A quote from the British Colonial Office just prior to the March 1921 Cairo Conference:
"Distinction to be drawn between Palestine and Trans-Jordan under the Mandate. His Majesty's Government are responsible under the terms of the Mandate for establishing in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people. They are also pledged by the assurances given to the Sherif of Mecca in 1915 to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs in those portions of the (Turkish) vilayet of Damascus in which they are free to act without detriment to French interests. The western boundary of the Turkish vilayet of Damascus before the war was the River Jordan. Palestine and Trans-Jordan do not, therefore, stand upon quite the same footing. At the same time, the two areas are economically interdependent, and their development must be considered as a single problem. Further, His Majesty's Government have been entrusted with the Mandate for "Palestine." If they wish to assert their claim to Trans-Jordan and to avoid raising with other Powers the legal status of that area, they can only do so by proceeding upon the assumption that Trans-Jordan forms part of the area covered by the Palestine Mandate. In default of this assumption Trans-Jordan would be left, under article 132 of the Treaty of Sevres, to the disposal of the principal Allied Powers. Some means must be found of giving effect in Trans-Jordan to the terms of the Mandate consistently with "recognition and support of the independence of the Arabs"""
"In a telegram to the Foreign Office summarising the conclusions of the [San Remo] conference, the Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, stated: 'The boundaries will not be defined in Peace Treaty but are to be determined at a later date by principal Allied Powers.' When Samuel set up the civil mandatory government in mid-1920 he was explicitly instructed by Curzon that his jurisdiction did not include Transjordan. Following the French occupation in Damascus in July 1920, the French, acting in accordance with their wartime agreements with Britain refrained from extending their rule south into Transjordan. That autumn Emir Faisal's brother, Abdullah, led a band of armed men north from the Hedjaz into Transjordan and threatened to attack Syria and vindicate the Hashemites' right to overlordship there. Samuel seized the opportunity to press the case for British control. He succeeded. In March 1921 the Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, visited the Middle East and endorsed an arrangement whereby Transjordan would be added to the Palestine mandate, with Abdullah as the emir under the authority of the High Commissioner, and with the condition that the Jewish National Home provisions of the Palestine mandate would not apply there. Palestine, therefore, was not partitioned in 1921–1922. Transjordan was not excised but, on the contrary, added to the mandatory area. Zionism was barred from seeking to expand there – but the Balfour Declaration had never previously applied to the area east of the Jordan. Why is this important? Because the myth of Palestine's 'first partition' has become part of the concept of 'Greater Israel' and of the ideology of Jabotinsky's Revisionist movement.""
Gideon Biger, Professor of Historical and Political Geography at Tel Aviv University:
"On 24 April [1920], in San Remo, it was decided to hand the mandates over Palestine and Mesopotamia to Britain without precisely defining the boundaries of the mandated territories. The officials of the Foreign Office discussed the future of the area east of the Jordan, and concluded with three possible outcomes. One proposal regarded the land as part of the independent Arab kingdom of Hijaz, ruled by Hussein, who had declared himself King of Hijaz. The second proposal regarded the area east of the Jordan as part of the territory over which Britain had just received a ruling mandate, and the third regarded it as part of the Arab kingdom of Damascus, which was headed by Hussein’s son Faisal. The political situation of the region was very unstable, and all concerned awaited political developments in order to see what would happen. The British decision to appoint Herbert Samuel as the first civilian High Commissioner of Palestine brought with it the renewal of the demand for Trans-Jordan ... Apparently Samuel feared British views in regard to the Jordan river line, and about the establishment of an Arab state to the east of it, and he wanted to secure the boundaries of Palestine. Samuel’s appeals received no answer, and he assumed his position on 1 July 1920 without a clear definition of the eastern (and northern) limits of the territory he was supposed to govern." (The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947 (RoutledgeCurzon, 2004) pp.173–174.)
After the decision to separate western Palestine from Trans-Jordan was reached, it took more than a year until the question of the borderline’s precise location was addressed. Everybody assumed that the Jordan river separated between the territories, but the line’s accurate location was not known. Abdullah did not know the limits of the area that he controlled – whether the southern Negev was included in it, or whether his rule extended all the way to the Jordan river, the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. p. 179
Yitzhak Gil-Har, Israeli historian:
"In a debate during the 12th Zionist Congress, Chaim Weizman, President of the Zionist Organization, admitted that Trans-Jordan had become part of the Palestine mandate only following the insertion of article 25 into the draft mandate in 1921." (Yitzhak Gil-Har (2000). "Boundaries Delimitation: Palestine and Transjordan". Middle Eastern Studies. 36 (1): 68–81.)
Gil-Har's source: Weizman said "Transjordania, which in the first draft of the Mandate lay outside the scope of the Mandate, is now included. (Cheers.) Article 25 of the Mandate which now lies before the League of Nations, contains this provision. Therefore, Mr. De Lieme, the question of the Eastern Boundaries is answered. The question will be still better answered when Cisjordania is so full that it overflows to Transjordania." ("Great Speech by Dr. Weizmann". The Jewish Chronicle: 20. September 16, 1921.)
Official transcript: "Transjordanien, das noch in dem ersten Texte des Mandates außerhalb des Bereiches des Mandates war, ist jetzt in das Mandat eingeschlossen. (Beifall.) Artikel 25 des Mandates, das jetzt dem Völkerbund vorliegt, enthält diese Bestimmung. Damit ist auch zum Teile, Herr de Lieme, die Frage der Ostgrenze beantwortet. Die Frage wird noch viel besser beantwortet werden, Herr de Lieme, wenn Zisjordanien so voll sein wird, daß man nach Transjordanien gedrängt werden wird. (Beifall.)" (Stenographisches Protokoll der Verhandlungen Des Xii. Zionisten-Kongresses In Karlsbad vom 1. bis 14. September 1921; p279)
Transjordan was included in the Palestine Mandate, but with the proviso that Britain might administer it separately and that the clause in the Palestine mandate about a Jewish national home would not apply to TransJordan. p. 46
"After the Cairo Conference of March 1921, whereupon the Emirate of Transjordan was created, Article 25 pertaining to Transjordan was added to the draft Mandate - in August 1921. Article 25 notes that Transjordanian territory is not included in the Jewish National Home. This language confuses some readers into imagining that Transjordanian territory was covered by the conditions of the Mandate as to the Jewish National Home before August 1921. Not so; what became Transjordanian territory was not part of the mandate at all. As noted, it was part of the Arabian Chapter problem; it was, in other words, in a state of postwar legal and administrative limbo. And this is also not to speak of the fact that, as of August 1921, the mandates had yet to be approved or take effect."
There was no question at the time, at least insofar as both Britain and France were concerned, that Trans-Jordan was part of Palestine and was included within the British Mandate. Indeed, there appears to have been a British plan, never advanced to the point of being formulated on paper, to use the territory as a reserve for Arabs to relocate to as the Zionist program in Palestine began to be achieved and the country was transformed into a Jewish dominated and ruled entity. p. 158
Again, on August 11, 1919, Balfour stated that "Palestine should extend into the lands lying east of the Jordan. It should not, however, be allowed to include the Hedjaz Railway which is too distinctly bound up with exclusively Arab interests."Indeed, even Abdullah himself expressed astonishment at the basic shift in Britain's position on Trans-Jordan that took place in 1921. He exclaimed: "He [God] granted me success in creating the Government of Transjordan by having it separated from the Balfour Declaration which had included it since the Sykes-Picot agreement assigned it to the British zone of influence." p. 163
Christopher Sykes Crossroads to Israel: 1917-1948 (University of Indiana Press)
The southern half of the former vilayet of Syria, due east across the Jordan from Palestine, had been under Feisal's rule. By the San Remo decisions this territory came under the British Palestine mandate. p.43
The Palestine Mandate was originally incorporated the territory of Trans-Jordan within the scope of 'Palestine'. Article 25 of the Mandate accorded Britain the power, "with consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold the application of such provisions of this mandate as ... [it] may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions". Subsequently on 16 September 1922, the Council of the League of Nations passed a resolution by which it approved a proposal submitted by Britain to exclude Trans-Jordan from the scope of Palestine's territory and ultimately the borders between Palestine and Trans-Jordan were fixed as suggested by Britain. p. 46
In 1921 the British decided that the territory of the East Bank of the Jordan River, though part of the Palestine Mandate, would become the Emirate of Transjordan and would develop into an independent Arab State. The Zionist project would, therefore, be restricted solely to Palestine west of the river. Thus carved out of the Mandate for Palestine, Transjordan was to be intimately associated with the Palestinian question from its very inception, and it remained part of the Palestine Mandate until granted independence in 1946. p. 7
Naseer AruriJordan, a study in political development (1972) -
The San Remo Conference on April 25, 1920, approved a French mandate in Syria proper and Lebanon, and a British mandate over Palestine. The League of Nations confirmed this decision two years later. Transjordan, which was part of Syria under Ottoman administration as well as Faisal's government, was excluded from the French mandate. The San Remo Conference allotted this area to the British mandatory on the grounds that it was part of Palestine. p. 17
