1920 was a disastrous year for the Arabs: They lost Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and finally Mesopotamia as well. Britain and France were coming to an agreement on how to split up the area, in April 1920. Britain got the Palestine mandate. But as rebellion was breaking out among the Arabs, the Brits, mindful of their promises to the Arabs, decided to split the mandate in two and thus created Palestine to the west of the Jordan, and the new Arab state of Transjordan, where Abdullah, brother of King Feisal, was made Emir.

For Palestine this meant a change from being under British military occupation to having a civil administration under a British High Commissioner. This change was marked with a set of EEF (Egyptian Expeditionary Forces) stamps overprinted “Palestine” in Arabic, English and Hebrew. The set was issued on 1 September 1920.

When Abdullah was made Emir of Transjordan, a set of stamps was issued to mark the change of government. The 1920 set of Transjordan was overprinted “Arab Government of the East, April 1921″ in Arabic.

This overprinted set was issued in December 1922.