The independence of Trans-Jordan, which was formerly a part of the Britishruled Palestine Mandate, paved the way for the League of Nations resolution on the division of Palestinian land, which, by a United Nations resolution, gave birth to the State of Israel. The Arabs rejected the resolution pointing to the contradictions behind the Palestine Mandate. The Palestinian War then became inevitable. The breakthrough in the battle became evident when the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan moved into the West Bank. “The Unity” between the East and West Banks of the Jordan river was instigated by this, following the Palestine Conference and Jerrico Conference on November 1 and December 1, 1948 under King Abdullah's leadership. “The Unity” in turn put an end to the hegemony that traditional Mufti Amin al-Husaini had enjoyed in the West Bank. The negotiations over the mutual non-aggression pact between Israel and Jordan broke down. Nonetheless, the de facto occupation of the West Bank by Jordan occurred. With the West Bank in the hands of Jordanians, Palestinian Arabs came to pledge political loyality to the Amman regime under the civilian order of Jordan, a loyality which reflects no less than the ambivalent sentiments of Palestinans. The Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, however, found themselves subjugated to the Nashashibis of Abdullah while maintaning support for the cause of Palestinians within and without Jordan. Palestinian refugees, on the other hand, pledged loyality to Abudullah in November 1948 at the Palestine National Conference. Their pledge was betrayed, however, as their, political came to be suppressed from 1959 onward.
“Palestinian identity” as a slogan for political action emerged in 1962, but the cause never flourished. In fact, the dominance of the Amman regime, with the execption of the period of Sulayman an-Nabulsi's regime between 1956-57, has prevailed throughout the country. Furthemore, the PLO itself has failed to gain public support for its status as the unifying voice of the Palestinians, having suffered from internal feuds between the moderates and the radicals. All these combined events precipitated the conditional legitimacy of the royal regime of Jordan and the Palestinian Right.
With Israeli's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, the issue of the status and the prospect of the above regimes came to the attention of international public opinion. The status of Israel, on the one hand, was ‘Lawful belligerent Occupant’ responsible for occupation and on the other hand, the legal status of Jordan was that of ‘Trust Occupant’. Jordan was also in a position to promote the political development of Palestinians. Moreover, under UN resolution 242 (1967) Jordan was entitled to ‘the right of return’ of the West Bank to her, although Palestinians in the West Bank did not always desire to see this happen. Alternative solutions to the Palestinian problem lay either in holding a direct referendum, which would clarify the political will of the locals, or in accepting the PLO as their negotiator against Israel. Israel on her part has rejected negotiations with the PLO, which Israel considers a terrorist organisation. In addition, the Palestinians have not desired to continue to support ‘the return to Jordan’ proposal, for it implies denying their rights of self-determination.
At present discussions with respect to the so-called “Jordan Option” over the West Bank are under way. The PLO claims to be the legitimate position governing body in the West Bank. The Arabs in Israel appear to endorse this position. To be sure, following the formation of the PLF (the Palestine Liberation Front) in August 1973, the PLO came to be confirmed as the legitimate body of the Palestinians at the National Congress which took place in Jerusalem, October 1978.

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The purpose of this paper is to examine historically and sociologically the depiction of “Palestine” in contemporary Syrian literature through two important works. Saadallah Wannous, a prominent Syrian dramatist, in his drama Al-Ightisab (1989), focused on two worlds, the Palestinian and the Israeli. In the epilogue of this drama, Wannous emphasized that the Arab regimes were nothing but a replica of the “Zionist entity”, relying upon occupation and oppression. On the other hand, ‘Ali al-Kurdi, a Palestinian who was born and grew up in Syria, published his novel Shamaaya Castle (2010), a work of fiction inspired by his memories of his childhood in the former Jewish quarter of Damascus during the 1950s and 1960s. As an “intermediate supporter” of the Palestinian cause, Wannous tried to demonstrate the various “actualities” of the Palestinian issue for Syrian and Arab audiences. By contrast, in Al-Kurdi’s novel, the author, despite being a veritable “victim” of the Nakba, focused on the diverse dimensions of the “realities” faced by Syrian Palestinians, describing their misery, embarrassment, stigmas, human friendships and tolerance across diverse religious communities. It is obvious that writing this kind of novel is a creative act for building resilience out of past traumatic experiences in Palestine as well as for reevaluating the history of coexistence in Syria.

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