Matt Yglesias writes that the Jordanians don't want the West Bank back, at least not in anything resembling its current state. The Palestinians would be regarded as destabilizing by the Jordanian government. How many historical examples can you find of countries refusing to take back territory that was once, in some form or another, theirs? Spain probably wouldn't take back Ecuador but the offer will not come because the Ecuadorean government values the land. So when is the political shadow value of land negative for both governments? (Of course it's not negative for the Palestinians.) The West Bank aside, I can't think of examples where there is both a possible offer and a refusal to take the land back.
Could Puerto Rico be an example? Maybe the U.S. would gladly "give it back" (that is debatable, however) but it seems that Puerto Rican voters don't want full, unencumbered title.
Julian Simon would have said that the value of land is probably lower today, relative to the value of human and physical capital, than it has been in all of history. Even moderately productive countries are better off refusing an offer to govern over new land, choosing instead to trade for the products of that land.
It probably happens more than you think if you stretch it a bit and include wartime negotiations where one party does not take as much as it could. After the Soviet-Polish war in 1921, the nationalistic right wing in Poland forced the government to accept less land from the Soviets than was offered in the original treaty (in particular they insisted that Soviets keep Minsk). They didn’t want more Ukrainians and Belarussians in their vision of ‘Poland for Poles’.
Two of the islands of the Comoros (Anjouan and Moheli) tried to secede from that country and rejoin France in 1997, but got turned down…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moosylvania
Moosylvania is a fictional island between the U.S. and Canada. It lies in the middle of Veronica Lake, that appeared in the television series collectively referred to as Rocky and Bullwinkle. Its governor is Bullwinkle J. Moose. The U.S. claims that it is a Canadian province, and Canada claims it is a U.S. state.
There is/was a joke that West Germans wanted to have “their” wall back (and even build it a bit higher than before). This, of course, never was official policy, but every joke comes from a true place …
Tyler, altho’ King Abdullah I – the friend of T.E. Lawrence – at one time proclaimed that all Palestinians were welcome in Transjordan/Jordan and should come settle there, the fact that he was assassinated by a Palestinian in 1951 has caused his descendants to adopt a certain mixed attitude towards them.
The Netherlands have made it abundantly clear to the Flemings (Dutch-speaking Belgians) that they have no intention of taking them back should they secede, as expected, from federal Belgium its French and German-speaking provinces (the Catholic Belgians had seceded in 1830 from the Calvinist Dutch due to religious persecution from the latter). France hasn’t taken an official position, but is not encouraging either.
“Debates” between supporters of Israel and Palestine are usually sterile, so I won’t go there. It is interesting to note, however, that Hashim, the Arab patriarch who is the ancestor of the Hashemite dynasty in power in Jordan (and the great-grandfather of the prophet Muhammad for that matter), is buried in Gaza.
In the 2004 presidential election in the Philippines, a candidate named Elly Pamatong got a lot of headlines with a proposal to have the U.S. take back the Philippines and make it the 51st state. She ended up getting disqualified, dismaying some Filipinos who thought it was about time the idea was taken seriously, given the endemic corruption in their nation and its failure to achieve the economic success of many of its neighbors.
But would the U.S. have wanted the Philippines as a state? Doubtful. Doubtful. Giving the thousands of Islamic terrorists and bin Laden sympathizers in the southern islands the free run of the U.S. would have freaked out the Pentagon.
I recall Lee Kwan Yew (former PM of Singapore) talking about how worried he was that Singapore got kicked out of the Malayan Federation (more or less current day Malaysia) back in the 60s/70s. Singapore’s doing just fine.
Re doctorpat’s point: Then the rest of Canada should secede. The only thing they wouldn’t get to do is call it Canada. But they could call it Canada 2.0. They could even have a bit of ironical fun and call it la deuxieme republique (or monarchie, depending on the amount of accuracy, layers of irony, and democracy they want to go for).
Re Canada and Quebec, I have heard similar sentiments to the effect that the only reason Scotland is still part of the UK is that the English don’t get to vote on the subject.
After the coup to which felled Salazar in Portugal in 1974 the new leftist administration in Lisbon were keen to dispose of overseas possessions and thus offered Macau back to the Chinese. The offer however was refused by the Chinese who were dealing the death throes of the Cultural Revolution and the rise of the Gang of Four. It was thought that the return of Macau could introduce more instability and would act (at least in the short term) as a bad influence on the ‘purity’ of the rest of China. Macau was finally returned in 1999 on the basis of ‘one country, two systems’ that had lead to Hong Kong’s return in 1997.
Thus, China’s pronoucements at the time of ending 150 years of colonial domination rang somewhat hollow, as they had been offered one of the concessions back earlier and refused it.
I wonder if at some level S Korea feels about N Korea this way…
Puerto Rico established something of a record by simultaneously voting against statehood, against Commonwealth status and against independence. The only option they were not offered is being “given back” to become a Spanish province or region again. If they did ever say they wanted that, it is clear that the USA would be content, but also pretty clear that the Spaniards would think twice.
In 1977, Egypt refused to accept Gaza as part of the Camp David Accords. Prior to 1967, they’d controlled by Gaza and the entire Sinai peninsula. They took back the rest of the Sinai, which has lost of oil but few people, and refused Gaza, which has no oil and lots of (ungovernable?) people.
As Robert says population is the key – the value of land diminishes as the population increases. Jordan would be happy to have the west bank with its 1947 population but the population explosion of the Palestinians has diminshed the value of their state both politically and economically.
Syria doesn’t want the Shebaa Farms portion of the Golan Heights back. They say it belongs to Lebanon.
IIRC, Israel offered some years ago to return control of Gaza to Egypt and Egypt declined. Or perhaps didn’t offer after background inquries indicated that a formal offer would be declined.
In 1977, Israel offerred to return Gaza to Egypt along with the Sinai peninsula, and Egypt refused to take it.
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