Arab nations reject Trump call to relocate Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan

Powerful Arab nations have rejected US President Donald Trump’s suggestion to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring Egypt and Jordan.
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League released a joint statement on Saturday following a meeting of foreign ministers.
They said they reject any plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The statement warned that such plans “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples”.
The statement followed a meeting in Cairo of top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as Hussein al-Sheikh – a senior Palestinian official who serves as the main liaison with Israel – and Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul-Gheit.
A Palestinian state
Last month, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi told a news conference that the transfer of Palestinians “can’t ever be tolerated or allowed”.
He added: “The solution to this issue is the two-state solution. It is the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“The solution is not to remove the Palestinian people from their place. No.”
Mr Trump floated the idea last month, saying he would urge the leaders of Jordan and Egypt to take in Gaza’s now largely homeless population, so that “we just clean out that whole thing”.
He added that resettling most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million could be temporary or long term. Some Israeli officials had raised the transfer idea early in the war.
“It’s literally a demolition site right now,” Mr Trump said, referring to the vast destruction caused by Israel’s 15-month war with Hamas, now paused by a fragile ceasefire.
‘Firm’
Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi also said that his country’s opposition to Mr Trump’s idea was “firm and unwavering”.
Egypt and Jordan, along with the Palestinians, worry that Israel would never allow them to return to Gaza once they have left. Egypt and Jordan also fear the impact any such influx of refugees would have on their struggling economies as well as the stability of their governments.
Jordan already is home to more than two million Palestinians. Egypt has warned of security implications of transferring large numbers of Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, bordering Gaza.
Both countries were the first to make peace with Israel but they support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.
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Remember, we are talking of about a million and a half people. Stalin and Beria were both rightly considered monsters, but they never went in for forced population movements on that scale. The most notorious, the forced displacement of the Crimean Tartars, involved about 150,000 people moved. In America, the “trail of tears”, the ethnic cleansing of the “five civilised tribes”, involved the displacement of about 60,000. So what Trump is proposing is enormous.
Trump wants real estate. He don’t care if people live there.
There needs to be three parts to this. The first is to create a New Palestine from land currently occupied by Gaza, Israel and Egypt that stretches from the med to the Red Sea. Egypt should be generously compensated for their contribution. Israel should contribute at least as much as they have seized since 1967 without compensation. To prevent Hamas or Israel having control it would need to be jointly administered by Egypt, the UN and the PA for at least 30 years. Second the West Bank should become a devolved region of Israel with every citizen having the same… Read more »
So is Trump accusing Israel of having destroyed civilian homes in Gaza? I would have thought he would have denied that.
Trump in his infinite wisdom recently claimed that the Biden administration had aided Hamas with $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza. Turns out it was Gaza in Mozambique in order to help prevent the spread of AIDS. This just goes to show how inept he is to address the situation.