It's hard not to be impressed with King Abdullah II of Jordan. His suave, sophisticated, erudite manner is enough

The British Colonial Office required a stable British-trained military and political class in their colony.

to charm anyone within arm's reach, which is what happened when he visited the White House this year. President Barack Obama could barely mask his pleasure at being in the presence of a man who acts, speaks and carries himself like royalty. With his Oxford-English accent, his handsome demeanor, his superior intellect, his extensive knowledge of world affairs, and his equally charming and photogenic queen, King Abdullah personifies everything that a king should be.

Abdullah is, of course, the eldest son of King Hussein, who reigned over Jordan since the age of seventeen, when his grandfather, Abdullah I, was assassinated before the young Hussein's eyes. The present Abdullah, named for his great-grandfather, is also the son of Princess Muna al-Hussien, the former Antoinette Gardiner of Sussex, England. Her father (Abdullah's grandfather) was Colonel Walter Percy Gardiner of the British Army. Following both his Hashemite royal tradition and his British pedigree, Abdullah attended both Oxford and the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.

Since the time of the British Mandate, the British Colonial Office required a stable British-trained military and political class in their colony, the Emirate of Jordan, which later became their proxy state, Trans-Jordan, and still later, their client state, Jordan. It is a history which the current Arab-British ruler, King Abdullah, knows well.

It was, after all, the British who created the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The 1917 Balfour Declaration had granted the Jews a national homeland on both sides of the Jordan River, including Abdullah's Jordan. But the Arabs protested, rioted, and began an insurgency against the British and the Jewish settlers. So Winston Churchill, then head of the Colonial Office, carved out an Arab state on roughly 75% of the land, which meant all of the area east of the Jordan River. But he needed an established, reliable ally to run the new country. Enter the Hashemite Dynasty, desperately in need of a new kingdom, having lost the power struggle for the Arabian Peninsula to the Saud Dynasty.

It was a perfect match.

The British gave the Arabs more land than they hoped for, the Jews would have their sliver of land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, and above all, a reliable, stable ally was put in charge of the new Arab country, wholly indebted to Britain. Certainly, the Hashemites were foreign interlopers, having no historical ties to the country or any legal claim to rule other than by Churchill's decree. And the Hashemites would be ruling over a foreign people.

No matter. The British declared them the new rulers of eastern Palestine, and it was done.

The Hashemite Dynasty would rule over a people who became known as Arab Palestinians. And as the British left and eventually faded into irrelevancy, the transplanted rulers would assert their rule, time and time again, over the Palestinians. Often ruthlessly.

The pivotal year was 1970, when the PLO tried to takeover the country from within in order to establish Palestinian sovereignty over Jordan. Abdullah's father, King Hussein, with the complicit approval of Israel, ruthlessly crushed the uprising, killed thousands and exiled the rest. After that, there would be no more attempts by the PLO to change Jordan into Palestine.

The focus from then on would be entirely on trying to takeover Israel - the western part of the British Palestine

The Machiavellian king knows that he rules millions more Palestinian Arabs than Israel ever will.

Mandate - and turn it into an Arab Palestinian state. Abdullah's father applauded this and actively campaigned for a Palestinian state, if only on the West Bank land to which he wisely relinquished any claim after the Six Day War. Cede the Palestinian problem to Israel, he figured. A brilliant ploy, it turned out.

And so it came to pass that the royal descendent of the original Hashemite rulers of eastern Palestine - a country created by Winston Churchill's pen - were in Washington to lecture an infatuated American president and a gullible media on the critical need for an Arab Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza. Time is running out, King Abdullah proclaimed, and Israel could find itself at war if it doesn't relent and agree to the new state soon.

Yet, the Machiavellian king knows that he rules millions more Palestinian Arabs than Israel ever will - nearly of 70% of his population and rising - which is why he so adamantly campaigns for a Palestinian state to be carved out of the neighboring Jewish state, lest the mirror turn on his own kingdom. It's a remarkable hoax; and so far, the world is buying it. Especially the American president.