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The Taba Crisis or "Aqaba Crisis" was a diplomatic conflict stemming from territorial disputes between the British in Egypt and the Ottomans in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century. Although largely forgotten over time, it holds significant importance in political history: in conjunction with preceding events, it nearly precipitated the outbreak of World War I as early as 1906.[1] Its aftermath also led to the emergence of the Negev as a distinct region, ultimately incorporated into Palestine as a "historical accident."[2]

Historical Background

Map from 1819: Egypt, Palestine, and the Sinai Peninsula, shown here with a common political division: the "Jifâr region" belonging to Egypt, and the remainder politically grouped with a region east of the Jordan River

In the first half of the 19th century, Palestine, the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt were part of the Ottoman Empire, but they were integrated into it to varying degrees: in Egypt, Muhammad Ali had taken power in 1805 and was now ruling there as a kind of semi-independent vassal king ("Wāli"). The Sinai had for many centuries been an integral part of a region that also included the region later known as the "Negev" and often also southwestern Jordan and northwestern Hejaz, which, as a whole, was known during Ottoman times as the "Province of Hejaz." Up to this time, the Negev region didn't even have its own name.[nb 1] This area was almost exclusively populated by Bedouins, who were largely independent of Ottoman rule.[9][10] Only a region along the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula known as al-Jifâr,[11] through which an important trade route known as the Via Maris passed, appears to have generally been regarded as part of Egypt territorially from around the 14th century onward.[12]

However, in the 1830s, Muhammad Ali revolted against the Ottomans and briefly gained control over Sinai and Palestine. Following the Egyptian–Ottoman War from 1839 to 1841, in which the Egyptians were pushed back in Palestine and which was ultimately a proxy war between France, supporting the Egyptians, and England, supporting the Ottomans,[13][14][15] at the Convention of London in 1840, it was enforced[16] that Egypt largely withdraw from the Sinai, retaining only the Jifâr region northwest of a line from el Arish to Suez, corresponding to Egypt's "ancient borders". This territory was then marked on a map and formally assigned to their Egyptian subjects by the Ottomans through the so-called "Inheritance Firman" of 1841.[17] In the same firman, it was also stipulated that the Egyptians were to continue to administer the waystations of the second important trade and pilgrimage route through Sinai and the Negev, from Suez via Nekhel and Aqaba, known as the "Egyptian Hajj route".[18] This Egyptian presence in Aqaba, as the easternmost point of Egyptian control, would soon become the one of the deciding points defining the Negev boundary.

External image
image icon Map by the Egyptian Interior Ministry, 1870s, showing Egypt without the Inheritance Firman..[19]

Both stipulations led to the territorial status of Sinai and the Negev becoming somewhat ambiguous after 1841: The Ottomans initially sometimes produced maps that depicted the Negev as "Egyptian" territory,[20] while the Egyptians produced maps that did not even recognize the area of the Inheritance Firman as part of Egypt.

The French subsequently built the economically vital Suez Canal by 1869, with its southern end still lying in Ottoman territory.[21][22] However, after Britain established Egypt as their colony ("protectorate") in 1882, only the British benefited economically from the canal, while it harmed the Ottomans[23] and made Ottoman troop movements to Palestine and in the Hejaz dependent on whether the British would allow them to pass.[24]

Consequently, the Ottomans began efforts to extend their de facto control southwestward. Meanwhile, the British sought to keep the Ottomans away from the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba, which had the potential to threaten their dominance in the Red Sea through the Suez Canal. This struggle for the Sinai and the Negev unfolded roughly in four stages:

1892: Border redefinitions

Stage1 consisted of two measures that were more symbolic than directly political: When Egypt's ruler, Khedive Tewfik Pasha, died in 1892, the Ottomans had to confirm the rule of his son, Abbas Helmy II. In the renewal of the firman that confirmed Abbas as the ruler of Egypt, however, the passages regarding the Sinai waystations were omitted,[25] and instead, it was only stated by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II in a telegram that Egypt should continue to administer them.[26] This did not initially change the status quo. However, by transferring the mention of these waystations from the firman to a telegram, it emphasized that these areas were still to be considered Ottoman, not Egyptian, territory.

British map of Egypt, 1894, showing Egypt's borders as defined by Lord Cromer in 1892.

The British Consul General in Cairo, Lord Cromer, did not accept this and responded with a telegram of his own, violently misinterpreting[27] the Sultan's telegram as meaning that Egypt should administer the whole Sinai Peninsula, which he defined as "the territory bounded to the east by a line running in a south-easterly direction from a point a short distance to the east of El Arish[, the easternmost waystation on the coast,] [...] to the head of the Gulf of Akaba.'"[28] Thereafter, the British began to produce maps that even excluded the head of the Gulf of Aqaba from Ottoman territory and presented everything southwest of the thus defined border as "Egyptian." In 1892, there was no response from the Ottomans to this telegram; it was officially rejected only in 1906.[29] For this reason, Cromer's telegram is sometimes regarded as a British–Ottoman "agreement,"[30][31] while others see it as merely a "unilateral declaration" not accepted by the Ottomans[32] or a wrong "interpretation" on the side of the British.[33]

It is possible that the early Zionists also played a role in this matter: The first generation of Zionists had been attempting to settle in Palestine since 1882, but Jewish immigration to Palestine and Jewish land purchases in Palestine had already been prohibited by Ottoman law that same year;[34] partly because, since the 1840s, the British had inserted themselves into Palestine by claiming the status of protector of Jews wishing to immigrate there.[35][36] As a result, they tried to enter Palestine as illegal immigrants or via indirect routes. One such indirect route was the attempt by Paul Friedmann around 1892, with the consent of the British occupation authorities,[37] to establish a Jewish state called "Midian" on the Gulf of Aqaba's east coast,[38] which Cromer was just about to declare as "Egyptian": Cromer himself reports that it was this attempt that brought the Ottoman Sultan to redraft the Firman.[39][40] However, since this was but a rather desperate colonization attempt and Cromer's report is quite misleading,[41] it is not certain whether this was indeed a major factor.

1899/1900: Beersheba and the Beersheba District

Main article: History of the Negev during the Mamluk and Ottoman periods § Late 19th to early 20th centuries: Tanzimat reforms and Beersheba
Market of Beersheba, 1901

The second step consisted of a series of Ottoman actions aimed at gaining control over the Negev and Sinai. These began with a package of legislative amendments designed to privatize and commodify land, with the goal of sedentarizing the Bedouins in Ottoman border regions and thereby stabilizing these areas under Ottoman control.[42][43] The culmination of this new policy[44] was the establishment of the new Beersheba District in 1899, with boundaries drawn to include an almost exclusively Bedouin population.[45] As a regional center, the city of Beersheba was built at a point where the tribal territories of three major Negev Bedouin tribes converged.

1902: The el-Arish–Rafah affair

Lord Cromer wanted to respond to this by now pushing the boundary he had earlier drawn himself in the north from el-Arish to Rafah; however, the British Foreign Office explicitly rejected this proposal.[46] Nevertheless, around 1902, two measures were undertaken to further shift the northern boundary. First, two boundary markers at Rafah, which were said to have marked the ancient boundary line between Palestine and Egypt,[47] were either moved[48] or newly established[49] unilaterally by the British and Egyptians in accordance with Lord Cromer's new proposal. The Ottomans would respond only in 1906 (see below); in 1902, however, this British action again had no direct consequences.[50]

Second, some Zionists had already anticipated this boundary-shifting proposal from Cromer and interpreted the creation of the Jerusalem Sanjak in 1887,[51] which reached only down to Rafah at that time, as a cession of Ottoman-Palestinian territories to Egypt. Subsequently, they developed plans to begin the colonization of Palestine in the "Egyptian-Palestine" region between el-Arish and Rafah.[52] This led shortly afterward to Theodor Herzl's attempt from 1902 onwards to negotiate this area from the British for a Jewish state.[53][54] Since the British were willing to negotiate over all areas "where there were no white people as yet,"[55] Lord Cromer was initially indeed willing to cede him territories west of el-Arish, which harmonized well with his own plans to push back the Ottomans. However, soon thereafter, he withdrew the offer again — officially, because Friedmann's attempt near Aqaba had already enraged the Ottomans,[56][57] and because the Zionist plans to irrigate El-Arish with pumped Nile water were unrealistic;[58] but actually, probably mainly so as not to "'remind' the Ottomans to address the delimitation problem, and to claim that a foreign settlement was not permitted in the province of Hijaz, which included Sinai."[59]

Although these early plans to colonize el-Arish failed, they still had lasting repercussions: later, they prompted the Zionists to claim, at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, a Palestine whose southwestern border extended from el-Arish to Aqaba, closely matching Lord Cromer's earlier proposed border redefinition.

1906: The Taba Crisis

With this background, the ground was prepared for the struggle for the Negev to almost escalate into an international war. The trigger was the serious Ottoman preparations made in that year to connect the Gulf of Aqaba[60][61] or even the Gulf of Suez[62][63] with the Hejaz Railway. This would have given the Ottoman armies, and through the Berlin–Baghdad railway, which had also been seriously considered since 1903,[64] the armies of their newly allied Germans direct access to the Red Sea. Control over this maritime region, which connected England with British India, was crucial for the British Empire;[65] therefore, the British could not accept these efforts by the Ottomans and the Germans.[66][67]

Thus, Lieutenant Bramly was sent with either five[68][69] or 50[70] Egyptian policemen to the Gulf of Aqaba, which had been administered solely by the Ottomans for some time, to establish several police stations there. A post was provisionally set up in present-day Eilat but had to be dissolved shortly afterward on orders of the Ottoman commander of Aqaba.[71][72] The British framed these actions as an innocent and "friendly" attempt to clarify the course of the border between Ottoman and Egyptian territory, claiming that this clarity was necessary, as the Inheritance Firman map had been "lost,"[73] and the border had allegedly never been precisely defined either way, but presumably ran somewhere in this area.[74] Similar attempts at other planned locations — especially the strategically important Taba on the western shore of the gulf, which the British asserted was "undoubtedly" within Egyptian territory[75] — were abandoned after it was discovered that the Ottomans already had troops stationed there and were amassing more forces, eventually numbering over 2000 men. The policemen then barricaded themselves on Pharaoh's Island,[76][77] prompting the British to send the warship Diana to the Gulf, outgunning the Ottoman soldiers. Another destroyer, the warship Minerva, was dispatched to Rafah[78] after discovering that the Ottomans had torn down the boundary markers earlier relocated by the British, gathered several hundred troops there as well, and replaced some British telegraph poles with Ottoman ones[79][80][81] to indicate that, in their view, the region southwest of Rafah was Ottoman territory.

The British border claim and the two Ottoman compromise proposals

Attempts to resolve the emerging crisis diplomatically were unsuccessful. The British insisted that the border between Egyptian territory and the Ottoman heartland ran from Rafah to Aqaba — "the invention of a moment [...], it had never been heard of before."[82] The Ottomans, while making two compromise proposals to redefine the borders,[83] which were not accepted by the British, maintained that at least some parts of the Sinai belonged to them instead of the Egyptians. Thereupon, the French and the Russians publicly pledged their support to the British Empire.[84] At the same time, it was feared by Lord Cromer and claimed by the Ottomans that in the event of war, the Germans would side with the Ottomans, although Germany officially denied this.[85] In fact, diplomatic papers even suggest that Germany, on the contrary, threatened to withdraw its support from the Ottomans if they did not soon yield to British pressure.[86]

When even the support of France and Russia for the British proved ineffective and the Ottomans threatened to put the issue forward for international arbitration,[87][88] the British quickly issued an ultimatum to the Ottomans in May 1906: either they accept the border from Rafah to Aqaba, or the British would occupy the strategically important Ottoman-Greek islands, including Lemnos and Imbros near the Ottoman capital Constantinople, and block all Ottoman maritime traffic in the Mediterranean.[89]

British warships were already underway when the Ottomans finally yielded to British pressure a few hours after the ultimatum had expired,[90] and both sides established a boundary from Rafah to Aqaba in 1906. This line, however, was legally not an international border, but merely an administrative boundary between two Ottoman territories.[91] This distinction was underscored by a British letter to the Sultan, reaffirming that Egypt was still recognized as an Ottoman province under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire.[92]

Ottoman map from 1907[93] and 1912.[94] The map as a whole is labeled "District of Jerusalem." Egypt is not mentioned; instead, the area west of the Gulf of Suez is referred to as "Ottoman Africa."

Thus, the border question continued to linger even after 1906. For instance, in 1907, the British, once more trying to extend their sphere of influence northward with the help of Zionists, encouraged the Anglo-Palestine Jews Club to establish a "colony of British Jews at Gaza."[95] When this attempt failed, the British consular agent in Gaza launched a similar project, aiming to purchase around 5000 hectares of land at the new Egyptian-Palestinian border near Rafah for another Jewish colony, which would have at least contributed to stabilizing the border. This attempt also failed, as the Egyptians did not want a Jewish colony on their land either.[96] Simultaneously, the Ottomans began producing maps that depicted a somewhat fictitious administrative geography by including the entire Sinai Peninsula within the Sanjak of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the issue remained dormant and truly new developments occurred only from 1919 onwards, when England sought the Mandate for Palestine after World War I.

During the Taba Crisis, the Egyptians firmly sided with the Ottomans, leading to vitriolic attacks against the British in nationalist Egyptian newspapers. In this way, the Taba Crisis set the stage for the Denshawai incident later that same year,[97][98] which is, in turn, considered the turning point in anti-colonialist and anti-British sentiment in Egypt.

Aftermath: The inclusion of the Negev in Mandatory Palestine

See also: Occupation of Ma'an

During World War I, to increase their chances of being granted the Mandate for Palestine after the war, England made three secret agreements: The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence, the Sykes–Picot Agreement and Balfour Declaration. Taken together, these meant that, according to the vision of the French and British, the Negev, Jordan, and Hejaz would once again be politically "united", but this time as part of the externally controlled greater Kingdom of Arabia.

A map considered by the British Cabinet in 1918 suggested that the Negev could be included in either Palestine or Egypt.[99]
Ottoman administrative boundaries before 1917
Map presented by T. E. Lawrence to the Eastern Committee of the War Cabinet in November 1918.

However, the British did not regard either these agreements or the recently established border agreement as binding. Thus, once the British were indeed granted the mandate, they adopted the Ottoman view that the newly drawn boundaries had merely been administrative borders between two Ottoman territories,[100][101] and began to consider various options for alternative border demarcations in the south of Palestine anew.

The Negev question was negotiated primarily on two occasions. The border between Egypt and "non-Egypt" was the subject of negotiations from 1917 to 1919. The provisional retention of the 1906 boundary was a British compromise between a Zionist demand for the territory east of a line from the Gulf of Aqaba to el-Arish, and an Egyptian demand that also included Gaza and Beersheba as the two economic centers of the Bedouins for Egypt.[102][103] The British themselves would have preferred borders that lay between the British-Egyptian demands and the southernmost British proposal for border demarcation by T. E. Lawrence, which would have left most of the Negev as part of Egypt. This compromise border only achieved the status of an official international border around 1979 with the Camp David Accords.[104] Galilee reports that as of 2019, Bedouins still regarded the regions on both sides of the arbitrarily drawn national border as a single region.[105]

In 1922, the Negev was again the subject of negotiations, as the borders between Palestine and the territory of the designated Jordanian King Abdullah had to be drawn. His father, Hussein, King of Hejaz, had been promised the Negev by the British, among other things, in the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence. Here too, this (already promised) maximum demand of the Jordanians was met with a maximum demand of the Zionists, who also wanted the fertile highlands east of the Jordan Rift Valley for their national Jewish homeland. Again, the Zionists did not have to make significant concessions, as a compromise was decided by the British, according to which the border should run along the middle of the Jordan River.[106] The promised Negev land was not relinquished by King Abdullah himself, but by British representative St John Philby "in Trans-Jordan's name". Philby's ability to concede the region to the Zionist Organization was based on the argument that Abdullah had received permission from his father to negotiate the future of the Sanjak of Ma'an (which had previously been a part of the province of Hejaz).[107] Even if this was true, it would have been a blatant breach of word by the British, as this was certainly not the position of Abdullah, who made a request for the Negev to be added to Transjordan in late 1922. However, this was rejected by the British.[108] Thus, despite not having been historically considered part of the region, the Negev was added to the proposed area of Mandatory Palestine on 10 July 1922. In this case too, the final border was only established as international border in 1994 in the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan.[109]

Further Reading

  • Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
  • Burman, John (2009). "British Strategic Interests versus Ottoman Sovereign Rights: New Perspectives on the Aqaba Crisis, 1906". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 37 (2).
  • Foreign Broadcast Information Service (1985). Near East/South Asia Report: Egypt: Historical Roots of the Taba Problem (PDF).
  • Gil-Har, Yitzhak (1993). "Egypt's North-Eastern Boundary in Sinai". Middle Eastern Studies. 29 (1).
  • Halevy, Dotan (2017). "Marginal Diplomacy: Alexander Knesevich and the Consular Agency in Gaza, 1905–1914". Jerusalem Quarterly. 71.
  • Kliot, Murit (1995). "The Evolution of the Egypt-Israel Boundary: From Colonial Foundations to Peaceful Borders" (PDF). Boundary & Territory Briefing. 1 (8).
  • Tallon, James (2019). "Allies and Adversaries: Anglo-Ottoman Boundary Negotiation in the Middle East, 1906–1914". In Olmstead, Justin Quinn (ed.). Britain in the Islamic World: Imperial and Post-Imperial Connections. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • United Nations (1988). Reports of International Arbitral Awards: Case concerning the location of boundary markers in Taba between Egypt and Israel (PDF).
  • Warburg, Gabriel R. (1979). "The Sinai Peninsula Borders, 1906–47". Journal of Contemporary History. 14.

Notes

  1. ^ Even the biblical Hebrew word was not recognized as a toponym in Bible translations; instead, it was translated as "southwards" or "the South."[3][4][5] As a political toponym, it entered European languages only during this period.[6] In the vocabulary of the Bedouins, the region’s inhabitants, the term entered even later: until 1948, Bedouins didn’t refer to themselves as "Negev Bedouins" but rather as "Arabs of Beersheba."[7] Later still — only from the 1940s onward — the alternative name "Naqab" began to enter discourse as a counter-term to the Zionist concept of the "Negev." It became more widely used only from 2007 onwards.[8]

References

  1. ^ See Michael C. Dunn (2014-12-01). "A Foreshadowing of the Great War in the Middle East: The Taba crisis of 1906". Retrieved 2024-05-16. In fact, [before World War I,] there had been a brief threat of war and a British ultimatum in 1906, in what came to be known as the Taba crisis, or sometimes, especially on the Turkish side, the ´Aqaba crisis. It was largely forgotten until the 1980s, when in the wake of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Israel and Egypt submitted a dispute over where exactly the border at Taba ran to international arbitration.
  2. ^ Kirk, George E. (1941). "The Negev, or Southern Desert of Palestine". Palestine Exploration Quarterly. 73 (2): 57.: "The elongated triangle of South Palestine betwen Gaza, the Dead sea, and the Gulf of Aqaba is a historical accident produced by the arbitrators who fixed the frontier between Palestine and Egypt in the last century. It is not a geographical unity, and has no single Arabic name. [...R]ecent Jewish writers have revived the old Hebrew appellation Negev, meaning 'The Dry,' applied vaguely to the lands south of Beersheba."
  3. ^ Cf. Hirsch, Emil G.; Seligsohn, Max (1905). "Negeb". The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. IX. p. 207.
  4. ^ Teresa Stanek (2010). ""Negev" in Gen 13:1. Translation and Interpretation". Retrieved 2024-05-16.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ For an example text, in which it still had to be established that "Negev" was a toponym in the Bible, see Cheyne, Thomas K. (1902). "Negeb". Encyclopedia Biblica. Vol. III: L to P. pp. 3374–3380.
  6. ^ Cf. the Google Ngram Viewer for "English word usage". Retrieved 2024-05-16., "German word usage". Retrieved 2024-05-16., and "French word usage". Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  7. ^ Cf. Parizot, Cédric (2001). "'Gaza, Beersheba, Dhariyya': Another Approach to the Negev Bedouins in the Israeli-Palestinian Space". Bulletin du Centre de recherche français à Jérusalem. 9: 3.
  8. ^ Cf. the Google Ngram Viewer for ""Naqab" in English usage". Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  9. ^ See Bailey, Clinton (1990). "The Ottomans and the Bedouin Tribes of the Negev". In Gilbar, Gad G. (ed.). Palestine 1800–1914: Studies in Economic and Social History. E.J. Brill. pp. 322–325.. Cf. also p. 332: "In sum, Ottoman rule was barely effective in the nineteenth-century Negev. As a result, the Bedouin there lived an autonomous, if not independent, existence, pursuing their lives and wars with little interference. Without sufficient manpower and weaponry at government disposal, it could hardly have been different."
  10. ^ See Nasasra, Mansour (2015). "Ruling the Desert: Ottoman and British Policies towards the Bedouin of the Naqab and Transjordan Region, 1900–1948". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 42 (3): 263.: "According to Bailey, the Bedouin in the desert ignored the existence of the Ottomans and simply carried on with their traditional way of life. [...] Throughout the nineteenth century Bedouin in the various districts of Palestine, including the southern district, and uniterrupted by the Ottomans, effectively controlled the desert's economic trade routes, levying charges on traders and peasants who passed through the Bedouin region with goods, wuch as wheat, that were being taken to other places."
  11. ^ See Herbert Verreth (2006). The Northern Sinai from the 7th Century BC till the 7th Century AD. A Guide to the Sources. Vol. I. pp. 151–158, 309.
  12. ^ After al-Dimashqi (~1300), who was the last to include it within the east Jordanian region of Karak, this became the "standard description of the Egyptian borders in the medieval Muslim/Arabic sources.": Okasha N. El Daly (2003). Ancient Egypt in Medieval Moslem/Arabic Writings (PDF) (Thesis). University College London. p. 37 f. On al-Dimashqi, cf. Marcus Milwright (2008). The Fortress of the Raven. Karak in the Middle Islamic Period (1100–1650). Brill. p. 80 f.
  13. ^ Gil-Har, Yitzhak (1993). "Egypt's North-Eastern Boundary in Sinai". Middle Eastern Studies. 29 (1): 135.: "Four European powers, Great Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia, whose policy aimed at the preservation of the integrity of the Ottoman empire, intervened in the conflict and imposed a political settlement upon both sides (France acted outside the European consensus and suported the cause of Mohammed Ali)."
  14. ^ On French support for Egypt, cf. Ufford, Letitia W. (2007). The Pasha: How Mehemet Ali Defied the West, 1839–1841. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. p. 19.
  15. ^ On British support for the Ottomans, cf. Tallon, James (2019). "Allies and Adversaries: Anglo-Ottoman Boundary Negotiation in the Middle East, 1906–1914". In Olmstead, Justin Q. (ed.). Britain in the Islamic World: Imperial and Post-Imperial Connections. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 90–91.
  16. ^ See Caquet, P.E. (2016). The Orient, the Liberal Movement, and the Eastern Crisis of 1839–41 (PDF). Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 24–25.
  17. ^ See Ben-Bassat, Yuval; Ben-Artzi, Yossi (2015). "The collision of Empires as seen from Istanbul: the border of British-controlled Egypt and Ottoman Palestine as reflected in Ottoman maps". Journal of Historical Geography. 50: 26, 31.
  18. ^ Cf., e.g., Gil-Har, Yitzhak (1993). "Egypt's North-Eastern Boundary in Sinai". Middle Eastern Studies. 29 (1): 137–138.: "It was traditional Ottoman habit to impose upon the Valis of Egypt the duty of safeguarding the pilgrimage route from Egypt to Mecca and Medina, which went through Sinai and the Land of Midian. Nothing was changed by the Egyptian withdrawal from Hijaz proper. [...] Thus, not only for the sake of safeguarding the annual pilgrimage, but also for administrative purposes, the Sinai Peninsula and the Land of Midian were attached to the Egyptian administration. The Valis of Egypt were in charge of maintaining the privileges granted by the various Sultans to the Greek Orthodox monks of St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai. [...] The Egyptian government maintained law and order along the roads and built new roads in Sinai and Midian. The Egyptian army occupied five forts: Nakhl, Akaba, Muweila, Daba and Al Wajh. The strength of the Egyptian government representation in Sinai and in the Land of Midian was proportional to the requirements of the annual pilgrimage and of the population whose fixed settlements numbered no more than four, almost all of the area's inhabitants being nomads."
  19. ^ Ellis, Matthew H. (2018). Desert Borderland: The Making of Modern Egypt and Libya. Stanford University Press. p. 5.
  20. ^ Cf. Ben-Bassat, Yuval; Ben-Artzi, Yossi (2015). "The collision of Empires as seen from Istanbul: the border of British-controlled Egypt and Ottoman Palestine as reflected in Ottoman maps". Journal of Historical Geography. 50: 29.: "[Maps produced by the Ottomans after 1841] reflect[ed] the situation on the ground in Sinai as it developed after 1841. This was de-facto control by the Egyptian house of Muhammad ´Ali over the Sinai, Egyptian guarding of the pilgrimage route through this desert, and even a permanent Egyptian presence in ´Aqaba in the Province of Hijjaz."
  21. ^ Cf. Kliot, Murit (1995). "The Evolution of the Egypt-Israel Boundary: From Colonial Foundations to Peaceful Borders" (PDF). Boundary & Territory Briefing. 1 (8): 2.
  22. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8. The 1841 map showed the British that the border of the area that was intended to remain under direct Ottoman control reached the Suez Canal and even crossed it [...].
  23. ^ Cf. Ochsenwald, William (1984). Religion, Society, and the State in Arabia: The Hijaz under Ottoman Control, 1840–1908. Ohio State University Press. p. 96.: "Britain and British India dominated imports and exports after the decline of the coffee trade, which had been largely under Muslim Ottoman control earlier. The planting of coffee outside Arabia, especially in the Western Hemisphere in the eighteenth century, decreased the importance of Yemen coffee and, therefore, Jidda as an exporter of it. After 1875 the value of coffee imported into, and re-exported from, Jidda rapidly declined and stayed quite low, with only a slight increase in the years after 1903. [...] British and Anglo-Indian dominance of the Jidda marketplace (see table 5) continued basically unaltered from 1840 to 1908."
  24. ^ Özyüksel, Murat (2014). The Hejaz Railway and the Ottoman Empire: Modernity, Industrialisation and Ottoman Decline. I.B. Tauris. pp. 60, 66.
  25. ^ Khalidi, Rashid I. (1980). British Policy towards Syria & Palestine 1906–1914: A Study of the Antecedents of the Hussein – McMahon Correspondence, the Sykes – Picot Agreement, and the Balfour Declaration. The Middle East Centre. p. 16.: "He in any case caused the Firman of investiture to be drafted so as to exclude the Sinai region from the Khedivate of Egypt. This was done simply by deleting from the traditional formula describing Egypt which began 'tel qu'il se trouve formé par ses anciennes limites' [as it was formed by its ancient boundaries], the succeeding phrase, 'et en comprenant les territoires qui y ont été annexés' [and including the territories that were annexed to it]."
  26. ^ "Your highness is well aware that His Majesty the Sultan had ordered the positioning of Egyptian policemen that will secure the pilgrimage in El-Waja, Muwalla, Daba and Aqaba, and in a few other places on the coast of Sinai, in the past. All of these points are absent from the map that marked Egypt's boundaries, which was given to Muhammad Ali. El-Waja was aready returned to the province of Hijaz, and the other three points were added to it recently. The status quo in the Sinai Peninsula will prevail, and it will be governed by the [Khedive] just as has been governed in the days of your father and your grandfather." – Apud Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
  27. ^ Cf.Warburg, Gabriel R. (1979). "The Sinai Peninsula Borders, 1906–47". Journal of Contemporary History. 14: 682.: "Cromer preferred to overlook the fact that the Suez-El-Arish line was the boundary laid down in the 1841 firman and restated in subsequent firmans, while the de facto adminstration [sic] of large sections of the peninsula had never been recognized as constituting a new boundary and was granted only as a security measure for the Egyptian pilgrimage to Mecca."
  28. ^ United Nations (1988). Reports of International Arbitral Awards: Case concerning the location of boundary markers in Taba between Egypt and Israel (PDF). p. 14.
  29. ^ On 1906, cf. Bloomfield, Louis M. (1957). Egypt, Israel and the Gulf of Aqaba in International Law. The Carswell Company. p. 121.: "The Grand Vizier, in replying to the Khedive, maintained that the Gulf of Aqaba and the Sinai Peninsula were outside the territory mentioned in the Imperial Firman; that the [Sultan's] telegram of April 8th, 1892, only referred to the western side of the Sinai Peninsula; and that the interpretation of that telegram was a matter which was of concern only to the Ottoman Government."
  30. ^ E.g. Gooch, John (1974). The Plans of War: The General Staff and British Military Strategy c. 1900–1906. Routledge. p. 249.: "According to the terms of an agreement between the Khedive and the Sultan in 1892 it [= the Sinai Peninsula] lay under Egyptian jurisdiction."
  31. ^ E.g. Eliav, Mordechai (1997). Britain and the Holy Land, 1838–1914: Selected Documents from the British Consulate in Jerusalem. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, The Magnes Press. p. 301 note 3.: "When Lord Cromer intervened in the dispute, the Turkish government was compelled to agree that the entire Sinai Peninsula would be administratively annexed to Egypt, albeith while remaining under Ottoman sovereignty."
  32. ^ E.g. CIA (1956). Intelligence Memorandum CIA/RR–GM–1: Frontiers in Sinai (PDF) (Report). p. 2.: "Most maps printed before 1892 showed the frontier beginning at Al 'Arish. In 1892, Britain's Lord Cromer modified Egypt's frontiers arbitrarily. He did not establish a formal boundary but instead confined himself to eliminating Turkish rule in Sinai. He published his interpretation of the boundary as being a line running just east of Al 'Arish on the Mediterranean to the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. Turkey neither assented to nor rejected Lord Cromer's unilateral declaration."
  33. ^ E.g. Hirszowicz, L. (1972). "The Sultan and the Khedive, 1892–1908". Middle Eastern Studies. 8 (3): 297.: "At that the matter rested in 1892. The Turkish government neither agreed nor voiced disagreement with Cromer's interpretation."
  34. ^ Barin, Büşra (2014). The Ottoman Policy towards Jewish Immigration and Settlement in Palestine: 1882–1920 (PDF) (Dissertation). p. 35.
  35. ^ Barin, Büşra (2014). The Ottoman Policy towards Jewish Immigration and Settlement in Palestine: 1882–1920 (PDF) (Dissertation). pp. 32 f.
  36. ^ Caquet, P.E. (2016). The Orient, the Liberal Movement, and the Eastern Crisis of 1839–41 (PDF). Palgrave Macmillan. p. 167.
  37. ^ Foreign Broadcast Information Service (1985). Near East/South Asia Report: Egypt: Historical Roots of the Taba Problem (PDF). p. 6.
  38. ^ See Schoeps, Julius H. (2023). Vom Selbstverständnis und den Befindlichkeiten deutscher Juden. Georg Olms Verlag. pp. 170–196.
  39. ^ Cromer, Earl of (1916). Modern Egypt. Vol. II. The Macmillan Company. p. 268.: "The second was that a well-intentioned German enthusiast, named Friedmann, of Jewish origin, was, at the moment when the Firman was under discussion, endeavouring to establish a settlement of some couple of dozen Jews, who had been expelled from Russia, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Akaba. This was suspicious. [...] But the suspicions of the Sultan were not so easily calmed. The result was that the Firman laid down the Egyptian frontier as drawn from Suez to El-Arish."
  40. ^ Cf. also Foreign Broadcast Information Service (1985). Near East/South Asia Report: Egypt: Historical Roots of the Taba Problem (PDF) (Report). pp. 6 f.: "[The Friedmann incident] angered the Ottoman government, which was not satisfied with expelling Friedman and his group from the region. [... Thus, the Sultan] deliberately included in that decree a few references to the borders of the territory that was beign administered by the khedive."
  41. ^ Cf. Warburg, Gabriel R. (1979). "The Sinai Peninsula Borders, 1906–47". Journal of Contemporary History. 14: 682.
  42. ^ Cf. Kasaba, Reșat (2009). A Moveable Empire: Ottoman Nomads, Migrants, and Refugees. University of Washington Press. pp. 85–86.
  43. ^ Barakat, Nora E. (2023). Bedouin Bureaucrats: Mobility and Property in the Ottoman Empire. Stanford University Press. pp. 100–101.
  44. ^ Cf. Amara, Ahmad (2021). "The Ottoman Tanzimat in the Palestinian Frontier of Beersheba (1850–1917)". In Çağlar, Burhan (ed.). Living in the Ottoman Lands: Identities, Administration and Warfare. Kronik. pp. 127, 132.
  45. ^ Kark, Ruth; Frantzman, Seth J. (2012). "The Negev: Land, Settlement, the Bedouin and Ottoman and British Policy 1871–1948". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 39 (1): 58–59.
  46. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 233 FN 36. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
  47. ^ Cf. Burckhardt, John L. (1822). Travels in Syria and the Holy Land. John Murray. p. viii.: "The name of Rafa is still preserved near a well in the desert, at six hours' march to the southward of Gaza, where among many remains of ancient buildings, two erect granite columns are supposed by the natives to mark the division between Africa and Asia."
  48. ^ Cf. Halevy, Dotan (2017). "Marginal Diplomacy: Alexander Knesevich and the Consular Agency in Gaza, 1905–1914". Jerusalem Quarterly. 71: 85.
  49. ^ John Dickson, 1906, apud Eliav, Mordechai (1997). Britain and the Holy Land, 1838–1914: Selected Documents from the British Consulate in Jerusalem. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, The Magnes Press. p. 332.: "As, however, the late Khedive, Ismail Pasha, appears to have renewed the granite pillars at Khurbet Rafah, it is extremely probable they were marked on the map which has disappeared, and that Ismail Pasha had been aware of this fact."
  50. ^ Cf. Halevy, Dotan (2017). "Marginal Diplomacy: Alexander Knesevich and the Consular Agency in Gaza, 1905–1914". Jerusalem Quarterly. 71: 85 f.
  51. ^ Cf. Muslih, Muhammad Y. (1988). The Origins of Palestinian Nationalism. Columbia University Press. p. 12.
  52. ^ Cf. Trietsch, Davis (1902). "Der aeusserste Suedwesten Palaestinas". Palästina. 1 (1): 27–38.
  53. ^ Herzl in 1903: "For we shall be used as a small buffer-state. [...] And once we are at El-Arish under the Union Jack, then Palestine too will fall into the British sphere of influence." – apud Patai, Raphael (1960). The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. Vol. IV. The Herzl Press, Thomas Yoseloff. p. 1474.
  54. ^ Cf. Weisbord, Robert G. (1968). African Zion: The Attempt to Establish a Jewish Colony in the East Africa Protectorate, 1903–1905. Jewish Publication Society of America. pp. 53–59.
  55. ^ Joseph Chamberlain, 1902, apud Patai, Raphael (1960). The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. Vol. IV. The Herzl Press, Thomas Yoseloff. p. 1361.
  56. ^ Cf. Kamel, Lorenzo (2015). Imperial Perceptions of Palestine: British Influence and Power in Late Ottoman Times. Bloomsbury. p. 91.
  57. ^ Lord Cromer, 29 November 1902, apud Eliav, Mordechai (1997). Britain and the Holy Land, 1838–1914: Selected Documents from the British Consulate in Jerusalem. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, The Magnes Press. pp. 300–301.: "I should, in the first instance, remark that I find it somewhat diffuclt to believe that the Zionist movement will really find much favour in the eyes of the Sultan. It is certainly a fact that Mr. Friedmann's venture, to which allusion is briefly made in Dr. Herzl's letter, caused considerable anxiety at Constantinople. [...] In the first place, Your Lordship is aware that the Turkish and Egyptian Governemnts are not agreed as to the frontier between El-Arish and the head of the Gulf of Akaba. [...] I think, therefore, that, both in the interests of the Jews themselves, and in order to avoid the possiblity of trouble with the Turkish authorities, it would be desirable that the Colony, if it is founded at all, should be located wholly to the West, not only of the line claimed by the Egyptian, but also of that claimed by the Ottoman Government."
  58. ^ Lord Cromer, 14 May 1903, apud Eliav, Mordechai (1997). Britain and the Holy Land, 1838–1914: Selected Documents from the British Consulate in Jerusalem. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, The Magnes Press. p. 312.: "The water would have to be suppplied from the Nile. Syphons would have to be constructed under the Suez Canal.
    [William Garstin's] report, as Your Lordship will observe, is conclusive against the adoption of the project."
  59. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 31. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
  60. ^ Özyüksel, Murat (2014). The Hejaz Railway and the Ottoman Empire: Modernity, Industrialisation and Ottoman Decline. I.B. Tauris. p. 142.
  61. ^ Burman, John (2009). "British Strategic Interests versus Ottoman Sovereign Rights: New Perspectives on the Aqaba Crisis, 1906". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 37 (2): 280.
  62. ^ Foreign Broadcast Information Service (1985). Near East/South Asia Report: Egypt: Historical Roots of the Taba Problem (PDF) (Report). p. 20.
  63. ^ Özyüksel, Murat (2014). The Hejaz Railway and the Ottoman Empire: Modernity, Industrialisation and Ottoman Decline. I.B. Tauris. p. 38.
  64. ^ Šuško, Dževada (2014). "The Importance of the Berlin-Baghdad and Hejaz Railways Germany [sic]". Kaiser and Sultan – the Berlin-Baghdad and Hejaz Railways: Conference Proceedings. Institute for Islamic Tradition of Bosniaks. p. 161.
  65. ^ Cf. Fair, C. Christine (2019). "India". In Balzacq, Thierry (ed.). Comparative Grand Strategy: A Framework and Cases. Oxford University Press. p. 171.
  66. ^ Kliot, Murit (1995). "The Evolution of the Egypt-Israel Boundary: From Colonial Foundations to Peaceful Borders" (PDF). Boundary & Territory Briefing. 1 (8): 2.
  67. ^ Özyüksel, Murat (2014). The Hejaz Railway and the Ottoman Empire: Modernity, Industrialisation and Ottoman Decline. I.B. Tauris. p. 145.
  68. ^ Kliot, Murit (1995). "The Evolution of the Egypt-Israel Boundary: From Colonial Foundations to Peaceful Borders" (PDF). Boundary & Territory Briefing. 1 (8): 5.
  69. ^ Burman, John (2009). "British Strategic Interests versus Ottoman Sovereign Rights: New Perspectives on the Aqaba Crisis, 1906". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 37 (2): 278.
  70. ^ Foreign Broadcast Information Service (1985). Near East/South Asia Report: Egypt: Historical Roots of the Taba Problem (PDF) (Report). pp. 10–11.
  71. ^ United Nations (1988). Reports of International Arbitral Awards: Case concerning the location of boundary markers in Taba between Egypt and Israel (PDF) (Report). pp. 14–15.
  72. ^ Tallon, James (2019). "Allies and Adversaries: Anglo-Ottoman Boundary Negotiation in the Middle East, 1906–1914". In Olmstead, Justin Quinn (ed.). Britain in the Islamic World: Imperial and Post-Imperial Connections. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 94.
  73. ^ Tallon, James (2019). "Allies and Adversaries: Anglo-Ottoman Boundary Negotiation in the Middle East, 1906–1914". In Olmstead, Justin Quinn (ed.). Britain in the Islamic World: Imperial and Post-Imperial Connections. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 93.
  74. ^ "The Sultan's message [to dissolve the post] was undoubtedly due to the exaggerated reports from Egypt, representing the dispatch of Bramley Bey with a few soldiers to inspect and occupy some of the positions on the Egyptian side of the frontier as an encroachment on Turkish territory, although it was explained to the Porte that the object of Bramley Bey's mission was to discuss in a friendly manner with the local Turkish authorities the exact position of certain places on the boundary which had never been accurately defined." – F.O. 371/345, apud Gooch, G. P.; Temperley, Harold (1928). British Documents on the Origins of the War 1898-1914. Vol. V: The Near East. The Macedonian Problem and the Annexation of Bosnia 1903-9. London: Her Britannic Majesty's Stationery Office. p. 189.
  75. ^ Gooch, G. P.; Temperley, Harold (1928). British Documents on the Origins of the War 1898-1914. Vol. V: The Near East. The Macedonian Problem and the Annexation of Bosnia 1903-9. London: Her Britannic Majesty's Stationery Office. pp. 189 f.
  76. ^ Foreign Broadcast Information Service (1985). Near East/South Asia Report: Egypt: Historical Roots of the Taba Problem (PDF) (Report). p. 11.
  77. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
  78. ^ Foreign Broadcast Information Service (1985). Near East/South Asia Report: Egypt: Historical Roots of the Taba Problem (PDF) (Report). p. 24.
  79. ^ Bloomfield, Louis M. (1957). Egypt, Israel and the Gulf of Aqaba in International Law. The Carswell Company. p. 121.
  80. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
  81. ^ Cf. Halevy, Dotan (2017). "Marginal Diplomacy: Alexander Knesevich and the Consular Agency in Gaza, 1905–1914". Jerusalem Quarterly. 71: 85–87.
  82. ^ Lieutenant Bramly, apud Warburg, Gabriel R. (1979). "The Sinai Peninsula Borders, 1906–47". Journal of Contemporary History. 14: 681–682.
  83. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
  84. ^ Foreign Broadcast Information Service (1985). Near East/South Asia Report: Egypt: Historical Roots of the Taba Problem (PDF). pp. 22, 25.
  85. ^ Foreign Broadcast Information Service (1985). Near East/South Asia Report: Egypt: Historical Roots of the Taba Problem (PDF). pp. 23, 27 f.
  86. ^ Burman, John (2009). "British Strategic Interests versus Ottoman Sovereign Rights: New Perspectives on the Aqaba Crisis, 1906". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 37 (2): 283 f.
  87. ^ Burman, John (2009). "British Strategic Interests versus Ottoman Sovereign Rights: New Perspectives on the Aqaba Crisis, 1906". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 37 (2): 283.
  88. ^ Cf. Tallon, James (2019). "Allies and Adversaries: Anglo-Ottoman Boundary Negotiation in the Middle East, 1906–1914". In Olmstead, Justin Quinn (ed.). Britain in the Islamic World: Imperial and Post-Imperial Connections. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 94.: "As negotiations stalled, Abdülhamid II considered putting the issue forward for international arbitration. [...] Britain responded forcefully to this suggestion, knowing that success was unlikely without any documentation to prove Egypt's claim, by threatening Aqaba itself with seizure."
  89. ^ Bloomfield, Louis M. (1957). Egypt, Israel and the Gulf of Aqaba in International Law. The Carswell Company. p. 122.
  90. ^ Burman, John (2009). "British Strategic Interests versus Ottoman Sovereign Rights: New Perspectives on the Aqaba Crisis, 1906". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 37 (2): 285 f.
  91. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 34 f. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8. Even though deep political involvement was invested in determining the line, it was not defined in 1906 as anything more than an administrative line, that separated two territories that were subject to one supreme ruler, the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman authorities were careful to avoid mentioning Egypt's existence on the other side of the line, and the agreement discussed a line that separates districts – Jerusalem and Hijaz on one side and Sinai on the other. The British chose to ignore the line's legal meaning, and from here onwards they treated it as an international boundary. The agreement that was signed in May 1906 had nothing to do with the placing of facts in the area. It was only the delimitation step, in which the separation line's course was determined.
  92. ^ Foreign Broadcast Information Service (1985). Near East/South Asia Report: Egypt: Historical Roots of the Taba Problem (PDF). p. 32.: "Nevertheless, there was an obvious wish to give the Sublime Porte some way out so the Ottomans could withdraw without losing face completely. Therefore, it was decided to approve the sultan's request that his rights over Egypt be affirmed; that request was granted in one of the British ambassador's letter to the sultan."
  93. ^ On this map, cf. Büsow, Johann (2011). Hamidian Palestine: Politics and Society in the District of Jerusalem 1872-1908. Brill. pp. 57–59.
  94. ^ Cf. Tamari, Salim (2017). The Great War and the Remaking of Palestine. University of California Press. p. 32.
  95. ^ Halevy, Dotan (2017). "Marginal Diplomacy: Alexander Knesevich and the Consular Agency in Gaza, 1905–1914". Jerusalem Quarterly. 71: 89.
  96. ^ Cf. H.E. Satow, 23 August 1911, apud Eliav, Mordechai (1997). Britain and the Holy Land, 1838–1914: Selected Documents from the British Consulate in Jerusalem. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, The Magnes Press. p. 378.: "[...] I have the honour to report that I duly informed the Consular Agent at Gaza of the dislike of the Egyptian Government to the establishment of Jewish colonies in its territory bordering on the Turkish frontier."
  97. ^ Tignor, Robert L. (1966). Modernization and British Colonial Rule in Egypt, 1882-1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 277–279.
  98. ^ Luke, Kimberly A. (2010). Peering Through the Lens of Dinshwai: British Imperialism in Egypt 1882-1914 (PhD thesis). Florida State University. p. 35–36.
  99. ^ Map from CAB 24/72/7 Archived 2016-11-07 at the Wayback Machine: "Maps illustrating the Settlement of Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula", forming an annex to: CAB 24/72/6 Archived 2016-11-07 at the Wayback Machine, a British Cabinet memorandum on "The Settlement of Turkey and the Arablan Peninsula"
  100. ^ Abu-Rass, Thabit (1992). The Egypt–Palestine/Israel Boundary: 1841–1992 (Master's thesis). p. 68–69.: "Bramly, the British Empire's administrative officer in the Sinai peninsula during the demarcation of the 1906 line, insisted that the agreement of 1906 between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire failed to settle the issue of the legality of the eastern Egyptian boundary. In a letter sent to the Foreign Office in 1946, he proposed that Britain claim the Sinai peninsula for itself by the right of conquest. [...] During the year 1947, several papers were written supporting and opposing Bramly's position regarding the status of the Sinai peninsula. Those in support of Bramly's proposals, argued that Sinai – except for the orthwest corner – was never part of the privileged territories of Egypt (recall the Ottoman position in 1906)."
  101. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8. The British Foreign Office claimed that 'the borderline between Rafah and Aqaba was actually an administrative separation line between two Ottoman provinces', but it did not officially recognize the old–new borderline between Palestine and Egypt.
  102. ^ Abu-Rass, Thabit (1992). The Egypt–Palestine/Israel Boundary: 1841–1992 (Master's thesis). p. 59–65.
  103. ^ Cf. Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. pp. 81–94. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
  104. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 80. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
  105. ^ Galilee, Emir (2019). "A Nomadic State of Mind: Mental Maps of Bedouins in the Negev and Sinai During the Time of the Ottomans, the British Mandate, and the State of Israel". Contemporary Review of the Middle East. 6 (3–4): 376–377.
  106. ^ Cf. Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. pp. 161–163, 165–174, 179–183. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
  107. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 181. Biger references 10 July 1922 meeting notes, file 2.179, CZA. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8. Sovereignty over the Arava, from the south of the Dead Sea to Aqaba, was also discussed. Philby agreed, in Trans-Jordan's name, to give up the western bank of Wadi Arava (and thus all of the Negev area). Nevertheless, a precise borderline was still not determined along the territories of Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Philby's relinquishment of the Negev was necessary, because the future of this area was uncertain. In a discussion regarding the southern boundary, the Egyptian aspiration to acquire the Negev area was presented. On the other hand the southern part of Palestine belonged, according to one of the versions, to the sanjak (district) of Ma'an within the vilayet (province) of Hejaz. King Hussein of Hijaz demanded to receive this area after claiming that a transfer action, to add it to the vilayet of Syria (A-Sham) was supposed to be done in 1908. It is not clear whether this action was completed. Philby claimed that Emir Abdullah had his father's permission to negotiate over the future of the sanjak of Ma'an, which was actually ruled by him, and that he could therefore 'afford to concede' the area west of the Arava in favour of Palestine. This concession was made following British pressure and against the background of the demands of the Zionist Organization for direct contact between Palestine and the Red Sea. It led to the inclusion of the Negev triangle in Palestine's territory, although this area was not considered as part of the country in the many centuries that preceded the British occupation.
  108. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 184. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8. He raised a demand for passing the Semah triangle and the Negev area to Trans-Jordan, shortly after the borderline was officially announced, by claiming that these areas belonged to the vilayet of Syria (A-Sham), during Ottoman rule. Even though the High Commissioner had rejected this demand in the past, it was now supported by some of the officials of the Colonial Office. [... Nevertheless,] Abdullah's demand was rejected. [...] The demand was rejected definitively only in 1925, and it was not brought up by Trans-Jordan as long as Bitain controlled Palestine. During the first years of the State of Israel's independence, the Arabs again claimed Jordanian ownership of the southern Negev, and even attempted to achieve this goal by military means, before rapidly retreating from the idea.
  109. ^ Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. Routledge. p. 185–188. ISBN 978-1-135-76652-8.
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