User talk:Harlan wilkerson/Transjordan joint mandate 1947

When the independence of Transjordan was announced the Jewish Agency said that Great Britain did not have the legal competence to unilaterally alter the joint mandate or to put any part of its territory under foreign control. Many states felt the mandate had been terminated illegally and that UN permission was required. The United States, the Soviet Union, Poland, and others refused to recognize Transjordan until the question of Palestine was resolved. In November of 1947, the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine considered proposals to give the Transjordanian port of Aqaba to the Jewish State as part of the UN Plan of Partition.

After WWI, Transjordan had been a newly created state that acquired territory from the Ottoman Empire and Hedjaz. The treaty of Lausanne (1923) provided that Ottoman subjects who were habitual residents became nationals of the newly-created states that acquired the territories from Turkey. The Emir Abdullah was living in Transjordan when the treaty was ratified and was not a foreigner. High Commissioner Samuel insisted that Maan and Aqaba be annexed to Transjordan during the Hedjaz-Nejd war. The Colonial Office was opposed because it would increase the costs of maintaining the Emirate and lowering costs had been Churchill's goal. It also would increase the share of the Ottoman debt. Britain and Saudi Arabia, 1925-1939: the Imperial Oasis, By Clive Leatherdale Routledge, 1983, ISBN 0714632201, page 39

Aqaba and Maan were annexed to Transjordan from Hedjaz in June of 1925. The 1928 Citizenship Law made everyone living in the territory prior to 1924 a citizen, because the originary date [based upon Article 30 of the Treaty of Lausanne] was 1923. See Nationalist voices in Jordan: the street and the state, By Betty Signe Anderson, University of Texas Press, 2005, ISBN 0292706251, page 41 

When the UK announced plans for Transjordanian independence, the final Assembly of the League of Nations and the General Assembly both adopted resolutions which indicated support for the proposal. However, the Jewish Agency and many legal scholars raised objections that only the Council of the League could alter or modify the terms of a Mandate. Duncan Hall said that each mandate was in the nature of a treaty, and that being treaties, the mandates could not be amended unilaterally. John Marlowe noted that despite Transjordan's theoretical independence as conferred by the 1946 Treaty, the Arab Legion continued to be used, under nominal Transjordanian but actual British command, for police duties and for frontier control in Palestine. John Baggot Glubb wrote that the Legion had permanent garrisions in Ramallah and Gaza. The Jewish Agency spokesmen said that Transjordan was an integral part of Palestine, and that Great Britain could only postpone or withold the provisions of the Mandate regarding the Jewish National Home, but not annul them. The Agency claimed that according to Article 80 of the UN Charter, the Jewish people still had a secured interest in the territory of Transjordan.

The Anglo-American treaty, also known as the Palestine Mandate Convention, permitted the US to delay any unilateral British action to terminate the mandate. The earlier proclamation of the independence of Syria and Lebanon had said "the independence and sovereignty of Syria and Lebanon will not affect the juridical situation as it results from the Mandate Act. Indeed, this situation could be changed only with the agreement of the Council of the League of Nations, with the consent of the Government of the United States, a signatory of the Franco-American Convention of 4 April 1924".

The U.S. adopted the policy that formal termination of the mandate with respect to Transjordan would follow the earlier precedent established by the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. That meant termination would generally be recognised upon the admission of Transjordan into the United Nations as a fully independent country. Members of the U.S. Congress introduced resolutions demanding that the U.S. Representative to the United Nations be instructed to seek postponement of any international determination of the status of Transjordan until the future status of Palestine as a whole was determined. The U.S. State Department also received a long detailed legal argument from Rabbis Wise and Silver objecting to the independence of Transjordan.

On 29 August 1946 Transjordan's application for membership in the United Nations was declined. The President of the Security Council speaking in his capacity of the representative of Poland said "we feel that in the evolution of Transjordan from the status of a country under a League of Nations mandate to an independent status, certain legal procedures must be taken; namely, the legal procedures which are required by the Covenant of the League of Nations. We feel that these legal procedures have not been observed in this case. Accordingly, we have asked for a postponement of the adoption of Transjordan's application until the legal doubts are cleared up. These legal doubts are not only our own, but I find they are also shared by the Government of the United States of America. On 23 April 1946, Secretary of State Mr. Byrnes stated: "It would be premature for the United States Government to take any decision with respect to the question of recognition of Transjordan as an independent State." I think that the same legal doubts which we share were in his mind. There is a further legal difficulty, as we see it; namely, that Transjordan was part of a joint mandate with Palestine. The question of Palestine, which I do not want to prejudge, is a very difficult and, as we know today, troublesome question. We would not want again to take steps which would in any way prejudice the settlement of the Palestine problem." --Minutes of the 57th Session of the Security Council, S/PV.57 pages 100-101 (pdf file pgs 3-4 of 52)

At the 1947 Pentagon Conference, the USA advised the UK it was withholding recognition of Transjordan pending a decision on the Palestine question by the United Nations.

A few days before the November 29, 1947 decision on partition, U.S. Secretary of State Marshall noted frequent references had been made by the Ad Hoc Committee regarding the desirability of the Jewish State having both the Negev and an "outlet to the Red Sea and the Port of Aqaba." He wrote Ambassador Austin saying that Aqaba was not in Palestine, and mentioned the problem of maintaining lines of communication to a port located there.