Philip Robins

“If Amman was to benefit as an economic and political power centre during the time that the West Bank was part of Jordan, this was neither entirely inevitable nor purely the result of the social forces of centralisation. In part it was the product of regime policy,14 concerned that the centre of gravity of the state should stay with Amman as an important instrument in the incorporation of the West Bank. For geographical and historical reasons Jerusalem was the obvious alternate pole in the new state, not least because it had been the seat of the British administration under the mandate. As Avi Plascow has put it: ‘The [Jordanian] regime’s general policy was to prevent Jerusalem from either gaining special status or becoming a symbolic focus for divisive West Bank–East Bank antagonism.’15 The authorities in Amman set about the task with conviction.”
― Philip Robins, A History of Jordan