Episode Details

From 1948 to 1967, Jerusalem was split between Israel and Jordan, and the Mandelbaum Gate was the only legal crossing between the two halves. It looked like a monument in photographs, but it was really a procedure — a queue with a war on either side. This episode reconstructs the checkpoint as a working thing: who staffed each side, what UN observers actually did there, who was allowed through and who was refused, and how passports, permits, and inspections were handled between two countries with no diplomatic relations. Along the way: the Mount Scopus convoys that travelled through Jordanian territory to supply an Israeli enclave, and the Barrel Incident of 1952, when a single oil drum triggered an armed standoff and the storming of a UN headquarters. Episode #771927 — open it directly at myweirdprompts.com/771927