Jordanian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement

Summary

The General Armistice Agreement between the Hashemite Jordan Kingdom and Israel signed at Rhodes on 3 April 1949, transmitted the same day by cablegram from the Acting Mediator, Ralph J. Bunche, and published as Security Council document S/1302/Rev.1 in the Official Records’ Special Supplement No. 1: responding to the Security Council resolution of 16 November 1948, it establishes a general armistice between the two Parties’ land, sea and air forces, affirms that no military or political advantage should be gained under the truce and that its provisions are dictated exclusively by military considerations and prejudice no rights, claims or positions in the ultimate peaceful settlement, delineates Armistice Demarcation Lines sector by sector on the Annex I maps — following the certified truce lines and the 30 November 1948 Jerusalem cease-fire lines in the north and centre, a marked line in the Hebron-Dead Sea sector, and existing military positions surveyed in March 1949 from the Dead Sea to the southernmost tip of Palestine — replaces the Iraqi forces in their sector with Jordanian forces and establishes that sector’s Line, marked A, in stages of five, seven and fifteen weeks, with the Hebron-Dead Sea Line, marked B, deviating substantially in Jordan’s favour to offset the Iraqi-sector modifications, protects the inhabitants of villages affected by the Iraqi-sector Line in their full rights of residence, property and freedom, with locally recruited Arab police and no Israeli forces in those villages, limits both Parties to defensive forces only within ten kilometres of the Lines as defined in Annex II, creates a Special Committee for agreed plans on, among other matters, the Mount Scopus institutions, access to the Holy Places and the Mount of Olives cemetery, the Latrun pumping station and electricity for the Old City, records that a prisoner-of-war exchange had already been effected before signing, and creates a five-member Mixed Armistice Commission, chaired by the United Nations Chief of Staff of the Truce Supervision Organization and headquartered at Jerusalem, to supervise execution; the Agreement is not subject to ratification, comes into force immediately on signing, and remains in force until a peaceful settlement is achieved (Jordanian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement, PDF p.1-12).

What the file is

Security Council Official Records, Fourth Year, Special Supplement No. 1, document S/1302/Rev.1: the Acting Mediator’s cablegram of 3 April 1949 transmitting the Agreement’s text. 12 PDF pages, about 8,596 words as supplied (8,593 words in the text copy as counted on intake). The document is bilingual, English in the left column and French in the right on printed p.1-10 (PDF p.3-12); the cablegram marks the original text as English, and the signature footnote states that all signed copies were in English, the English text being the only authentic one. The Agreement’s twelve articles and Annex II (Definition of Defensive Forces) are complete in the file; Annex I, the maps delineating the Armistice Demarcation Lines, is present only as a heading and bracketed note (PDF p.11 / printed p.9) — no maps are reproduced in this file, although the Secretariat note at Article V states that the photo-offsets of the two officially signed maps comprising Annex I will be found at the end of the fascicule. Printed p.5 and p.6 are out of order in the PDF (PDF p.7 is printed p.6 and PDF p.8 is printed p.5); the section account follows the printed order and gives both locators. The text copy’s OCR is heavily garbled throughout; the section account below paraphrases, and the preamble and footnotes, Articles VI (paragraphs 7-11), VII and VIII, Article XII and the signature block, and Annex II were checked against the original.

Section by section

• Cover and contents (PDF p.1-2). Cover of the Security Council Official Records, Fourth Year, Special Supplement No. 1, Lake Success, New York. The contents list the cablegram and Agreement at printed p.1, Annex I (Maps delineating Armistice Demarcation Lines) and Annex II (Definition of defensive forces).
• Covering cablegram (PDF p.3 / printed p.1). The Acting Mediator, Ralph J. Bunche, informs the President of the Security Council that an armistice agreement between the Hashemite Jordan Kingdom and Israel has been signed that evening, 3 April 1949, at Rhodes, and transmits its text. A footnote records that the document includes mimeographed documents S/1302, S/1302/Add.1 and S/1302/Corr.1, and also annexes I and II of the Agreement.
• Preamble (PDF p.3-4 / printed p.1-2). The Parties respond to the 16 November 1948 resolution, which called on them, as a further provisional measure under Article 40 of the Charter and to facilitate the transition from the present truce to permanent peace in Palestine, to negotiate an armistice; they decided to negotiate under United Nations chairmanship on implementation of that resolution and appointed representatives empowered to negotiate and conclude an Armistice Agreement, whose full powers were exchanged and found in good and proper form.
• Article I (PDF p.4 / printed p.2). Principles fully observed during the armistice: the Security Council’s injunction against resort to military force in the settlement of the Palestine question to be scrupulously respected; no aggressive action by either Party’s land, sea or air forces to be undertaken, planned or threatened against the people or armed forces of the other, “planned” having no bearing on normal staff planning; each Party’s right to security and freedom from fear of attack fully respected; the armistice accepted as an indispensable step toward liquidation of armed conflict and restoration of peace in Palestine.
• Article II (PDF p.4 / printed p.2). No military or political advantage should be gained under the truce ordered by the Security Council; and no provision shall prejudice either Party’s rights, claims and positions in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions being dictated exclusively by military considerations.
• Article III (PDF p.4-5 / printed p.2-3). A general armistice between the two Parties’ armed forces — land, sea and air — is established. No element of either Party’s military or para-military forces, including non-regular forces, shall commit any warlike or hostile act against the other’s forces or against civilians in territory under the other’s control, advance beyond or pass over the Armistice Demarcation Lines set forth in Articles V and VI for any purpose whatsoever, or enter the other’s air space. No warlike act or act of hostility shall be conducted from territory controlled by one Party against the other.
• Article IV (PDF p.5 / printed p.3). The lines described in Articles V and VI are designated the Armistice Demarcation Lines, delineated in pursuance of the purpose and intent of the 16 November 1948 resolution; their basic purpose is to delineate the lines beyond which the Parties’ armed forces shall not move; and the armed forces’ rules prohibiting civilians from crossing the fighting lines or entering the area between them remain in effect as applied to these Lines.
• Article V (PDF p.5-6 / printed p.3-4). The Armistice Demarcation Lines for all sectors other than the sector now held by Iraqi forces shall be as delineated on the maps in Annex I, and defined as follows: (a) in the sector Kh Deir Arab (MR 1510-1574) to the northern terminus of the lines defined in the 30 November 1948 Cease-Fire Agreement for the Jerusalem area, the Lines follow the truce lines as certified by the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization; (b) in the Jerusalem sector, the Lines correspond to the lines defined in that 30 November 1948 Cease-Fire Agreement; (c) in the Hebron-Dead Sea sector, the Line is as delineated on map 1 and marked B in Annex I; (d) in the sector from a point on the Dead Sea (MR 1925-0958) to the southernmost tip of Palestine, the Line is determined by existing military positions as surveyed in March 1949 by United Nations observers, running from north to south as delineated on map 1. A Secretariat note asterisked to the maps reference states that the photo-offsets of the two officially signed maps comprising Annex I will be found at the end of the fascicule, that map 1 (Palestine) is presented as a north sheet and a south sheet, that map 2 is a survey map of Jerusalem to be consulted for sub-paragraph (b), that the sub-paragraph (d) line begins on part 1 of map 1 as the blue line south of the Jerusalem area and continues south on part 2, that map 1 part 1 is to be consulted for all other geographical references in Articles V and VI, and that the truce lines in sub-paragraph (a) are the red and green lines on the latter map.
• Article VI (PDF p.6 / printed p.4, and PDF p.8 / printed p.5). The forces of the Hashemite Jordan Kingdom shall replace the forces of Iraq in the sector now held by the latter, Iraq’s Foreign Minister having communicated to the Acting Mediator on 20 March that the Jordanian delegation was authorized to negotiate for the Iraqi forces and that those forces would be withdrawn. The Line for the Iraqi sector is as delineated on map 1 in Annex I and marked A, and is established in stages, the existing military lines being maintained meanwhile: within five weeks of signing in the area west of the road from Baqa to Jaljulia and thence to the east of Kafr Qasim; within seven weeks in the area of Wadi Ara north of the line from Baqa to Zubeiba; and within fifteen weeks in all other areas of the Iraqi sector. The Hebron-Dead Sea Line (Article V(c), marked B), which involves substantial deviation from the existing military lines in favour of the Hashemite Jordan Kingdom, is designated to offset the modifications of the existing military lines in the Iraqi sector. In compensation for the road acquired between Tulkarm and Qalqiliya, Israel agrees to pay Jordan the cost of constructing twenty kilometres of first-class new road. Villages affected by the Iraqi-sector Line: their inhabitants are entitled to maintain, and shall be protected in, their full rights of residence, property and freedom; an inhabitant who decides to leave may take his livestock and other movable property and shall receive without delay full compensation for the land left; Israeli forces are prohibited from entering or being stationed in such villages, where locally recruited Arab police shall be organized and stationed for internal security. Jordan accepts responsibility for all Iraqi forces in Palestine. This article’s provisions shall not be interpreted as prejudicing an ultimate political settlement, and the Lines defined in Articles V and VI are agreed without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to either Party’s claims relating thereto. Except where otherwise provided, the Lines shall be established, including any necessary withdrawal of forces, within ten days of signing, and they shall be subject to such rectification as the Parties agree, rectifications having the same force and effect as if incorporated in full in the Agreement.
• Article VII (PDF p.8 / printed p.5). The Parties’ military forces are limited to defensive forces only in the areas extending ten kilometres from each side of the Armistice Demarcation Lines, except where geographical considerations make this impractical, as at the southernmost tip of Palestine and the coastal strip; permissible defensive forces in each sector are as defined in Annex II, and in the Iraqi sector the calculations on reduction include the number of Iraqi forces there. Reduction to defensive strength shall be completed within ten days of the establishment of the Lines; mine removal from mined roads and evacuated areas, and transmission of minefield plans to the other Party, within the same period. The strength of forces maintained on each side of the Lines is subject to periodical review with a view toward further reduction by mutual agreement.
• Article VIII (PDF p.8 / printed p.5, and PDF p.7 / printed p.6). A Special Committee of two representatives of each Party, designated by the respective Governments, is established to formulate agreed plans and arrangements designed to enlarge the Agreement’s scope and effect improvements in its application. It is organized immediately following the Agreement’s coming into effect and directs its attention to agreed plans for matters either Party submits, which shall in any case include the following, on which agreement in principle already exists: free movement of traffic on vital roads, including the Bethlehem and Latrun-Jerusalem roads; resumption of the normal functioning of the cultural and humanitarian institutions on Mount Scopus and free access thereto; free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives; resumption of operation of the Latrun pumping station; provision of electricity for the Old City; and resumption of operation of the railroad to Jerusalem. The Committee has exclusive competence over matters referred to it, and its agreed plans may provide for supervisory functions by the Mixed Armistice Commission.
• Article IX (PDF p.7 / printed p.6). Agreements reached between the Parties after signing, on such matters as further reduction of forces as contemplated in Article VII, paragraph 3, future adjustments of the Armistice Demarcation Lines, and plans and arrangements formulated by the Special Committee, have the same force and effect as the Agreement’s provisions and are equally binding.
• Article X (PDF p.7 / printed p.6). A prisoner-of-war exchange having been effected by special arrangement before signing, no further arrangements are required, except that the Mixed Armistice Commission shall re-examine whether any prisoners of war of either Party were not included in the previous exchange, and, if any are found, shall arrange an early exchange, the Parties undertaking full co-operation.
• Article XI (PDF p.7 / printed p.6, PDF p.9-10 / printed p.7-8). Execution is supervised, except for matters within the Special Committee’s exclusive competence, by a Mixed Armistice Commission of five members, two designated by each Party, chaired by the United Nations Chief of Staff of the Truce Supervision Organization or a senior officer from its observer personnel designated by him after consultation with both Parties. It maintains headquarters at Jerusalem, is first convened by the Chief of Staff within one week of signing, decides by unanimity where possible and otherwise by majority of members present and voting, makes its own procedure (quorum a majority, meetings only after due notice), may employ Observers from the Parties’ military organizations or United Nations personnel (United Nations Observers remaining under the Chief of Staff’s command), receives claims and complaints through its Chairman for equitable and mutually satisfactory settlement, its interpretation of a provision other than the Preamble and Articles I and II prevails, it may recommend modifications, it reports to both Parties with a copy of each report to the Secretary-General, its members and Observers are accorded such freedom of movement and access in the areas covered by the Agreement as the Commission may determine to be necessary, provided that when such decisions of the Commission are reached by majority vote United Nations Observers only shall be employed (paragraph 10), and its expenses other than United Nations Observers’ are shared equally.
• Article XII and signatures (PDF p.10 / printed p.8). The Agreement is not subject to ratification and comes into force immediately on signing; negotiated in pursuance of the 16 November 1948 resolution, it remains in force until a peaceful settlement between the Parties is achieved, except that the Parties may by mutual consent revise or suspend any provision other than Articles I and III at any time, and after one year either Party may call on the Secretary-General to convoke a conference to review, revise or suspend any provision other than Articles I and III, participation being obligatory; if that conference fails to agree, either Party may bring the matter before the Security Council. It is signed in quintuplicate: one copy to each Party, two to the Secretary-General for the Security Council and the United Nations Conciliation Commission on Palestine, and one to the Acting Mediator. A footnote states that all signed copies were in English, the English text being the only authentic one. Done at Rhodes, Island of Rhodes, Greece, on 3 April 1949, in the presence of the Acting Mediator on Palestine and the United Nations Chief of Staff. The Jordanian signatories as printed are Colonel Ahmed Sudki El-Jundi and Lieutenant-Colonel Mohamed Maayte; the Israeli signatories as printed are Reuven Shiloah and Lieutenant-Colonel Moshe Dayan (names checked against the original).
• Annex I (PDF p.11 / printed p.9). Heading only, Maps delineating Armistice Demarcation Lines, with the bracketed note that the maps follow Annex II and are explained in the Secretariat note to Article V. No maps are reproduced in this file.
• Annex II, Definition of Defensive Forces (PDF p.11-12 / printed p.9-10). I: a standard battalion of not more than 800 officers and other ranks, composed of not more than four rifle companies with ordinary infantry equipment (rifles, LMG’s, SMG’s, light mortars not heavier than 2 inch, anti-tank rifles and PIAT; per battalion not more than 48 LMG’s, 16 mortars 2 inch, 8 PIAT’s), one support company (not more than six MMG’s, six mortars not heavier than 3 inch, four anti-tank guns not heavier than six-pounders) and one headquarters company; artillery and anti-aircraft artillery limited to field guns not heavier than twenty-five pounders and anti-aircraft guns not heavier than forty millimetres. Excluded from “defensive forces”: armour of all types, all support arms and units other than those specified, and service units to be agreed upon. In areas where defensive forces only are permitted, airfields, airstrips, landing fields and other installations, and military aircraft, shall be employed for defensive and normal supply purposes only. II: the defensive forces each Party may maintain in the ten-kilometre areas, for the sectors described in Article V, paragraph 1, are: Kh Deir Arab sector, one battalion each; Jerusalem sector, two battalions each; Hebron-Dead Sea sector, one battalion each; sector Engeddi to Eylat, three battalions each, plus one squadron of light armoured cars of not more than 13 light armoured cars or half tracks each, their permissible weapons to be determined by the Mixed Armistice Commission; sector now held by Iraqi forces, five battalions each and one squadron of armoured cars each.

Key passages

• “facilitate the transition from the present truce to permanent peace in Palestine” (Preamble, PDF p.3 / printed p.1).
• The armistice is accepted “as an indispensable step toward the liquidation of armed conflict and the restoration of peace in Palestine” (Article I, paragraph 4, PDF p.4 / printed p.2).
• Israel agrees to pay, for the road acquired between Tulkarm and Qalqiliya, “the cost of constructing twenty kilometres of first-class new road” (Article VI, paragraph 5, PDF p.6 / printed p.4).

Evidence the work relies on

• The Agreement is a negotiated instrument, not an argued report; it gives no evidence section. Its stated authorities and incorporated documents are: the Security Council resolution of 16 November 1948 (preamble, Articles II, III, IV and XII, with Article 40 of the Charter cited in the preamble); the 30 November 1948 Cease-Fire Agreement for the Jerusalem area (Article V and Annex II); the Iraqi Foreign Minister’s message of 20 March 1949 authorizing the Jordanian delegation to negotiate for the Iraqi forces (Article VI); the Annex I maps (incorporated by Articles V and VI, not reproduced in this file) and the Annex II definition of defensive forces (incorporated by Article VII). Its transmission history is stated in its own footnote 1: mimeographed documents S/1302, S/1302/Add.1 and S/1302/Corr.1, consolidated in S/1302/Rev.1.

Analysis

The Agreement’s method, in its own terms, is the most territorially elaborate of the 1949 armistices so far in the wiki: twelve articles, like the Egypt-Israel agreement, but its demarcation is not a single drawn line. It is assembled from four different instruments — certified truce lines, the 30 November 1948 Jerusalem cease-fire lines, a map line marked B in the Hebron-Dead Sea sector, and surveyed existing military positions in the south (Article V) — and then, in Article VI, a fifth line, marked A, for a sector the Jordanian Party did not itself hold: the Iraqi sector, which Jordanian forces were to take over from Iraq under an authorization Iraq communicated on 20 March. That sector’s line is not established at signing but in three stages over five, seven and fifteen weeks, and the Agreement states its own exchange logic in the text: the Hebron-Dead Sea line’s substantial deviation in Jordan’s favour is designated to offset the Iraqi-sector modifications, and the Tulkarm-Qalqiliya road is compensated in money — the cost of twenty kilometres of first-class new road. Its only provisions on inhabitants are attached to that transfer: the village-rights clause of Article VI, paragraph 6 (full rights of residence, property and freedom, compensation for land left, no Israeli forces in the villages, locally recruited Arab police), which has no counterpart in the Egypt-Israel or Lebanon-Israel texts. Its supervisory machinery is split in two: a five-member Mixed Armistice Commission headquartered at Jerusalem for execution, and a Special Committee with exclusive competence over an agreed list of Jerusalem-centred matters — Mount Scopus, the Holy Places, the Mount of Olives cemetery, Latrun, Old City electricity and the Jerusalem railroad — on which agreement in principle is recorded as already existing. Unlike the other two agreements, it needs no prisoner-exchange timetable, because an exchange had already been effected before signing (Article X), and it contains no provision for locating missing persons. Its Annex II does its quantitative work by battalion composition and sector ceilings (one, two, one, three and five battalions for each Party across the five sectors) rather than by a single overall manpower cap. Revision is fenced off from Articles I and III, as in the Lebanon-Israel agreement.

People, organizations, places and events

Ralph Bunche, Moshe Dayan, Hashemite Jordan Kingdom, Israel, Iraq, Jordan-Israel Mixed Armistice Commission, Palestine Conciliation Commission, UN Security Council, Mount Scopus, City of Jerusalem, The Triangle, Wadi Ara

Concepts

Green Line — this Agreement’s Lines are the Jordan-Israel armistice lines of 1949: drawn sector by sector from truce and cease-fire lines, a marked map line and surveyed military positions, and expressly agreed without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines (Article VI, paragraph 9, PDF p.8).

How it relates to other sources

• This is the third of the 1949 armistices in the wiki as a primary text, after the Egyptian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement of 24 February 1949 and the Lebanese-Israeli General Armistice Agreement of 23 March 1949. The three share the preamble form, the Article I principles, the non-prejudice rule and the quintuplicate signature clause, and differ as recorded in Analysis: a sector-by-sector demarcation incorporating a third state’s (Iraq’s) sector instead of one drawn line or an existing international boundary, twelve articles, a five-member Commission headquartered at Jerusalem rather than at a frontier, a Special Committee for Jerusalem matters with no counterpart in the other texts, a village-rights clause for the transferred sector, no prisoner-exchange timetable and no missing-persons provision, and Articles I and III protected from revision, as in the Lebanon-Israel agreement and unlike the Egypt-Israel agreement’s Articles I and II.
• Nakba and Survival describes the same instrument as the Rhodes agreement of 3 April 1949 whose amendments to the cease-fire lines transferred the The Triangle villages to Israeli control, with clear commitments that the villagers’ rights to their land and property would not be violated, an Arab police force for the villages, and Jordan’s consent given without consulting or informing the population (Israel–Jordan Armistice Agreement (Rhodes, 1949)). The primary text locates those commitments in Article VI, paragraphs 2, 3 and 6: the staged establishment of the Iraqi-sector Line (marked A) over five to fifteen weeks and the village clause, which covers villages affected by that Line’s establishment, guarantees residence, property and freedom, and bars Israeli forces from the villages. Manna’s account of how the commitments were then interpreted and applied — narrowly, with most refugees in the affected villages expelled in the first months under Israeli military rule — is his account of events after signing; the Agreement’s text itself states the commitments without the later history.
• The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine records that the Wadi Ara villages were ceded to Israel by the Jordanian government in the summer of 1949 as part of the bilateral armistice agreement (Wadi Ara); in the primary text the Wadi Ara area is stage (b) of Article VI, paragraph 3 — the area of Wadi Ara north of the line from Baqa to Zubeiba, where the Line was to be established within seven weeks of 3 April 1949 (computed from Article VI, paragraph 3: by 22 May 1949). Both accounts stand as given by their sources.
• The Transjordan page records, from Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, that Israel’s armistice of 3/4/49 already named the state the ‘Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’ a full year before the proclamation of the annexation of the West Bank; in this primary text the Party is named throughout as the Hashemite Jordan Kingdom, in that word order, in the title, cablegram and signature block.
• Its transmission copies link it, as with the other two agreements, to the Palestine Conciliation Commission created by Resolution 194 (III): Palestine — Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator: two of its quintuplicate copies go to the Secretary-General for the Security Council and for the Conciliation Commission.

Open questions

• Annex II, Part II, states the sector ceilings for the areas extending ten kilometres from each side of the Lines as provided in paragraph 1 of article VI, as printed in both columns and checked against the original (PDF p.11-12 / printed p.9-10). The defensive-forces limitation is in fact stated in paragraph 1 of Article VII, while Article VI, paragraph 1, concerns the replacement of the Iraqi forces by Jordanian forces. The reference is recorded as printed and not corrected.
• Annex I, the maps delineating the Armistice Demarcation Lines on which Articles V and VI depend (lines marked A and B on map 1, the Jerusalem survey map 2), is not reproduced in this file, although the Secretariat note at Article V states the photo-offsets of the two officially signed maps will be found at the end of this fascicule (PDF p.5 / printed p.3) and the annex heading states the maps follow Annex II (PDF p.11 / printed p.9). The file ends at printed p.10 with Annex II, Part II. The Lines’ exact courses therefore cannot be read from this file beyond the sector definitions in Articles V and VI.
• Footnote 1 differs between the two columns as printed: the English footnote lists the document as including S/1302, S/1302/Add.1 and S/1302/Corr.1 and also annexes I and II, while the French footnote lists only S/1302/Add.1 and S/1302/Corr.1, omitting S/1302 itself (PDF p.3 / printed p.1, checked against the original). Both are recorded as printed.
• Signatory spellings rest on this document alone within the wiki so far for the Jordanian signatories, Colonel Ahmed Sudki El-Jundi and Lieutenant-Colonel Mohamed Maayte (PDF p.10 / printed p.8, checked against the original); no other ingested source names them. The Israeli signatories are Reuven Shiloah, who has no page in the wiki so far, and Lieutenant-Colonel Moshe Dayan, whose existing page is Moshe Dayan.
• The Secretariat note’s description of the sub-paragraph (d) line’s start on map 1 is garbled in the text copy at the words for the Jerusalem area (PDF p.5 / printed p.3); the reading blue line south of the Jerusalem area is uncertain at that point and is recorded as uncertain in the reading notes.

Coverage

PDF p.1-12 of 12, read in full