Greater Palestine (Arabic: فلسطين الكبرى) is a concept and term that refers to the desire to unify former parts of the land of Palestine, i.e. the lands that were part of Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan.[1][2]

Jordan

In the 19th century, the region east of the Jordan River was widely known as Eastern Palestine by travellers.[3]

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."[4]

During the Jordanian Civil War between Palestinian guerrilla groups and the Royal Jordanian Army, the Palestinians managed to take control of cities such as Ar-Ramtha, Irbid, and Jerash. They declared Irbid, the second-largest city as the capital of the Republic of Palestine.[5] 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.[6] 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.[7][8]

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 [Jordan].[9]

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 [i.e. King Hussein's] presence.[10]

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.

In 2023, the Dutch politician Geert Wilders's party, Party for Freedom (PVV) who holds the position that there is a Palestinian state in the eastern bank of Jordan since 1946 won a majority in the general election.[11] He reiterated his views shortly after the victory.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Shlay, Anne B.; Rosen, Gillad (8 July 2015). Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-7456-9602-7.
  2. ↑ Pipes, Daniel (26 March 1992). Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-536304-3 – via Google Books.
  3. ↑ Palestine in the Victorian Age: Colonial Encounters in the Holy Land. Bloomsbury. 22 September 2022. ISBN 9780755643158.
  4. ↑ Massad, Joseph A. (11 September 2001). Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-50570-3 – via Google Books.
  5. ↑ Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography. Oxford University Press, USA. 3 March 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-518127-2.
  6. ↑ Migdal, Joel S. (18 February 2014). Shifting Sands: The United States in the Middle East. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-53634-9 – via Google Books.
  7. ↑ 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.
  8. ↑ 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.
  9. ↑ Karsh, Efraim; Kumaraswamy, P. R. (12 September 2018). Israel, the Hashemites, and the Palestinians: The Fateful Triangle. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-7146-5434-8 – via Google Books.
  10. ↑ Pipes, Daniel (26 March 1992). Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-536304-3 – via Google Books.
  11. ↑ "Uproar After Dutch Politician Geert Wilders declared 'Jordan is Palestine!' - PiPa News". 26 November 2023.
  12. ↑

Bibliography

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