Eurasia Press & News
The world, generally, has cocked a snook at Trump’s devious proposal to shift the Gazan people to Jordan and Egypt. They warned that such plans “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples.” Trump was being conniving in this proposal not only to save his political cohort Netanyahu but to grab priced land for Israel and his own sycophants and eliminate the Gaza as an identity once and for all. They were probably looking to take the West Bank in their next round. They are unable to cope with the military defeat of the IOF and Hamas’ victory. With no place to hide, the wheeler-dealer Trump, he thought he might try his hand at Real Estate as an answer.
Trump, riding high after his road to victory, misses reading the writing on the wall. He is presumptuous enough to believe that he commands the world. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Jordan, Palestine, and the Arab League, issued a joint statement stressing the importance of working toward a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. Trump’s proposal was met with widespread condemnation. Critics called it “ethnic cleansing” and a “war crime.” The idea stands firmly rejected. The Arab ministerial resolutely discarded any notion of displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. They, instead, reiterated the call for the implementation of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Trump has been all talk and no results. He leaped before looking when the opposite was a better option. Unilateralism does not work in political spaces like this. It won’t be the Palestinians who will flee. Instead, two million Israelis have fled with capital, pension funds. Business and labor have jumped the sinking ship. Trump will be offered a space around that table, but not a veto. That will be a consolation for him. Clearly, 76 years since the Nakba, war after war has proven that Palestinians will stay rooted. It is their place and Israel can be part of the region if, it chooses, to behave by commonly agreed rules that excludes dominance.
Last night Trump declared that if all hostages were not released by Saturday all hell would break loose. When the dogs bark, the elephants pass undeterred by the noise. Trump thinks that politics has simple Real-Estate type solutions. He wants to buy Gaza and develop it to suit his son-in-law Jared Kushner who once boasted that he had read 14 books on Israel as his qualifications to solve the Question of Palestine. Let’s pass comment on his claims. He is one of the barking dogs.
US President Donald Trump’s repeated remarks about the US taking over Gaza for reconstruction and expelling Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan have shocked Arab states. The unabashed pitch was made during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington last week when he said the US could take ownership of Gaza and redevelop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, resettling Palestinians in regional states. Since Netanyahu’s visit, he has doubled down on his remarks, saying he is committed to “buying and owning” Gaza and ramping up pressure on Jordan and Egypt, including with the threat of financial sanctions.
The response by Arab states has been swift. Both Egypt and Jordan have firmly rejected the proposal, while major Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, as well as the Arab League, have reaffirmed their stance against the displacement of Palestinians. Saudi Arabia has continued to reiterate that it would only establish diplomatic ties with Israel if there was a pathway to a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, pouring cold water on normalisation. Riyadh also firmly rejected Netanyahu’s recent comments that a Palestinian state could be created in Saudi Arabia, condemning Israel’s occupation and “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza. In response to growing regional anxieties about Trump’s proposals, Egypt announced over the weekend that it would host a summit of Arab leaders on 27 February.
While firmly rejecting plans to annex land and displace Palestinians, Jordan now faces a tense showdown with Trump on Tuesday at the White House, where King Abdullah will want to reinforce the Kingdom’s red lines, aware of its dependence on US aid and security assistance.
The world has changed. Four years out of office and Trump has been out of touch with realpolitik. Politics is not about making deals. It’s about building consensus. His best bets were to retry the normalization process – his tactic to unite the Arab world and isolate the Palestinians. Even the strongest of votaries of the idea in the early stages when it was proposed –Saudi Arabia – has demanded a two-state solution and security for the Palestinians as a pre-condition for Trump to talk ideas. |
Who knows? By then it will be 2028. Trump will leave empty handed. Gazans and the Arab League, as a whole, are unequivocal: Gaza is not for sale”
