King Abdullah cannot exclude Jordan from any two-state solution

Palestine and Transjordan are one, for Palestine is the coastline and Transjordan the hinterland of the same country

Israel achieved its independence in May 1948 in 17% of the territory comprised in the British Mandate.

• Transjordan was unified with Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem into one territorial entity and renamed Jordan in 1950 after Transjordan had conquered those areas in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War – which lasted until their loss to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.
• Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem were designated "the West Bank of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan" in the founding 1964 Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Charter – whilst regional sovereignty was not claimed by the PLO.
• The 1964 PLO Charter asserted that "Palestine with its boundaries at the time of the British Mandate is a regional indivisible unit."
• The revised 1968 PLO Charter confirmed that "Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit".
• Arab residents of Judea and Samaria were Jordanian citizens between 1950 and 1988
• Abdullah's uncle – Prince Hassan – told the Jordanian National Assembly on 2 February 1970:
  Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine, there is one people and one land, with one history and one and the same fate
• The PLO unsuccessfully tried to seize power in Jordan in 1970
• Prime PLO political strategist – Abu Iyad – declared in Near East Report on 8 January 1990:
  All those who tried in the past and are still trying to create divisions between theJordanian and Palestinian people have failed. We indeed constitute one people.

Abdullah ignores these long-standing realities at his peril.

Abdullah is deluding himself in denying the role Jordan must inevitably play in achieving the long sought-after two-state solution: Redrawing the international border between Jordan and Israel - the two successor States to the British Mandate – allocating sovereignty between them in Judea Samaria and Gaza - without creating another state.