Here is an article back from the early days of the war on Iraq that may be of interest to some.

Transjordan was part of the area the British referred to as Palestine, and originally Transjordan was just a generic term that referred to the area of Palestine, east of the Jordan River (Transjordan… Across the Jordan). The reason that term was used, was to refer to the area of Palestine that would not be part of, what was proposed to be the Jewish national homeland.

86. This Order in Council shall not apply to such parts of the territory comprised in Palestine to the east of The Jordan and The Dead Sea as shall be defined by order of the High Commissioner. Subject to the Provisions of Article 25 Of The Mandate, The High Commissioner may make such provision for the administration of any territories so defined as aforesaid as with the approval of the Secretary of State may be prescribed.

(Mandate of Palestine, Palestine Order in League of Nations Council, 10th August 1922)

The above is a quote from the Palestine Order from the League of Nations Council and as you can see it clearly refers to the area as Palestine, making no reference to Transjordan but instead describes it as “the territory comprised in Palestine to the east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea”. It wasn’t until after the above memorandum was presented to the League of Nations and approved that borders were drawn out for Transjordan and then the British installed the Hashemites as its leaders, as a concillation after the promises made to them (in return for the Arab Revolt they led against the Ottomans) were not fulfilled, which eventually led to them losing el-Hejaz to Al-Saud and Syria to the French.. Of course there was also the broken promises of the Faisal-Weizmann agreement, where Faisal ibn Hussein agreed to establishing a Jewish homeland in “Palestine” provided that the Arabs gained their independence (independence apparently meant being king of the Arabs, since he never complained about broken promises until he was expelled from his Syrian throne by the French… but then 5mths after his letter of complaint he was made king of Iraq and a couple of years later his brother, king Abdullah I, made king of Transjordan/Jordan - the 2 brothers were, of course, the leaders of the aforementioned revolt)… and that’s the early history of Jordan and the Hashemites in a nutshell.

On your final point… so if it’s called stating the obvious, and knowing that Israel will “use any argument it wants to support its own cause”… again, what’s the point of stating it - the criticism of Hizbolla??

jordan is not palestine and transjordan was never considered palestinian territory; it does not belong to palestinians. it has taken in palestinian refugees by the thousands many times, as well as from kuwait as well as iraqis from iraq when most if not all arab nations close their borders.

the condemnation of Israel came first, check the news reports. secondly there was no condemnation of hizballah it was a criticism of hizballah putting lebanon at risk which was true; it’s also called stating the obvious. israel will use any arguement it wants to support its own cause and drive the arab street mad. calling hizballah adventurist is not a green light for israel to bomb the crap out of lebanon. this is only true in the delluded minds of zionists or pro-zionists.

I’m not generalising, I’m aware that there are many lovely Jordanian people some of whom are close friends of mine. However, your words suggested that the Iraqis should give you oil since you have their citizens in your country, which doesn’t exactly sound like you’re “glad” to have them there.

I’m not acting like you’re stealing their oil (wow, so many accusations in ur reply), I said you’re getting cheap oil, which you are and you’re gonna get it whether or not you have your ambassador there, so what’s the point of having an ambassador in Iraq when they’re at the brink of (if not already in) a civil war, especially when there are people in Iraq that would like to kill the Jordanian ambassador as they did with the Egyptian one?

And NO, Jordan did not do more for its Arab brethren than any other Arab country, especially when we extend our memory to the earlier half of the previous century. Jordan wasn’t even deemed an influential Arab country until it signed a peace treaty with Israel. Yeah, sure, the majority of your population is made up of Palestinians but then again, before the British created Transjordan, it was considered Palestinian territory, so it’s not really like they’re guests.

As for King Abdullah’s comments, as far as I’m aware what came out first was condemnation of Hizbolla’s miscalculated adventure, and that didn’t come until a couple of days of silence - same happened with the Egyptians and Saudis. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that condemnation of Israel came first, and condemnation of Hizbolla came second. What was the need for it?? All it did, was undermine Hizbolla when it was the only force resisting the Israeli aggression. Furthermore, as I said before, the Israelis used the comments of the Jordanian, Egyptian and Saudi leaderships to strengthen their case.

Hamzeh - Last paragraph deals with your point.

As an Arab head of state, the first thing that should have come out of him was a condemnation of what Israel was doing.

Actually, that was exactly what he did in the very first statement he made regarding the conflict, but the media chose to focus on his criticism of Hizballah which didn’t even come close to the language of condemnations. And as Naseem said, King Abdallah was the most vocal Arab leader in the entire period of the conflict against Israel’s aggression.

Im not annoyed, I’m glad so many Iraqis chose to come to Jordan. But dont act like we’re stealing their oil. Also dont generalise based on the fact that your mum was refused a visa that therefore all Jordanians are annoyed with Iraqis. Jordan has done more for it’s Arab brethern than most Arab states so keep that in mind the next time you want to belittle the country for its efforts.

Why do Jordanians always sound so annoyed about hosting their Arab “brethren”?? I remember, after the Gulf war, my parents were making a choice about whether they should choose Jordan or Egypt as a move out of Kuwait. Initially, my mum chose Jordan, she got the visa but the lady in the embassy was quite rude, in fact so rude that when my mum came back, she looked at my dad and said, “We’re not putting our money there, we’re going to Egypt”, and we did, very glad that we did too. So instead of making it sound like Iraqis owe it to you, to give you cheap oil, perhaps you should also think of how their money contributes to your economy - that as well as their cheap oil, which I’m sure is used for more than fueling their SUVs.