On the 17th of May 2023, Israeli authorities thwarted Jordanian parliamentarian Imad al-Adwan’s attempt to smuggle gold and over two hundred guns across the Allenby Bridge into Palestine. Israel returned Imad al-Adwan to Jordan, at which point he was stripped of his diplomatic immunity after being dismissed from parliament—where he also served on the Palestine Committee. He faces fifteen years imprisonment for his actions. That Imad al-Adwan was punished for smuggling is of particular interest, considering that the Adwan family is a Balqa tribe whose sphere of protection historically straddled both sides of the Jordan River Valley (al-Ghawr). Before and during the British Mandate era, commodities and people would move from the city of es-Salt and its agricultural satellite villages to the markets of Jerusalem under the protection of the Adwan. This paper draws on archival, oral history, and ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation and collaborative map-making with local communities, to scrutinize historical perceptions of the Jordan River Valley by its residents. It also analyzes the persistence of these perceptions despite the established of the border along the Jordan River to reconstruct the interconnected socio-economic landscape between Jordan and Palestine. It does so by asking: How was the region across the Jordan River conceptualized by its inhabitants before Transjordan's partition from Palestine? When and how do these affective geographies surface after periods of hiatus? In asking these questions and examining the case of Jordanian parliamentarian Imad al-Adwan's smuggling attempt, this research centers the Balqa region’s amputated linkages from its traditional Palestinian centers to challenge the conventional national historiography of the region, which considers the Balqa within the spatial boundaries of Jordan despite the enduring ties and practices that straddle both sides of the Jordan River. It aims to redefine the historical fragmentation between Jordan and Palestine by spotlighting the region's intrinsic role in shaping cross-border relations and regional dynamics across the Jordan River, advocating for a relational, community-focused geographical understanding of the region.