Intro by John R. Houk, Blog Editor
Intro © October 26, 2025
British Mandate for
Palestine Map 1920 (Jewish
Virtual Library Photo
from “British
Palestine Mandate: History & Overview (1922 - 1948)”
Here’s an interesting post from Israpundit by Jalal Tagreeb
(an ex-Muslim)
& Peloni (an Israeli Jew). They took a look at history circa British
Mandate for Palestine made by the now defunct League of Nations
shortly after WWI. The British Mandate for Palestine was originally envisioned to
create a national Homeland for Jews. Hmm…Guess who the original Palestinians
were under the British Mandate? The Israpundit title, “Jordan:
The Forgotten Palestinian State”.
Take a look at some inconvenient historical facts that
Antisemites and Jew-Hating Muslims will not want you to know.
JRH
10/26/25
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Jordan: The Forgotten Palestinian State
By Jalal Tagreeb & Peloni
Oct 25, 2025
Israpundit
Palestine - Transjordan Map
(Israpundit
Photo)
The region covered by
the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. By Zero0000 – Own work, CC0,
Wikipedia
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been framed as
requiring a “two-state solution” for decades, yet this framework ignores a
fundamental reality: a Palestinian state already exists in the form of the
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
This article examines the historical, legal, and demographic
evidence demonstrating that Jordan, comprising 78% of the original territory
under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine with a Palestinian majority
population, represents the actualization of Palestinian statehood. Recognition
of this reality offers a path forward that respects international law,
demographic facts, and the legitimate national aspirations of both peoples.
Introduction
In his meticulously researched article “The Promised Land of
Jordan,” anthropologist Geoffrey Clarfield presents evidence that challenges
the foundational assumptions of contemporary Middle East peace processes. His
central thesis is both simple and revolutionary: “The Arabs of Palestine, that
is the Palestinians, are a majority in Eastern Palestine, that is to say the
state of Jordan. If one accepts this historical and legal fact, then first
thinking and then policies must change in both Israel and the Anglosphere.
Without realizing it, the world has been living with a two-state solution for
decades” (Clarfield, 2023, p. 22).
This proposition is not mere rhetoric but is grounded in
historical documentation, international law, and demographic reality. Moreover,
it comes supported by voices from within the Palestinian-Jordanian community
itself, most notably Mudar Zahran, a Palestinian-Jordanian opposition leader
who has risked his life to speak this truth. Understanding why this reality has
been obscured requires examining the history of how Jordan came to exist and
how its true character has been systematically denied for strategic purposes.
Mandate Betrayed
The story begins with the League of Nations Mandate for
Palestine, established in 1920 following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. This
mandate granted Britain administrative authority over a territory that included
lands both east and west of the Jordan River, with the explicit purpose of
creating a Jewish national home. As Clarfield (2023) notes, “Part of the
territory mandated as ‘British’ Palestine by the League of Nations, then, was
to be given to the Jewish people. Its territory initially included all of the
Bible lands west of the Jordan river, including Judea and Samaria and much land
east of the Jordan to the borders of Iraq and Saudi Arabia” (p. 19).
However, in 1923, Britain unilaterally violated this
mandate. Clarfield’s assessment is unequivocal: “In 1923 the League of Nations
Mandate for Palestine was arbitrarily, immorally, and illegally violated by the
British, who had been authorized by the League as its implementers… They did so
by creating what they called the temporary ‘Emirate of Jordan’ in Eastern
Palestine. Jews were no longer allowed to live there” (p. 19).
This violation fundamentally altered the character of the
mandate and created an artificial distinction between populations that were
legally and historically part of the same territory. Crucially, the legal
validity of the original mandate remains binding under international law. As
Clarfield (2023) explains, referencing the work of Canadian international
lawyer Jacques Gautier, “according to international law, the Mandate remains
valid… all of the legal pronouncements of the League were subsequently recognized
as binding when the United Nations was created after the Second World War” (p.
19).
The Ethnographic Fiction of Jordan
Perhaps the most striking revelation in Clarfield’s analysis
concerns the very concept of “Jordanian” identity. He demonstrates that this
identity is entirely artificial, a 20th-century colonial construct without
historical precedent: “Until the second decade of the 20th century there has
never been a Jordanian people, ethnic group, tribe or nation by that name, or a
group of diasporic exiles who thought of themselves as ‘Jordanian.’ The
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the ‘Jordanian People’ are a 20th century
British invention, dreamed up in the 1920s” (Clarfield, 2023, p. 19).
The Hashemite ruling family itself was imported from the
Hejaz region of Arabia after being defeated by the Saudis in the early 1920s.
Britain installed them as rulers and gave them the trappings of legitimacy by
mistranslating their tribal title “Emir” as “King,” creating what Clarfield
calls “a kind of faux royal aura” (p. 20). This Bedouin tribal elite,
comprising approximately 10% of Jordan’s population, has maintained control
over a Palestinian majority through what some have characterized as an apartheid
system.
Clarfield’s description of this arrangement is damning: “The
Hashemites were and continue to be a usurping Bedouin tribal elite in Eastern
Palestine. They are and have been notoriously corrupt. Their present king is
worth many billions of dollars while every few years there are bread riots
among the poorer citizens of Jordan—the vast majority of whom are now Arabs
calling themselves Palestinians” (p. 20).
Palestinian Voices from Within Jordan
The most compelling evidence for Jordan’s Palestinian
character comes not from Israeli or Western sources, but from Palestinian Arabs
themselves. Mudar Zahran, a Palestinian-Jordanian who has had to flee Jordan
for speaking these truths, provides testimony that cannot be dismissed as
Zionist propaganda. His description of Jordan’s demographic reality is
unambiguous:
There is, in fact, almost
nothing un-Palestinian about Jordan except for the royal family. Despite
decades of official imposition of a Bedouin image on the country, and even
Bedouin accents on state television, the Palestinian identity is still the most
dominant…to the point where the Jordanian capital, Amman, is the largest and
most populated, Palestinian city anywhere. Palestinians view it as a symbol of
their economic success and ability to excel. (as cited in Clarfield, 2023,
pp. 22–23).
This internal testimony is particularly significant. When a
Palestinian Arab Muslim declares that Amman is “the largest and most populated
Palestinian city anywhere,” it fundamentally undermines the narrative that
Palestinians lack a state, and gives voice to the reality that Jordan is the
Arab Palestinian state.
The Strategic Denial
If the reality of Jordan’s Palestinian character is so
clear, why has it been systematically obscured? Clarfield (2023) identifies a
deliberate strategy: “This selective and periodic political and ethnographic
disappearance and reappearance of the Palestinian nature of the Arabs of
Eastern Palestine, especially in the state of Jordan, has largely been a tactic
used by the Arab League, and its allies on the left, to put Israel and its
supporters on the defensive” (p. 22).
The cynical nature of this strategy was openly admitted by
PLO representative Zouhair Muhsen in a 1977 interview with a Dutch newspaper:
For tactical reasons, Jordan,
which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa
and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa,
Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of
Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
(as cited in Clarfield, 2023, p. 22)
This admission reveals the instrumental use of identity
categories. Palestinians in Jordan are rhetorically transformed into
“Jordanians” to maintain the fiction that Palestinians lack a state, while the
ultimate goal—explicitly stated—remains the conquest of all territory west of
the Jordan River and the subsequent unification with Jordan. The distinction
between “Palestinian” and “Jordanian” is maintained not because it reflects
genuine ethnic or national differences, but because it serves a strategic purpose
in the conflict with Israel.
Even King Abdullah I of Jordan acknowledged this reality in
1948, declaring that “Palestine and Jordan are one” (as cited in Clarfield,
2023, p. 21). This was not an isolated statement but reflected widespread
understanding at the time. The artificial separation of identities came later,
as part of a broader strategy to delegitimize Israel.
The Immigration Reality
Another aspect of Clarfield’s analysis challenges
conventional narratives about indigenous populations. He documents significant
Arab immigration to Palestine in the 20th century, attracted by economic
opportunities created by Jewish development: “Once the British began to
implement the Mandate during the 1920s, and Jewish returnees began to create an
agricultural and mini-industrial revolution there, both Western and Eastern
Palestine attracted waves of Muslim Arab immigrants from Egypt and Syria and beyond,
including Morocco and the formerly Muslim Balkans” (Clarfield, 2023, p. 21).
This immigration was substantial enough that President
Franklin D. Roosevelt observed in 1939 that “Arab immigration into Palestine
since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during this whole
period.” The 1931 British census further revealed the diverse origins of this
population, documenting that “at least twenty three different languages were
reported in use by ‘Moslems,’ and most of those, plus an additional twenty
eight were in use by ‘Christians’—many of whom were known, or represented as
‘Arabs’—a total of at least fifty-one languages” (as cited in Clarfield, 2023,
p. 24).
This linguistic diversity demonstrates that the “Palestinian
Arab” population was comprised of recent immigrants from diverse ethnic
backgrounds, united primarily by Islam and subsequently by opposition to Jewish
sovereignty. The notion of an ancient, indigenous Palestinian people rooted in
the land for millennia is thus revealed as largely mythological.
Reversing the Occupation Narrative
One of the most powerful aspects of Clarfield’s analysis is
how it inverts the standard “occupation” narrative. Rather than Israel
occupying Palestinian land, the reality is quite different:
There is no Israeli “occupation” of anything other than
their national homeland according to 20th century international law. Time and
again the Israeli government has ceded authority to armed movements such as
Hamas and Fatah in territory west of the Jordan whose inhabitants daily
announce their desire for the annihilation of the state and people of Israel,
thus sacrificing part of their legal, historic Biblical homeland to hostile
Islamic expansionists, not to “a people without a land.” (Clarfield, 2023, p.
23)
From this perspective, Israel has repeatedly empowered
hostile entities with control over portions of its legally recognized homeland
(under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine), while the actual
Palestinian state in Jordan remains unacknowledged. The international
community’s insistence on creating additional Palestinian states in Gaza,
Judea, and Samaria is, in Clarfield’s words, “historically absurd and unjust in
the extreme” (p. 23).
The Path Forward
Recognizing Jordan’s Palestinian character does not require
the creation of new institutions or the negotiation of new borders. It requires
only acknowledgment of existing realities and the application of basic
principles of human dignity as well as exercising the requisite
responsibilities and obligations inherent in a functioning nation state.
This approach offers several advantages over conventional
peace proposals:
First, it respects international law by acknowledging
the validity of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and Israel’s legal
rights to the territory west of the Jordan River.
Second, it recognizes demographic realities rather
than attempting to impose artificial solutions that ignore them.
Third, it removes the justification for continued
conflict by addressing Palestinian Arab national aspirations through a state
that already exists and encompasses the vast majority of the land which
comprised the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
Fourth, it eliminates the need for further
territorial partition of the small area west of the Jordan River, allowing both
peoples to have viable, secure states.
Fifth, it recognizes the right of Israel not to be
burdened with the citizenship rights of people who are owed recognition of
being Jordanian citizens, while simultaneously eliminating the stateless status
of millions of Palestinian Arabs.
Conclusion
Clarfield’s article demonstrates that Jordan is “what good
anthropologists call an ‘ethnographic fiction.’ The majority of Jordanians are
self-defined Palestinians living in Mandated Palestine. The rest are Bedouin.
To suggest that a second and third Palestinian state be created as well in
Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is historically absurd and unjust in the extreme.
There can be no peace without the recognition of this simple ethnographic
reality” (2023, p. 23). The two-state solution that the international community
has sought for decades already exists. One state, Israel, occupies 22% of the
original mandate territory west of the Jordan River. The other state, Jordan,
occupies 78% of the mandate territory east of the river and has a Palestinian
majority population. The primary obstacle to peace is not the absence of a
Palestinian state but the refusal to acknowledge the one that already exists.
This recognition would not create a new reality but would
simply acknowledge the one that has existed for a century. It would allow for
the peaceful fulfillment of Palestinian national aspirations through majority
rule in Jordan while simultaneously recognizing Israel’s legal and historical
rights to its homeland. As Clarfield concludes, there can be no lasting peace
without confronting this “simple ethnographic reality.” The question is whether
the international community has the courage to acknowledge what has been true
all along, namely, that Jordan is the forgotten Palestinian State.
References
[1] Clarfield, G. (2023). The
promised land of Jordan. The Dorchester Review, Autumn/Winter,
19–24.
Jalal Tagreeb is a
writer, researcher and translator from the Levant.
Peloni is the
Editor in Chief at Israpundit.org. He
has been active in managing Israpundit over the past two years, and he can be
reached at Peloni1986@yahoo.com.
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[Blog Editor: ABOUT Geoffrey Clarfield]
