#transjordan

Prince Emir Saud's visit to Emir Abdullah in Amman, Transjordan. The Emirs Saoud & Talal mounted for inspection. Photo by Matson Photo Service, 1935.

By: National Post View

Published: Sep 20, 2025

Next week, Prime Minister Mark Carney and his foreign minister will travel to the United Nations in New York, where his government has said it will recognize a Palestinian state. As much as he’d like to believe that a group of credulous world leaders can simply will such a state into existence, the reality is that there’s no such thing as a Palestinian state — not now, not in the past and not in the near future.

It’s true that the term “Palestine” has a history dating back thousands of years. But its origins stretch back at least to the fifth century BC, over 1,000 years before Muslims colonized the area. As historian David Jacobson argued in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, “The name Palestine, in its Greek form Palaistine, was both a transliteration of a word used to describe the land of the Philistines and, at the same time, a literal translation of the name Israel.”

Palestine was not used in an official capacity until the Romans renamed the province of Judea “Syria Palaestina” to punish the Jews for revolting against the Empire. When Arab armies conquered the region in the seventh century, they adopted many Byzantine place names, including “Palestine,” erected the Al-Aqsa mosque on the site of the destroyed Jewish Temple and proclaimed it the third-holiest site in Islam, setting up a conflict that continues to this day.

In the 16th century, the region was taken over by the Ottoman Empire. While many of the Jews had been kicked out in previous conquests, a Jewish presence was maintained throughout, and a concerted effort to bring Jews back to their homeland began in 1700 and picked up steam in the 19th century. Although the term “Palestine” hadn’t been used to describe a political entity since the fall of the Roman Empire, it was commonly used to describe the region south of Syria and bisected by the Jordan River.

In 1917, as the First World War was coming to a close and the Ottoman Empire was collapsing, Britain’s foreign secretary issued the Balfour Declaration, promising “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” After the war, the European powers divided up the Middle East, with the United Kingdom assuming a Mandate for Palestine from the League of Nations.

It was intended to eventually be divided into separate homelands for Jews and “Palestinians” — a term that “gained acceptance as a description of Palestine’s Arabic speakers during the first decade and a half of the 20th century,” according to an article in Academia Letters. A Palestinian state east of the Jordan River called Transjordan (now Jordan) was created in 1946, and the Jews declared the State of Israel in 1948.

Yet, just as today, Israel’s Arab neighbours were not content to allow a Jewish state to exist. They attacked from all sides, and by the time an armistice was signed in 1949, Transjordan had come to occupy the West Bank and Egyptian forces occupied Gaza.

Israel retook the territories during the 1967 Six-Day War, and Egypt and Jordan eventually relinquished their claims over them. Yet the moment was seized upon by Yasser Arafat, a skilled mythmaker who deliberately distorted history to unify the Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza as a distinct nation — both in the eyes of his people and the rest of the world.

The PLO’s Zuheir Mohsen gave away the plot in a 1977 interview with a Dutch newspaper, when he said, “The Palestinian people does not exist … there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.… Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism.”

Nevertheless, the Six-Day War allowed Arafat’s nationalist movement to adopt a more politically palatable message — a Palestinian state in the territories previously conquered by Egypt and Jordan — though their goal of evicting the Jews from the region by “any means necessary” never changed.

Since that time, the Palestinians have received numerous offers for statehood, but rejected them all in favour of violence. The most promising was the 1993 Oslo Accords, which laid out a road map for peace that included the eventual negotiation of an international border between Israel and the West Bank.

Under international law, those borders still need to be negotiated, which presents a problem for the countries now trying to claim Palestine as a state. The 1933 Montevideo Convention defines a state as having four primary characteristics: “(a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.”

While the Palestinian territories have a permanent population and a limited ability to engage in foreign relations, they don’t have a defined territory. Nor do they have a real government: the Palestinian Authority is corrupt, deeply unpopular and on the verge of bankruptcy; while Gaza is controlled by a terrorist organization that virtually everyone agrees cannot play a role in a future Palestinian state.

Nevertheless, Carney and his ilk are attempting to conjure a state out of thin air, before Hamas has relinquished control over Gaza and before its borders have been settled. It’s a foolhardy and ahistoric move that contradicts 80 years of Canadian foreign policy and will do nothing to further the goal of peace in the Middle East.

[ Via: https://archive.today/HupTz ]

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There is already a two-state solution: Israel and Jordan.

The parliament of  Transjordan made Abdullah I of Jordan their Emir on May 25, 1946.

Conquest and Division of Transjordan

1 Now the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle; and they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold, the place was a place for cattle. 2 So the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben came and said to Moses and to Elea′zar the priest and to the leaders of the congregation, 3 “At′aroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elea′leh, Sebam, Nebo, and Be′on, 4 the land which the Lord smote before the congregation of Israel, is a land for cattle; and your servants have cattle.” 5 And they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession; do not take us across the Jordan.”

6 But Moses said to the sons of Gad and to the sons of Reuben, “Shall your brethren go to the war while you sit here? 7 Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land which the Lord has given them? 8 Thus did your fathers, when I sent them from Ka′desh-bar′nea to see the land. 9 For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol, and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land which the Lord had given them. 10 And the Lord’s anger was kindled on that day, and he swore, saying, 11 ‘Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me; 12 none except Caleb the son of Jephun′neh the Ken′izzite and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.’ 13 And the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was consumed. 14 And behold, you have risen in your fathers’ stead, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel! 15 For if you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness; and you will destroy all this people.”

16 Then they came near to him, and said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our flocks, and cities for our little ones, 17 but we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel, until we have brought them to their place; and our little ones shall live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. 18 We will not return to our homes until the people of Israel have inherited each his inheritance. 19 For we will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond; because our inheritance has come to us on this side of the Jordan to the east.” 20 So Moses said to them, “If you will do this, if you will take up arms to go before the Lord for the war, 21 and every armed man of you will pass over the Jordan before the Lord, until he has driven out his enemies from before him 22 and the land is subdued before the Lord; then after that you shall return and be free of obligation to the Lord and to Israel; and this land shall be your possession before the Lord. 23 But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord; and be sure your sin will find you out. 24 Build cities for your little ones, and folds for your sheep; and do what you have promised.” 25 And the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben said to Moses, “Your servants will do as my lord commands. 26 Our little ones, our wives, our flocks, and all our cattle, shall remain there in the cities of Gilead; 27 but your servants will pass over, every man who is armed for war, before the Lord to battle, as my lord orders.”

28 So Moses gave command concerning them to Elea′zar the priest, and to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the people of Israel. 29 And Moses said to them, “If the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben, every man who is armed to battle before the Lord, will pass with you over the Jordan and the land shall be subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession; 30 but if they will not pass over with you armed, they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan.” 31 And the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben answered, “As the Lord has said to your servants, so we will do. 32 We will pass over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, and the possession of our inheritance shall remain with us beyond the Jordan.”

Transjordan