ABSTRACT
The former Soviet Union with its allies and followers is today far from being the bugbear it genuinely was to Abdallah in the last, and to Hussein in the first, years of their reigns, whether regarding official relations, cultural contacts or propaganda. Or 1967, when the kingdom lost the territories west of the Jordan River that had been acquired as a result of the Palestine war of 194849. The changes and constancies probed so far, important as they are, skirt three existential questions relevant to the Hashemite monarchy today and each with its historical roots: How do Palestinians fit into the state? What is the Islamic-activist problem in Jordan today? And last, Is there a Jordanian nation in the making; and if so, how does it accord with the Hashemite monarchy?. Today Jordanian society is organized in crisscross patterns professionally, culturally, economically and socially to a degree that was unthinkable a generation ago.
