Israeli Period
Israel did not retain the administrative structure of the Mandate, redrawing the district borders to roughly parallel the areas of responsibility of its military formations, then infantry brigades.
The presence of a large number of immigrants and refugies from the now dissolved Mandate of Palestine fueled the regional ambitions of King Abdullah I, who sought control over what had been the British Jerusalem and Samaria districts on the west bank of Jordan River. Towards this goal the king granted Jordanian citizenship to all Arab holders of the Palestinian Mandate identity documents in February 1949, and outlawed the terms "Palestinian" and "Transjordanian" from official usage, changing the country's name from the Emirate of Trans-Jordan to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The area east of the river became known as "al-Ḍiffah al-Sharqiyyal", or "The East Bank". In April 1950, with the formal annexation of the positions held by the Jordanian Army since 1948, the area became known as "al-Ḍiffah al-Gharbiyyal" or "The Western Bank". With the formal union of the East and West Banks in 1950, the number of Palestinians in the kingdom rose by another 720,000, of whom 440,000 were West Bank residents and 280,000 were refugees from other areas of the former Mandate then living on the West Bank. Palestinians became the majority in Jordan although most believed their return to what was now the state of Israel was imminent.
Palestinian Arabs living in the Gaza Strip or Egypt were issued with All-Palestine passports until 1959, when Gamal Abdul Nasser, president of Egypt, issued a decree that annulled the All-Palestine government.
Read more about this topic: History Of Palestine, Modern Era
Famous quotes containing the words israeli and/or period:
“...I want to see a film, they send the Israeli army reserves to escort me! What kind of life is this?”
—Golda Meir (1898–1978)
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