Egypt and Jordan's complex, complicated relationship with neighbouring Palestine

Reader question: “It doesn’t seem that the Gaza conflict is going to be resolved very soon. Why don’t Egypt and Jordan open their borders and let these victims in and give them refuge? The high impenetrable walls built by these two countries horrify me.”

Answer: Gaza has been a conflict zone as far back as the Philistines’ ancient seaborne invasions. The modern Gaza conflict has roots in partitions of the British mandate of the Palestinian territory that followed from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War 1. The name “Palestine” derives from the Roman name – “Syria-Filistina”.

The first partition was the 1922 one carving Transjordan from the original British mandate, setting up that territory as a kingdom for the Hashemite dynasty. The territory west of the Jordan River remained under British mandatory authority until 1948.

During the 1930s, several other partitions between the Arab and Jewish communities were proposed in response to growing communal tensions. After World War 2, an exhausted Britain relinquished the mandate in favour of the UN-sponsored 1947 partition plan. Gaza was part of the Arab half of the partitioned territory.

In 1948, when the nascent Israeli state declared its independence, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria dismissed the establishment of the Jewish state and invaded the territory.

Although the invasion was blunted, Egypt occupied Gaza until 1967, when it lost control over it after the Six Day War.

In 1948, many Palestinian Arabs fled into Gaza (as well as southern Lebanon and Jordan) from the rest of the territory over fears about the spreading conflict, in response to attacks by Israeli paramilitary forces, or in response to the encouragement of some Arab leaders who promised those fleeing could return to a conquered Jewish state.

Pre-1948, Gaza’s population was about 80,000 people. By 1950, it had risen to a quarter of a million, largely from the influx of refugees. In 2023, it had surpassed 2 million. The vast majority of them were descendants of the 1948 refugees. Throughout, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East has administered health and education efforts, social grants and food distribution.

The refugees’ status, per the UN agency, now extends into the fourth generation, although nearly all of them have never set foot in their families’ earlier homes. (For comparison, the Arab refugee population who left what became Israel is roughly equivalent to the number of Jews who fled or were forced to leave their homes and their ancient communities in the nations of the Maghreb and Middle East during the 1940s and 1950s. They have now been absorbed into Israel’s population.)

The total number of people, globally, described as Palestinians is difficult to enumerate with full accuracy.

However, counting 2 million Arab citizens living in Israel (21% of Israel’s population of about 9.5 million in 2024), West Bank and Gaza residents (roughly 5 million people), including all those in the refugee camps in neighbouring nations, and those resident in countries around the globe – including North and South America, Europe and Australasia – the total is estimated to be about 12.7 million people. (The Jewish population of Palestine, then Israel, was about 400,000 in 1936, 1 million in 1949 and 6.5 million-plus by 2017.)

Arab nations, while supporting the Palestinians’ cause and the “right of return” in general terms, have declined to permit large-scale migration into their own nations by Palestinians.

Per Politico: “Despite public support for Palestinian rights, in truth nearly every Arab state has long viewed the Palestinians with ‘fear and loathing’, [retired US ambassador Ryan] Crocker says.

“This is especially true of Egypt, which will continue to refuse to admit Palestinians from across the border, he says.” (Crocker is the American diplomat who has had the deepest experience in the Arab world.)

The Egyptian position is based on concerns that such an influx would weigh on Egyptian resources and because of fears that such individuals’ militancy and weaponry could destabilise Egypt.

After ruling Gaza since the Six Day War, Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005 and forced 8,000 Israeli settlers to leave. In 2006, in elections in Gaza and the West Bank for the new Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the militant organisation (listed as a terrorist group by the US and a number of other nations) was victorious in Gaza, besting Fatah. It consolidated control, killing some Fatah supporters. Meanwhile, Fatah gained a majority in the West Bank.

Until the hostilities that began on 7 October 2023, many Gaza residents had entered Israel daily for construction and other employment. The newest round of conflict has led to the destruction of much of Gaza’s infrastructure, thousands of deaths and the closure of border posts.

In the face of an overwhelming Israeli retaliatory military response since 7 October, Gaza’s population has been forced to move from one supposedly safe zone after another. The conflict has sundered vital supply chains and severely disrupted all medical services. Israel has imposed controls over the Egypt-Gaza border – the “Philadelphi Corridor”.

Before the current fighting, many Gazans had Palestinian Authority-issued IDs and passports. However, international travel remained difficult without valid visas and other required documentation, even beyond the border, as well as travel restrictions imposed by Israel.

The circumstances of the West Bank differ somewhat from Gaza. This territory represents a substantial share of the Arab half of the 1947 partition plan. It was occupied by Jordan from 1948 through 1967, but residents largely did not become Jordanian citizens. A majority of Jordanian residents are now Palestinian in origin – including Jordan’s queen, who was born in Kuwait of Palestinian parents. In the 1967 Six Day War, Israeli forces also seized this territory, including Jerusalem’s Old City.

After the 1993 Oslo Agreement, the Palestinian Authority gained limited authority over the West Bank, although Israeli military and police forces retained control over significant parts of the territory, especially areas adjacent to its borders. As with Gaza, numerous West Bank residents crossed into Israel daily for work.

Major irritants to West Bank residents as part of the continuing occupation comprise often aggressive security patrols and arrests, as well as restrictions on residents’ movements. There have also been officially sanctioned Israeli agricultural and light industry settlements in the West Bank – as well as the more problematic, non-legal settlements. Some Israeli settlers have engaged in violent, extralegal vigilantism against the Arab population.

Israeli inhabitants in those settlements receive forms of government subsidies and they are a key bloc of support for the right-wing and religious parties that are crucial in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s parliamentary majority.

Meanwhile, Arab West Bank residents can find their property subject to the exercise of eminent domain by Israeli authorities on security grounds, including the seizure of farmland, vineyards and homes.

Israel has constructed hi-tech border walls and entry gates just inside the West Bank territory to control entry from the West Bank into pre-1967 Israel. These are more substantial than the hi-tech border fencing that was installed between Gaza and Israel. That Gaza barrier was unable to prevent Hamas’ 7 October raid and its consequent killing and hostage taking.

Absent a comprehensive regional settlement, the circumstances of Gaza and the West Bank will almost certainly trigger future hostilities between Arabs and Israelis – and more death and destruction. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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