HISTORY crowds in as you approach the Allenby crossing. It spans the Jordan river, linking the Kingdom of Jordan with the occupied West Bank. 

Suspended across domed concrete abutments, it resembles a spacecraft marooned in the desert. The Dead Sea is close by, and Jericho (possibly the world’s oldest city) is the nearest settlement. It is not remnants of Bible times that are most striking, however, but marks of the last century.

The crossing takes its name from General Edmund Allenby. As imperial governor, he built a predecessor structure in 1922. Zionist insurgents destroyed that crossing in 1948’s “night of the bridges,” as they attacked strategic resources and started to drive Palestinians from large parts of what was then a British protectorate.