 "Why Egypt and Jordan rejected Donald Trump's proposal of taking in Palestinians from Gaza")
US President Donald Trump’s proposal that Egypt and Jordan take in Palestinians from the war-torn Gaza Strip was firmly rejected by leaders of both nations.
The Palestinians also rebuffed such an idea out of fear that such a move would result in Israel permanently barring their return.
Trump on Saturday called on the leaders of Egypt and Jordan to take in those that have been displaced from Gaza.
He suggested that the 2.3 million Palestinians could be temporarily or permanently resettled in Egypt and Jordan.
“It’s literally a demolition site right now,” Trump, referring to the vast destruction in Gaza caused by Israel’s 15-month war with Hamas, said.
Hamas and Israel have signed a fragile ceasefire.
“I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” Trump said.
Trump’s proposal was also strongly denounced by both Hamas and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi called his country’s rejection of Trump’s suggestion “firm and unwavering.”
The temporary or long-term transfer of Palestinians “risks expanding the conflict in the region and undermines prospects of peace and coexistence among its people,” Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile, there was no immediate comment from Israel.
On the other hand, the idea was backed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right governing partners who have time and again called for what they describe as voluntary emigration of large numbers of Palestinians and the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is now a crucial member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, called Trump’s proposal a “great idea.”
Human rights groups have already accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, which United Nations experts have defined as a policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove the civilian population of another group from certain areas “by violent and terror-inspiring means.”
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said Trump’s proposal, if implemented, “would amount to an alarming escalation in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and exponentially increase their suffering.”
Multitudes displaced
Close to 700,000 Palestinians fled or were either driven away from their native land (present-day Israel) during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel.
Fearing a Palestinian majority in the newly found country, Israel refused to allow them to return after the Nakba or what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba (catastrophe).
The refugees and their descendants now number around six million, with large communities in Gaza, where they make up the majority of the population, as well as the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
In the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 300,000 more Palestinians fled, mostly into Jordan.
The decades-old refugee crisis has been central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was one of the thorniest issues in peace talks that last broke down in 2009. The Palestinians claim a right of return, while Israel says they should be absorbed by surrounding Arab countries.
Many Palestinians view the latest war in Gaza, in which entire neighbourhoods have been shelled to oblivion and 90 per cent of the population have been forced from their homes, as a new Nakba. They fear that if large numbers of Palestinians leave Gaza, then they too may never return.
Steadfastly remaining on one’s land is central to Palestinian culture, and was on vivid display in Gaza on Sunday, when thousands of people tried to return to the most heavily destroyed part of the territory.
A firm boundary
The idea of accepting Gaza refugees early in the war, which had been floated earlier by some Israeli officials, has been fiercely rejected by Egypt and Jordan.
Although both countries have made peace with the Jewish state, they support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. They fear that the permanent displacement of Gaza’s population could make that impossible.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has also warned of the security implications of transferring large numbers of Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, bordering Gaza.
Hamas and other militant groups are deeply rooted in Palestinian society and are likely to move with the refugees, which would mean that future wars would be fought on Egyptian soil. That could unravel the historic Camp David peace treaty, a cornerstone of regional stability.
“The peace which we have achieved would vanish from our hands,” el-Sissi said in October 2023, after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel triggered the war. “All for the sake of the idea of eliminating the Palestinian cause.”
That’s what happened in Lebanon in the 1970s, when Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, the leading militant group of its time, transformed the country’s south into a launchpad for attacks on Israel. The refugee crisis and the PLO’s actions helped push Lebanon into a 15-year civil war in 1975. Israel invaded twice and occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 until 2000.
Jordan, which clashed with the PLO and expelled it under similar circumstances in 1970, already hosts more than 2 million Palestinian refugees, the majority of whom have been granted citizenship.
Israeli ultranationalists have long suggested that Jordan be considered a Palestinian state so that Israel can keep the West Bank, which they view as the biblical heartland of the Jewish people. Jordan’s monarchy has vehemently rejected that scenario.
Can Trump force Egypt and Jordan to accept refugees?
That depends on how serious Trump is about the idea and how far he is prepared to go.
US tariffs — one of Trump’s favourite economic tools — or outright sanctions could be devastating for Jordan and Egypt. The two countries receive billions of dollars in American aid each year and Egypt is already mired in an economic crisis.
But allowing an influx of refugees could also be destabilising.
Egypt says it is currently hosting some 9 million migrants, including refugees from Sudan’s civil war. Jordan, with a population of less than 12 million, is hosting over 700,000 refugees, mainly from Syria.
US pressure would also risk alienating key allies in the region with whom Trump has had good relations — not only el-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, but the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of whom support the Palestinian cause.
That would potentially complicate efforts to broker a historic agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalise relations, something Trump tried to do during his previous term and expects to complete in his current one.
With inputs from AP
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