- Decapolis:league of 10 ancient Greek cities in easter Palestine that was formed after the Roman conquest of Palestine in 63 BC. The name Decapolis also denotes the roughly contiguous territory formed by these cities, all but one of which lay east of the Jordan River. The 10 cities of the league were Scythopolis (modern Bet She’an, Israel), Hippos, Gadara, Raphana, Dion (or Dium), Pella, Gerasa, Philadelphia (modern Amman, Jordan), Canatha, and Damascus (now the capital of Syria). Damascus lay the farthest north, while Philadelphia lay the farthest south.The cities participated in the Decapolis as a means of mutual protection and security against their Semitic neighbours. The league was subject to the Roman governor of Syria, though his authority was somewhat tenuous in eastern Palestine. The cities of the Decapolis created a rich Hellenistic culture that produced the philosopher-satirist Menippus, among other figures. The league survived until the 2nd century AD.
– Encyclopedia Britanica, at Britannica.com www.britannica.com
- “The Dead Sea, as you have heard ever since you were children at school, has no outlet, and you can see at once that if it had any connection with the great body of seas and oceans, it would be an inlet. If, as Chinese Gordon proposed a few years ago, a canal were cut so that the waters of the Mediterranean Sea might pour in, they would swell the surface of the Dead Sea thirteen hundred feet up the sides of the mountains on either side; they would rise above the Jordan proportionately; the river Jordan would disappear; the Dead Sea and the lake of Galilee would disappear; and in the place of these a long body of sea water would divide western from eastern Palestine.”These characteristics distinguish the Jordan from all the other rivers of the earth, and make its formation a profound study to the geologist – one that has never yet been explained in attempting to trace back the history of this old world.”- J. W. McGarvey, Louisville, Kentucky, August 27, 1893
- “[The Jordan river] will not do as Palestine’s eastern boundary. Our duty as Mandatory is to make Jewish Palestine not a struggling State but one that is capable of a vigorous and independent national life.”- The Times of London, September 19, 1919
- Let me start by stating that the word “Palestine” had no clear cut geographical denotation, and, represented no political identity before the First World War. “Palestinians” are therefore all people, Jews, Arabs, Druze, Christians, Armenians, Melchites, Greek Orthodox and Bahai, etc., who live in the Territory of the Palestine Mandate as constituted in 1920. It is also a Fact that Jordan and Israel have emerged as successor States of the “Palestine Mandate”.The Palestine Mandate as granted to Great Britain at the San Remo Conference of 1920, and, confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922, covered a territory of 45,820 square miles East and West of the Jordan river. Its boundaries reached from the Mediterranean in the West to Iraq border in the East. Thus, all of Jordan was encompassed within the border of Palestine. Trans-Jordan (Jordan) was in fact what the relevant League of Nations file called “The Trans-Jordan Province of Palestine” until the last meeting of the League on April 18, 1946.As everyone knows by now that on September 16, 1922, two months after the confirmation of the said Mandate, and, in breach of its Mandatory obligations, Britain refused to apply the “Jewish National Home” provision of the Mandate in Eastern Palestine (Trans-Jordan Province of Palestine). It was under an authorization contained in Article 25 of the Mandate that the British Government obtained the League’s consent to “postpone or withhold” the application of the Jewish National Home Provision of the Mandate.
Article 25 by its own legal terms, defines the Eastern Border of the Palestine Mandate “In the territories lying between the Jordan (river) and the eastern boundaries of Palestine” means that Palestine reached its easternmost border with Iraq.
In what the relevant file of the League of Nations describes as the “Trans-Jordan province of Palestine,” a local administration was established within the Palestine Mandate, headed by the Emir Abdullah, older brother of King Feisal of Iraq. Jews were not allowed from that moment on to establish or live in Trans-Jordan. But, this did not mean that Trans-Jordan was legally separated from Palestine in any way as far as the Arab population of the country was concerned.
There was no separate government; unlike the situation of the French Mandate of Syria-Lebanon. Palestine was meant to remain whole. Trans-Jordan by now called Transjordan, remained under the Palestine Mandate and was administered under the authority of the High Commissioner of Jerusalem. The residents of Transjordan traveled under the authority of the Commissioner and his protection. Under International Law their Nationality then was “Palestinian.”
Transjordan was given Independence by the Attlee-Bevin government in May 25, 1946, nine months later, in February 1947, the British submitted the truncated “Palestine Mandate”, now restricted to an area of 10,100 square miles to the United Nations for its decision. About two years later, the kingdom of Transjordan, later renamed Jordan in 1950, occupied 37,730 square miles, and, the state of Israel 7,999 square miles. About 100 square miles were occupied by Egypt in the Gaza district. Thus that first partition of Palestine had left the Arabs with 82.5% of the Mandate.
Later the loss of the “West Bank” territory – the province of Samaria and Judea – which the British led army of King Abdullah of Transjordan occupied in 1948, and which Israel liberated in 1967 represents 4,5% of Palestine. The Kingdom of Jordan today occupies 77% of the country (Palestine Mandate). Considering that the whole of the “Mandated Palestine” territory according to the Balfour Declaration was to be the of Jewish National State, the Arabs emerged with the lion’s share.
Especially when Article 5 of the Palestine Mandate, “The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestinian Territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the government of any foreign power.”
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© Yahoodi