his office or any other White House that unambiguously says the US legally recognized Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, show it. You can't. It didn't happen. And dozens of pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian sources expressly say it didn't happen. See, e.g., https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/134 https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-jordan-is-palestine-idea-resurfaces-again/ https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/martinkramer/files/the_west_bank_was_annexed_once_before._it_ended_in_regret._.pdf

3) The Arab League unanimously agreed Jordan's annexation was illegal. According to the sources (Benvenisti and two contemporary NYT articles), they censured Jordan and almost expelled it before agreeing to a "long-term postponement" of the problem. Please do not revert to an unsourced POV.

4) The official UN source shows Israel objected to Jordan's admission in 1955. When a contemporary official source says something, it doesn't matter how many uninformed commentators claim the fact didn't happen. There is no source of credibility equal to the contemporary United Nations account as to what happened at the United Nations on that day. Does anyone seriously dispute this?

Please do not revert on these four issues until you've specifically addressed these issues on the talk page.GreekParadise (talk) 22:19, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I have clarified the US position in the lead which was misrepresented by omission. The US did approve, just not officially, that is what they themselves say and that is what secondary sources say. Israel objecting to Jordan UN admission is undue for the lead and anyway out of scope. Selfstudier (talk) 10:08, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Recent addition
The title of this article is the "Jordanian annexation of the West Bank" which was an administrative mission completed in 1949, impacted in 1967 and abandoned in 1988. Why do you think information belonging to after 1988 relates to 1949-1988? Also your recent changes are in violation of WP:BRD. Makeandtoss (talk) 16:37, 20 June 2024 (UTC)


 * As you have inserted disputed content, you are required to demonstrate consensus for them per WP:ONUS. I am adding a POV tag until then. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:02, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Just to point out that the POV tag was inserted due to the change from the sourced "The naturalized Palestinians enjoyed equal opportunities in all sectors of the state without discrimination, and they were given half of the seats of the Jordanian parliament." to an irrelevant statement and information not within the 1948-1967/1988 scope. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:27, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Understood. I cut it to a bare minimum and removed the tag, but please review what is there and consider in particular the quality and relevance of the sources. Zerotalk 12:44, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * can you elaborate? The citizenship and state book is reliable and I think this is an important aspect that should be elaborated on as annexations usually involve a degree of animosity and discrimination between the occupied population and the occupying state, which isn’t applicable here between two very similar “nations”. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:51, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Also the two recently added sources of Amnesty and minority rights do not relate to the sentence or the scope of the article and can be removed. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:54, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I haven't spent time on that part. If there are irrelevant sources, remove them. The citizenship and state book is fine. If you can find a book of Plascov called "The Palestinian Refugees in Jordan 1948-1957" it has a lot more detail and you can find there that the situation was a bit more complex than the previous sentence suggests. Zerotalk 13:55, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I have went through the book. Aside from discrimination in the development policy towards the two banks, which does not specify if it had indeed been a major component of that period since the book only concerns itself with 1948-1957, the conclusions agree with the citizenship and state book in stating that all avenues were opened to the Palestinians on an individual citizen level. The other mentions of discrimination seems to be attributed to complaints, rather than endorsed and accepted by the book. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:41, 23 June 2024 (UTC)