If Palestinians deserve a state, why didn't Jordan create one before 1967?

Palestinian statehood is not for Jordan, Israel, or any other state to grant. It is rooted in the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination, which requires freedom from Israeli colonialism, occupation, and apartheid, alongside the realization of the right of return, so Palestinians can freely determine their political future in their own homeland.

Jordan's rule of the West Bank before 1967 was neither in good faith nor lawful. It was annexation, driven by Jordan's geopolitical interests rather than Palestinian self-determination. Rejected by nationalist Palestinians, it further disrupted the possibility of independent Palestinian statehood.

Framing Palestinian statehood as something to be "deserved" is itself a colonial logic. Palestinians possess an inherent right to self-determination in their own homeland, and statehood is one possible political expression through which they can exercise this inalienable right.

This question assumes that Palestinian freedom is limited to establishing a state on a fraction of their land and that it is for other states to handle. The Palestinian liberation struggle has always been broader: ending settler colonialism and occupation, securing the right of return for millions of refugees, and exercising self-determination in their homeland.

This question deflects responsibility from the party that has consistently prevented Palestinian statehood: Israel. On the ground, Israel has systematically undermined the possibility of a viable Palestinian state through military occupation, annexation, settlement expansion, land confiscation, the fragmentation of Palestinian territory into Bantustans, and systematic attacks on Palestinian political life. Diplomatically, successive Israeli governments have repeatedly rejected or undermined meaningful pathways to Palestinian self-determination while openly declaring their opposition to a sovereign Palestinian state.

This question treats Palestinians as a people to be absorbed into or represented by neighboring Arab states. It erases Palestinian political agency and their right to self-determination. Beginning in the 1960s, the Palestine Liberation Organization consolidated an independent Palestinian national movement, securing international recognition for it as the representative of the Palestinian people, and reaffirming the Palestinian people's rights to return, self-determination, national independence, and sovereignty.