A Historical Overview on Jordan-Palestine Relationship

Jordan has played an important role on ‘destiny’ of Palestine since it was established. While at the beginning the first King Abdullah’s, founder of Jordan, territorial aims had formed Jordan’s policy on Palestine, after nearly a quarter of a century of the struggle against British mandate, in the 1960s, as Palestine independence movement started again, the main actor defining Palestine policy became effort to protect the existence of the regime. In both cases, independence of Palestine became an event that Jordan didn’t want. Jordan’s having been thought as an alternative Palestine homeland had been a handicape for independent Palestine and also a threat for Jordan regime. Not only Israel, several Arab countries and Palestininans but also Jordan, by expressing that ‘Jordan is Palestine’, have led adopting alternative homeland thesis. Aim of this study that discusses effects of Jordan’s Palestine policy on Palestine issue is to reveal the relation between Jordan’s policy and not to have been establishing of an independent Palestine state. At the study, the period between 1921, when Jordan was founded, and 1988, when administrative and legal ties with West Bank was severed, has been examined.