What if Jordan still held much of the West Bank at the end of the Six Day War?

[Rob]

There are probably a few different PoDs to do this, maybe some from the Jordanian side, but I'll start off the bat with an Israeli based PoD.

The mercurial Moshe Dayan halts the offensive early, just after taking the Old City of Jerusalem. His rationale is not wanting to destabilize Hashemite Kingdom and not wanting too absorb an "excessive" Palestinian population.

Here were the battle lines at 1000 hours on 7 June, 1967, when the conquest of Jerusalem's Old City, including the Wailing Wall, was complete.

To see what this map looks like, go to this youtube video and pause it at 51 seconds it, where it illustrates the situation at 1000 on the 7th:

By this point the Israelis had slightly "thickened" their border along the central coast and had taken East Jerusalem, and the significant Jordanian-Palestinian towns of Jenin, Qalqilya and Ramallah.

However, the majority of West Bank land, and the significant Jordanian-Palestinian towns of Tulkarm, Nablus, Jericho, Hebron and Bethlehem were not yet occupied.

Dayan's revised guideline is that there should be no infantry or armored assaults on those remaining population centers and that any remaining threats for Jordanian forces should be silenced mainly by artillery or air strikes. Levi Eshkol defers to Dayan's judgment, even if Cabinet member Menachem Begin and some other officers complain.

Meanwhile, operations continue apace in the Sinai, and the war still concludes with the final Israeli operation to seize the Golan Heights.

In the ATL, Jordan will have a much harder time disowning itself from the Palestinian issue like it did between 1974 and 1984.

How is Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian history changed by this?

Are there any knock-on effects of significance for the Yom Kippur or Lebanon Wars? What about knock-on effects related to Camp David negotiations with Egypt in the 1970s, or other diplomacy between Israel and its neighbors in the 1990s?

[SolomonW]

Post by Rob
There are probably a few different PoDs to do this, maybe some from the Jordanian side, but I'll start off the bat with an Israeli based PoD.
The mercurial Moshe Dayan halts the offensive early, just after taking the Old City of Jerusalem. His rationale is not wanting to destabilize Hashemite Kingdom and not wanting too absorb an "excessive" Palestinian population.
Here were the battle lines at 1000 hours on 7 June, 1967, when the conquest of Jerusalem's Old City, including the Wailing Wall, was complete.
http://youtu.be/6dunofW0LyI
By this point the Israelis had slightly "thickened" their border along the central coast and had taken East Jerusalem, and the significant Jordanian-Palestinian towns of Jenin, Qalqilya and Ramallah.
However, the majority of West Bank land, and the significant Jordanian-Palestinian towns of Tulkarm, Nablus, Jericho, Hebron and Bethlehem were not yet occupied.
Dayan's revised guideline is that there should be no infantry or armored assaults on those remaining population centers and that any remaining threats for Jordanian forces should be silenced mainly by artillery or air strikes. Levi Eshkol defers to Dayan's judgment, even if Cabinet member Menachem Begin and some other officers complain.
Meanwhile, operations continue apace in the Sinai, and the war still concludes with the final Israeli operation to seize the Golan Heights.
In the ATL, Jordan will have a much harder time disowning itself from the Palestinian issue like it did between 1974 and 1984.
How is Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian history changed by this?
Are there any knock-on effects of significance for the Yom Kippur or Lebanon Wars? What about knock-on effects related to Camp David negotiations with Egypt in the 1970s, or other diplomacy between Israel and its neighbors in the 1990s?

The Israeli stopped in 1967, at a position that gave them secure defendable
borders. If the Israeli had stopped at your borders, they need more troops
to guard the West Bank.


Plus they have less to negotiate with the Palestinians over their proposed
state.

[Pete Barrett]

Post by SolomonW

Post by Rob
There are probably a few different PoDs to do this, maybe some from the
Jordanian side, but I'll start off the bat with an Israeli based PoD.
The mercurial Moshe Dayan halts the offensive early, just after taking
the Old City of Jerusalem. His rationale is not wanting to destabilize
Hashemite Kingdom and not wanting too absorb an "excessive"
Palestinian population.
Here were the battle lines at 1000 hours on 7 June, 1967, when the
conquest of Jerusalem's Old City, including the Wailing Wall, was
complete.
To see what this map looks like, go to this youtube video and pause it
at 51 seconds it, where it illustrates the situation at 1000 on the
http://youtu.be/6dunofW0LyI
By this point the Israelis had slightly "thickened" their border along
the central coast and had taken East Jerusalem, and the significant
Jordanian-Palestinian towns of Jenin, Qalqilya and Ramallah.
However, the majority of West Bank land, and the significant
Jordanian-Palestinian towns of Tulkarm, Nablus, Jericho, Hebron and
Bethlehem were not yet occupied.
Dayan's revised guideline is that there should be no infantry or
armored assaults on those remaining population centers and that any
remaining threats for Jordanian forces should be silenced mainly by
artillery or air strikes. Levi Eshkol defers to Dayan's judgment, even
if Cabinet member Menachem Begin and some other officers complain.
Meanwhile, operations continue apace in the Sinai, and the war still
concludes with the final Israeli operation to seize the Golan Heights.
In the ATL, Jordan will have a much harder time disowning itself from
the Palestinian issue like it did between 1974 and 1984.
How is Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian history changed by this?
Are there any knock-on effects of significance for the Yom Kippur or
Lebanon Wars? What about knock-on effects related to Camp David
negotiations with Egypt in the 1970s, or other diplomacy between
Israel and its neighbors in the 1990s?

The Israeli stopped in 1967, at a position that gave them secure
defendable borders. If the Israeli had stopped at your borders, they
need more troops to guard the West Bank.
Plus they have less to negotiate with the Palestinians over their
proposed state.

Fast forward to 1973. Egypt attacks across the Canal, as in OTL, but in
the ATL also in concert with Jordan. In the Sinai, things go much as OTL
(Egypt may do a bit better, because more Israeli troops are deployed
round Jerusalem, but it's hard to imagine Egyptian tanks sweeping over
the desert to threaten Tel Aviv), so basically a draw; similar in the
West Bank. As in OTL, there's international pressure for some sort of
peace agreement.

That agreement (the Camp David Accords in OTL) could be the same as OTL
with Egypt; but if the international community can persuade Jordan and
Israel to abandon those parts of the West Bank that they hold to set up a
Palestinian state, things in the future might be much better. (I don't
see such a Palestine as a significant military threat to Israel.)
Possible sticking points are:
The status of Jerusalem (though I don't know how important it was to the
Palestinians at the time).
Whether Yasser Arafat and the PLO are to be allowed to return to the
newly created Palestine (this being the time of Black September and not
very long after the attack at the Munich Olympics - though by the time of
Camp David, that was all in the past).

[The Horny Goat]

On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 19:04:13 -0700 (PDT), Rob

Post by Rob
There are probably a few different PoDs to do this, maybe some from the Jordanian side, but I'll start off the bat with an Israeli based PoD.
The mercurial Moshe Dayan halts the offensive early, just after taking the Old City of Jerusalem. His rationale is not wanting to destabilize Hashemite Kingdom and not wanting too absorb an "excessive" Palestinian population.
Here were the battle lines at 1000 hours on 7 June, 1967, when the conquest of Jerusalem's Old City, including the Wailing Wall, was complete.
http://youtu.be/6dunofW0LyI
By this point the Israelis had slightly "thickened" their border along the central coast and had taken East Jerusalem, and the significant Jordanian-Palestinian towns of Jenin, Qalqilya and Ramallah.
However, the majority of West Bank land, and the significant Jordanian-Palestinian towns of Tulkarm, Nablus, Jericho, Hebron and Bethlehem were not yet occupied.
Dayan's revised guideline is that there should be no infantry or armored assaults on those remaining population centers and that any remaining threats for Jordanian forces should be silenced mainly by artillery or air strikes. Levi Eshkol defers to Dayan's judgment, even if Cabinet member Menachem Begin and some other officers complain.
Meanwhile, operations continue apace in the Sinai, and the war still concludes with the final Israeli operation to seize the Golan Heights.
In the ATL, Jordan will have a much harder time disowning itself from the Palestinian issue like it did between 1974 and 1984.
How is Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian history changed by this?
Are there any knock-on effects of significance for the Yom Kippur or Lebanon Wars? What about knock-on effects related to Camp David negotiations with Egypt in the 1970s, or other diplomacy between Israel and its neighbors in the 1990s?

Interesting scenario though one wonders why this is all that much
harder than OTL since "Black September" (the group that were behind
the attack on the Munich Olympics) was based on a Palestinian attempt
to overthrow the Jordanian government in October 1970.

I would think in your scenario Hussein's regime would have a tougher
time hanging on though they might wel have gotten British and US
support.

The fact that the Palestinians called it "Black September" should tell
you what they thought of the outcome...