Palestinians condemn Trump’s suggestion to relocate Gaza’s refugees as it would deepen regional instability.
London: “No disrespect”, said the young Palestinian, “but the American president is an idiot”. He was speaking to TV cameras as thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza were struggling to move back north in the Strip in the hope of finding their homes amongst the rubble. Many had been displaced more than six times after being evicted by the Israeli Defence Forces more than a year ago. Word had spread among the refugees that President Donald Trump had suggested that Egypt and Jordan take in Palestinians from the war ravaged Strip, an idea that not only enraged the Palestinians, but also had been met with a hard “no” from the two US allies. “We need to just clean out that whole thing as it’s literally a demolition site right now”, Trump had said. He was referring to the massive destruction in Gaza caused by Israel’s 15-month war with Hamas, following the terrorist’s slaughter of 1200 Israeli’s on 7 October 2023, an event which still traumatises the nation.
Trump floated the idea while talking to reporters on Air Force Onelast Monday, saying he would urge the leaders of the two Arab countries to take in Gaza’s now largely homeless population of some 2.3 million, adding that the resettlement could be temporary or long term. “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,” said Trump, promoting an idea that is at odds with existing US policy and international law. Hamas and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority immediately condemned the idea. Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, told journalists that his country’s rejection of the proposed transfer of Palestinians was “firm and unwavering,” adding that there are already more than 2 million Palestinian refugees living in his country. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi also firmly rejected the proposal, fearing that it would result in future wars being fought on Egyptian soil. Hamas and other militant groups are deeply rooted in Palestinian society and would most likely move into Egypt with the refugees. This would increase instability in the country and echo what happened in Lebanon in the 1970s, when Yasser Arafat’s PLO transformed the country’s south into a launch-pad for attacks on Israel.
Donald Trump is well known for floating wild ideas off the cuff and ignoring advice. With Trump it’s impossible to distinguish posturing from reality and no-one knows if these latest thoughts are simply his, or whether they also represent the view of his right-wing advisers in Washington. But if they become the policy of the new US administration, the clear winners will be the ultranationalists in Israel. Hard-right politicians such Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, until recently Israel’s security minister, would be ecstatic. Both have long promoted the idea that Palestinians in Gaza should move south into Egypt and those Palestinians in the West Bank move east into Jordan, which would then be re-designated Palestine. If they could also push out the remaining 2 million Arabs, which they find annoyingly living among them, their long-held dream of a greater Israelethnically cleansed of all Palestinian Arabs and occupied only by Jews, would be achieved. Sadly, both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich fail to understand that any land-grab by Israel will come at the price of permanent conflict. Israelis will never have security while Palestinians have no hope.
Although many believe last week’s comments were based on classic Trump impulsiveness rather than a thought-out plan, they could easily scare off the moderate Arab leaders who were looking like possible partners in the new administration’s push for regional peace. Even Trump’s Arab supporters were dismayed. The chairman of ‘Arab Supporters for Trump’, Motaz Zahran, said last week that “we categorically reject the president’s suggestion that the Palestinians in Gaza be moved, apparently forcibly, to either Egypt or Jordan. We don’t need wildish claims or statements relating to the fate of the Palestinians.” Another Arab official speculated on Sunday that the plan might have reflected a “real-estate entrepreneur’s idea for business development, rather than a foreign policy initiative.”
Most experts argue that disrupting the Middle East is especially unwise now, when the region is trying to recover from a catastrophic war. The Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal arranged by the Biden administration, but which Trump currently claims and brags about, is increasingly fragile. The hard-right Israelis insist that Hamas must be thoroughly defeated before the war stops, even at the risk of the lives of the hostages. The families of those still held in Gaza have a different view, insisting that lives come first.
Perhaps some light will be shone on the way ahead on Tuesday, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels to the US, making him the first foreign leader to meet with Donald Trump in Washington DC since the president’s return to power. Trump has always been staunchly pro-Israel, having moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the only major country to do so, in his first term, at the same time recognising Israel’s claims to Syria’s occupied Golan Heights. The US provides Israel with billions of dollars each year in military aid and last week Trump authorised the transfer of 2000lb bunker-busting bombs, which had been paused by his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, in May last year. “Thank you, President Trump, for keeping your promise to give Israel the tools it needs to defend itself, to confront our common enemies and secure a future of peace and prosperity”, the Israeli prime minister said in a social media post.
But of course, Netanyahu is one of the biggest bulwarks to the establishment of peace in the region, having categorically dismissed the idea of a Two-State Solution to the Palestinian problem. Even before the State of Israel was founded in 1948, an event the Palestinians still call the ‘Nakba’ or “Catastrophe”,which saw the removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the land their forefathers had lived on for more than a thousand years, Jewish immigrants had experienced constant warfare as they spread throughout Palestine. The United Nations Resolution 181, passed by the UN General Assembly in 1947 that called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, has always been an anathema to Netanyahu. Time and time again he has rejected calls for Palestinian sovereignty, arguing that Israel’s security needs would be incompatible with Palestinian statehood. The Two State Solution has been the goal of the international community since Resolution 181, and is seen by almost the whole world as the only way out the conflict – except for a stubborn Netanyahu and his ultra-nationalist supporters.
The arrival of Donald Trump in the White House has the potential to change all this. Since his election last November,Trump has been applying enormous pressure on Netanyahu to get things done his way and has made it clear that he will not tolerate having the war continue on his watch.
Featuring high on his to-do list in the first year of his second administration is the resurrection of the Abraham Accords which, if successful, will lead to a much coveted Nobel Peace Prize. He has repeatedly said both before and after the election that he intends to end wars rather than start new ones, despite claims to the contrary. His plan is to bulldoze Netanyahu into agreeing to a long-term calm in Gaza, which will placate the Saudis into agreeing to a deal to normalise relations with Israel in line with the Accords, which in turn will lead to multi-billion dollar technology and defence deals between the US and Saudi Arabia. Having achieved this, Trump will likely then apply his “maximum pressure” against Iran to agree to a deal which would remove the nuclear threat.
If, however, Donald Trump persists with his idea of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, none of this will happen. He will then go down as the president who failed to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as did all his predecessors since the creation of Israel.
“With no disrespect”, the words of that young Palestinian will then ring true.
* John Dobson is a former British diplomat, who also worked in UK Prime Minister John Major’s office between 1995 and 1998. He is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Plymouth.