Why is there a ‘West Bank?’ Because Jordan lost it in a war Israel didn’t want. Ditto, Hezbollah.
It has been called the worst strategic error Hezbollah has ever made — its decision to fire rockets into Israel after the beginning of the US-Israel war against Iran.
Note: Israel did not declare war against Hezbollah as it went to war against Iran, Feb. 28.
Hezbollah joined in on its own. Hezbollah had been severely weakened in its war against Israel that it began on Oct. 8, 2023. In the fall of 2024, Israel destroyed most of Hezbollah’s considerable supply of rockets, as well as Hezbollah leaders, one by one, and Hezbollah headquarters.
But Hezbollah’s hatred of Jews and Israel blinded it. In response to its attack on Israel, Israel unleashed its considerable firepower against Hezbollah’s remaining rocket supplies, other weapons depots and remaining leaders.
Israel is determined to eliminate Hezbollah as a military, and possibly also a political force, in Lebanon. For the first time in decades, a president of Lebanon was not cowed by Hezbollah and denounced it for attacking Israel. The president knew full well that Hezbollah’s warmongering against Israel only brought suffering to the Lebanese people.
They didn’t need to be forced to evacuate their homes in southern Lebanon nor to see parts of their capital, commandeered by Hezbollah, destroyed by Israel’s bombs.
The stupidity of Hezbollah during this war is hardly the only example of hatred trumping national interest. There is an irrational streak in the desire to see Israel destroyed. One of the most prominent examples was the decision of Jordan’s King Hussein to enter the 1967 Arab war against Israel.
It was Egypt that closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping — a causus belli — and it was Egypt’s and Syria’s leaders who swore to drive Israel into the Mediterranean Sea and it was Egypt that moved its troops right up to Israel’s southern border.
Israel waged war on Egypt and Syria — but not Jordan. In fact, Israel sent messages to Jordan: Do not attack us because we have no plans to attack you, and, in fact, had not made any military moves against Jordan.
Jordan then. Hezbollah now.
Jordan ignored Israel’s pleas to stay out of the and attacked Israel, confident he would destroy it.
Things turned out rather differently. Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem — whose highest holy place of Judaism, the Western Wall, Jordan had denied Jews access to since 1949 — and Israel captured the West Bank of the Jordan River.
For many years, Israel termed the West Bank “the administered territories” (not “the liberated territories”) because Israel was looking for a peace partner in the Arab world. No Arab country stepped up. That’s the history of Israel’s control of the West Bank:
• Jordan controlled it after 1949, annexed it in 1951, and offered its residents Jordanian citizenship but no independence.
• Jordan, and by extension, the Arab world lost control over the West Bank in 1967 by unilaterally launching a war against Israel that Israel did not want and asked Jordan not to start.
• Israel, by winning that unasked for war, controlled the West Bank after 1967 and sought out a peace partner in the Arab world in order to settle the issue of sovereignty over the West Bank.
• In 1974, Jordan renounced all claims to the West Bank.
When the Arab world finally woke up to the fact that an unadulterated policy of war against Israel over the West Bank was not working, reality on the ground had changed. Israelis settled parts of the West Bank since it is part of the ancestral Jewish homeland, the Land of Israel.
One can argue whether that was wise, but one cannot deny that the entire issue would not be with us today if Jordan had not stupidly entered the 1967 war. Now, we shall see the consequences of Hezbollah’s decision to enter the current war — hopefully, this time, unequivocally good for all concerned: Israel, Lebanon and the Arab world.
© IJN 2026
