105: Why don’t we talk about Jordan?
Ask Haviv Anything
Haviv Rettig Gur
4.9 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2026
⏱️ 15 minutes
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Summary
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.Our current question: why don’t we talk about Jordan? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The next question is, what is Jordan's role in the ongoing conflict? This is such a |
| 0:11.2 | fascinating place to really shed some light, to really turn the spotlight. Jordan is both |
| 0:16.1 | absolutely central to the Israeli-Palestinian question, to the Israeli-Palestinian story, and also almost |
| 0:22.1 | entirely invisible from that story. And what am I talking about? In 1948, Jordan, or Trans-Jordan, |
| 0:29.2 | as it was called then, had probably the most competent Arab army in the war, the Arab Legion. |
| 0:35.5 | It was led by British officers. It was fairly well trained. It defeated in |
| 0:40.6 | multiple battles, the Israeli forces, and it ended up at the end of the war holding the territory |
| 0:47.2 | known today as the West Bank. It didn't used to be called the West Bank. It is biblically known |
| 0:53.5 | as Judea and Samaria. In Hebrew, that is still the name, Judea and Samaria is the northern part. Judea is the southern part. But it became the West Bank because if you're Jordanian and you're sitting in the city of Amman, the capital of Jordan, and you basically hold down the entire east bank of the river. And when you define yourself by that |
| 1:12.5 | river and you look west, the west bank of the river is Judea and Samaria. And so the name West |
| 1:18.8 | bank is a Jordanian name for the territory. And why did Jordan name it? Because in 48, 49, in that war, |
| 1:25.9 | it held that territory. |
| 1:28.5 | It defeated Israeli attempts to take various parts of it. |
| 1:31.3 | There was actually a serious Israeli consideration during the war in February of 1949 after |
| 1:36.8 | the Egyptian army had left the 48 war, had signed a deal, a ceasefire in Rhodes, and |
| 1:43.0 | withdrawn back to Egypt. There was a serious Israeli conversation |
| 1:47.7 | in the Israeli War Cabinet contemplating the possibility of maybe attacking the Jordanian |
| 1:53.3 | positions and trying to take the West Bank. In the end, the decision was decided not to do it, |
| 1:57.7 | and mainly the reason given was that Israel didn't want to end up in control of |
| 2:01.7 | vast numbers of Palestinians in the Palestinian cities and towns of the West Bank. Some of the |
| 2:06.1 | considerations were also geopolitical. They didn't want to upset the British. Jordan was basically |
| 2:10.8 | under British protection and angering the British in that war by expanding into what is Jordanian |
... |
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