Here’s why Trump’s ‘clean out Gaza’ idea is rejected
By Joseph Krauss
Dubai: US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Egypt and Jordan take in Palestinians from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip is being met with a hard “no” from at least one of the two US allies along with the Palestinians themselves, who fear Israel would never allow them to return.
Trump floated the idea at the weekend, saying he would urge the leaders of the two Arab countries to take in Gaza’s now largely homeless population, so that “we just clean out that whole thing”. He said resettling most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million could be temporary or long term.
Displaced Palestinians returning to a destroyed Rafah in the Gaza Strip, a day after the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect.Credit: AP
“It’s literally a demolition site right now,” Trump said, referring to the vast destruction caused by Israel’s 15-month war with Hamas, now paused by 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.
Immediate pushback
Hamas and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority condemned the idea. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told journalists his country’s rejection of the proposed transfer of Palestinians was “firm and unwavering”.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said it categorically rejected any displacement of Palestinians from their land, be it “short term or long term”.
Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Trump’s remarks. “Our people will remain steadfast and will not leave their homeland,” he said a statement published by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Displaced Palestinians gather with their belongings near a roadblock on the al Rashid Street, as they wait to return to their homes in the northern part of the Gaza Strip on Sunday.Credit: AP
Palestinian analyst Ghassan al-Khatib said Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, as well as the Jordanians and Egyptians, would reject Trump’s plan: “I don’t think that there is a place in reality for such an idea.”
There was no immediate comment from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office but his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a crucial member of the governing coalition, called Trump’s proposal a “great idea”.
Netanyahu’s far-right governing partners have long advocated what they describe as the voluntary emigration of large numbers of Palestinians and the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza.
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in 2017. Netanyahu has thanked Trump for “his assistance” in securing the release of hostages.Credit: AP
Human rights groups have accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, which UN 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”.
History of displacement
Before and during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, about 700,000 Palestinians – a majority of the prewar population – fled or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel, an event the Palestinians commemorate as the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe.
Israel refused to allow them to return because it would have resulted in a Palestinian majority within its borders. The refugees and their descendants now number around 6 million. There are 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 Middle East war, when Israel seized the West Bank and the 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 it was on vivid display in Gaza on Sunday, when thousands of people tried to return to the most heavily destroyed part of the territory but were blocked.
A red line for countries that made peace with Israel
Egypt and Jordan fiercely rejected the idea of accepting Gaza refugees early in the war, when it was floated by some Israeli officials.
Both countries have made peace with Israel but 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-Sisi has also warned of the security implications of transferring large numbers of Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, bordering Gaza. Trump was yet to talk to him about his latest idea.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.Credit: AP
Hamas and other militant groups are deeply rooted in Palestinian society and are likely to move with the refugees, which would mean 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,” Sisi 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 Organisation, 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, 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 mired in an economic crisis.
But allowing an influx of refugees could also be destabilising. Egypt says it is hosting some 9 million migrants, including refugees from Sudan’s civil war. Jordan, with a population of less than 12 million, is hosting more than 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 Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, but the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of whom support the Palestinian cause. Qatar and Egypt have been crucial mediators for the fragile Hamas-Israel ceasefire now in place.
King Abdullah II of Jordan.Credit: Bloomberg
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 as part of his Abraham Accords and expects to complete in his current one.
AP
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