Nsdene Goldfoot
In the first article I spoke about Syria and Lebanon. There were other states. Let's look at Jordan, and then Iraq.
Transjordan was the name used for the area of Palestine East of the Jordan River. Geographically it is divided into 5 parts; separated by deep river valleys: going north to south: GOLAN, GILEAD, AMMON, MOAB, mountains of Mt SEIR.
The area of Transjordan in 1921 was detached from the area originally incorporated under the Palestine Mandate. It was made a separate Emirate under Abdullah who renamed it THE HASHEMITE KINGDOM OF JORDAN in 1946. Jews had been led to believe that this land was to be part of the Jewish Homeland.
Abdullah (1882-1951) was an Emir, later in 1946 the king of Transjordan. He was the 2nd son of Hussein, sherif of Mecca and later king of Hejaz.(Sherif (also transliterated Sharīf Arabic: شريف) is an Arabic word meaning "noble", "highborn", or "honourable". Being a 2nd son meant that he had no land of his own to rule. He needed one.
His support of Britain during WWI led to his nomination as ruler of Transjordan in 1923. He was credited with having a "modern attitude" toward Zionism and negotiated with Chaim Weizmann in 1922 but, showed his true colors by invading Israel in 1948 along with all the others. It could have been "peer pressure." or mob hysteria. Nevertheless, he was an invader.
Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein (Arabic: عبد الله الأول بن الحسين, Abd Allāh Al-Awal ibn Al-Husayn, 2 February 1882 – 20 July 1951) was the ruler of Jordan and its predecessor state, Transjordan, from 1921 until his assassination in 1951. He was Emir of Transjordan from 11 April 1921 to 25 May 1946 under a British protectorate, and was king of an independent nation from 25 May 1946 until his assassination. He was a 38th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad, as he belongs to the Hashemite family.
Born in Mecca, Hejaz, Ottoman Empire, Abdullah was the second of four sons of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, and his first wife, Abdiyya bint Abdullah. He was educated in Istanbul and Hejaz. From 1909 to 1914, Abdullah sat in the Ottoman legislature, as deputy for Mecca, but allied with Britain during World War I. Between 1916 and 1918, he played a key role as architect and planner of the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule that was led by his father Sharif Hussein. Abdullah personally led guerrilla raids on garrisons.
Abdullah became emir of Transjordan in April 1921, which he established by his own initiative. He became king in 1946 after Transjordan was granted independence in 1946 (the country's name became simply Jordan in 1949). Abdullah ruled until 1951 when he was assassinated in Jerusalem while attending Friday prayers at the entrance of the Al-Aqsa mosque by a Palestinian who feared that the King was going to make peace with Israel. He was succeeded by his eldest son Talal.
( It was originally part of the Jewish Homeland on the docket promised to the Jews). In 1948 he took over the Arab area of Palestine but these were lost to Israel by his grandson, Hussein, in the Six Day War of 1967. Its population in 1990 was 3,000,000 of which many were originally Palestinian Arabs who had made war on Jordan. The king married one of them. The capital of Jordan is Amman. Today the population stands at 10,458,413 with 97.2% being Muslims. It had been the 30th largest Muslim majority country in 2011 with 5,568,565 population. Islam is the state religion.
I lived in Israel from 1980-1985 and during that time watched TV and could get Jordan. We watched something from there every night and saw how they ended their programming with a lot of army fanfare of marching, etc. One time they showed how brave they were by biting animals such as a puppy and a snake, as I remember today. It was horrid! In Safed, we were very close to Jordan.
On 26 October 1994, Jordan and Israel signed the peace treaty in a ceremony held in the Arava valley of Israel, north of Eilat and near the Jordanian border. Prime Minister Rabin and Prime Minister Abdelsalam al-Majali signed the treaty and the President of Israel Ezer Weizman shook hands with King Hussein.
The Western powers had long believed that they would eventually become dominant in the area claimed by the weak central government of the Ottoman Empire. Britain anticipated a need to secure the area because of its strategic position on the route to Colonial India, and perceived itself as locked in a struggle with Russia for imperial influence known as The Great Game. These powers disagreed over their contradictory post-war aims and made several dual and triple agreements.
Mesopotamia became Iraq. In May 1908, after seven years' searching, oil was finally found in significant amounts at Masjed Soleyman, in the southwest corner of Persia, close to the border with Turkish Mesopotamia (now Iraq). One year later, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was incorporated in London.
Mosul, a town in Iraq which was home to Jews (1,100 in 1903) was allocated to France under the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement and was subsequently given to Britain under the 1918 Clemenceau–Lloyd George Agreement. Great Britain and Turkey disputed control of the former Ottoman province of Mosul in the 1920s. Under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne Mosul fell under the British Mandate of Mesopotamia, but the new Turkish republic claimed the province as part of its historic heartland. A three-person League of Nations committee went to the region in 1924 to study the case and in 1925 recommended the region remain connected to Iraq, and that the UK should hold the mandate for another 25 years, to assure the autonomous rights of the Kurdish population. Turkey rejected this decision. Nonetheless, Britain, Iraq and Turkey made a treaty on 5 June 1926, that mostly followed the decision of the League Council. Mosul stayed under British Mandate of Mesopotamia until Iraq was granted independence in 1932 by the urging of King Faisal, though the British retained military bases and transit rights for their forces in the country. By 1948, all the Jews of Mosul emigrated, mostly to Israel.
Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi was King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria or Greater Syria in 1920, and was King of Iraq from 23 August 1921 to 1933. He was the third son of Hussein bin Ali, the Grand Sharif of Mecca, who had proclaimed himself King of the Arab lands in October 1916. He was also in agreement with the Jews in creating the Jewish Homeland and hoped his people would learn skills from them. However, peer pressure changed his mind later.
The Turks of the Ottoman Empire dominated Mesopotamia until 1917 at the end of WWI when they lost it to the allies. Jews had been living in Bagdad where they had some status in its commerce. That namae-change decision eventually went in favor of the French, but in compensation, on Aug. 23, 1921, the British installed Feisal as king of Mesopotamia, changing the official name of the country at that time to Iraq, an Arabic word which, Fromkin says, means “well-rooted country.”
Iraq became independent in 1932 and this was accompanied by persecutions of the Jews. Hundreds of Baghdad Jews were killed and wounded in a pogrom during the revolt of Rashid Ali in 1941. Iraq soldiers were in the 1948 attack on Israel on the central front. Iraq has never concluded an armistice agreement with Israel. The Jews left in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. All their property in Iraq was confiscated. 123,500 Jews reached Israel since 1948. For those who had remained, they were subject to severe restrictions, especially after the Six Day War of 67.
Well before 1948 when Israel was reborn, oil was found in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabian oil was first discovered by the Americans in commercial quantities at Dammam oil well No. 7 in 1938 in what is now modern day Dhahran. This caused all the countries to think twice about the importance of ALL of the Middle East.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-09-02-bk-1977-story.html#:~:text=That%20decision%20eventually%20went%20in,%E2%80%9Cwell%2Drooted%20country.%E2%80%9D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_the_Ottoman_Empire
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