King Abdallah and Palestine: A Territorial Ambition. London: Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martins Press, 1996

Pp. 259. Abdallah's ambitions frustrated Arab Palestinian nationalism and helped create the climate that led to the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Nevo deals with the crucial period from March, 1921 – when Winston Churchill prevented Amir (later King) Abdallah from realizing his ambition to fight the French so as to achieve an enlarged, independent Arab nation – till May, 1948, when, with Britain's blessing, Abdallah had to settle for a slightly expanded Hashemite monarchy that included TransJordan and most of the West Bank of Palestine. Much of this story includes Abdallah's efforts to frustrate Palestinian nationalism, led by his arch rival, Jerusalem's Mufti Haj Amin al-Husayni, whose agents assassinated Abdallah in 1951. The rest of the story focuses on Abdallah's unsuccessful campaign to persuade the Zionists not to press for an independent Jewish state but to accept some kind of Jewish autonomy within a unified Arab state under his rule. Blinded by his exaggerated ambitions, Abdallah could not understand the legitimate nationalistic impulses of either the Palestinians or the Israelis.