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Trump stands by his Gaza plan in meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah

 

Trump made no attempt to soften his Gaza proposal in meeting with Jordan’s king
US President Donald Trump says the US will take ‘ownership’ of Gaza. Picture: Jim Watson / AFP

US President Donald Trump says the US will take ‘ownership’ of Gaza. Picture: Jim Watson / AFP

CNN — President Donald Trump made no attempt Tuesday to soften his proposal to relocate Palestinians in Gaza and redevelop the land into premium housing, even as his guest in the Oval Office, King Abdullah II of Jordan, suggested the Arab world was opposed.

Trump repeated his view that Palestinians should be moved out of the devastated strip to “parcels” in third countries, including Jordan, despite the objections of those countries’ leaders.

And the president brushed aside questions about what authority the US might wield to take control of the Palestinian enclave.

“It’s not a complex thing to do. And with the United States being in control of that piece of land, a fairly large piece of land, you’re going to have stability in the Middle East for the first time,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

Abdullah, seated next to Trump, did not outright reject the president’s idea. But his discomfort with the plan was obvious as he indicated alternate proposals for Gaza would be forthcoming.

“I think we have to keep in mind, there is a plan from Egypt and the Arab countries,” Abdullah said. “I think the point is, how do we make this work in a way that is good for everybody?” He later advised, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

In a statement after their meeting, Abdullah was more direct. “I reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This is the unified Arab position. Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all,” he wrote on X.

But Trump’s comments made obvious he’s serious about moving forward with the plan he revealed one week ago.

“We’re going to have it, we’re going to keep it, and we’re going to make sure that there’s going to be peace and there’s not going to be any problem, and nobody’s going to question it, and we’re going to run it very properly,” Trump said.

“We’re going to take it. We’re going to hold it. We’re going to cherish it,” Trump said of Gaza.

His plans to “own” the Strip have injected yet more uncertainty into the shaky ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Sitting next to Abdullah, the president held to his comments, made the day before in the Oval Office, that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas does not release all hostages from Gaza by noon on Saturday.

“And you know, I have a Saturday deadline, and I don’t think they’re going to make the deadline personally,” Trump said.

He added that “all bets are off” in regard to the ceasefire deal if Hamas does not release the hostages by then.

 

Looking for a deal

A week after proposing his brazen new plan to redevelop Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” Trump appears intent on negotiating his far-fetched plan into reality.

In this case, the deal he’s envisioning would apparently involve Jordan and Egypt accepting millions of new Palestinian refugees — over their consistent objections — so Trump can clear the rubble from the demolished Gaza Strip, construct new glass towers with Mediterranean views and invite “the world’s people” to move in.

“We’re going to be able to work something, and I know we’ll be able to work something also with, I believe, not, not 100%, but 99% we’re going to work out something with Egypt,” Trump said on Tuesday.

As leverage, Trump is wielding the billions of dollars in American assistance provided to Jordan and Egypt every year, without which those countries could face dire financial problems.

“Yeah, maybe, sure why not?” Trump responded in the Oval Office on Monday evening when asked if he would hold back American aid to Jordan and Egypt. “If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes.”

A day later, he seemed less sure that cutting aid was the best path.

“No, I think we’ll do something. I don’t have to threaten with money,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Tuesday. “I think we’re above that.”

Cairo and Amman are not without leverage of their own: Both closely align their security policies with Washington, and both have played a role in protecting Israel in the past — including last year, when Jordan helped shoot down a barrage of Iranian missiles fired toward Israel. Even some US officials worry forcing Egypt and Jordan to accept new Palestinian refugees, if that’s even possible, could seriously destabilize two reliable security partners.

“I do think he’ll take, and I think other countries will take also,” Trump said a day ahead of his meeting with Abdullah. “They have good hearts.”

The question for Abdullah, along with Egyptian officials visiting Washington this week, is whether Trump’s maximalist proposal for the troubled enclave is serious, or whether it is merely a starting point for some alternative plan to bring peace and stability to the area.

 

Palestinians walk through destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Jabalya, Gaza, on February 6.
Palestinians walk through destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Jabalya, Gaza, on February 6.  Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
 

Some Trump officials have suggested the latter, even if they are careful to insist the president isn’t bluffing when discussing his audacious idea.

“Come to the table with your plan if you don’t like his plan,” Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, suggesting the White House has received “all kinds of outreach” since Trump’s comments.

At its root, US officials said, Trump’s suggestion was intended in part to spur action on an issue he has viewed as moribund, with no other nations offering reasonable solutions for how to rebuild an area that has been obliterated by Israeli bombardment following Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks.

Still, it is debatable whether, in Trump’s mind, there exists a distinction between serious proposal and negotiating tactic. Nothing he has said about the Gaza plan in the week since he first uttered it aloud, at a news conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, suggests it is anything but an earnest strategy, even if statements by some of his top officials suggested otherwise.

In fact, in the days before Abdullah’s arrival, Trump did nothing to soften what has for many in the region been the most troubling aspect of his proposal: that Palestinians who leave Gaza under his plan would not be permitted to return.

“No, they wouldn’t,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News when asked whether the Palestinians would have a right to return to Gaza. “Because they will have much better housing. Much better – in other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.”

 

Trump leaning on Jordan and Egypt

So far, Trump seems set on finding that “permanent place” in Jordan and Egypt, even though leaders in both those countries swiftly rejected the plan last week.

Egypt, which is concerned about an influx of Palestinians destabilizing its Sinai region, said on Sunday that it will convene an “emergency” Arab League summit on February 28 in Cairo to discuss “new and dangerous developments” in the Palestinian issue.

In Jordan, where a large proportion of the population is of Palestinian descent, the issue holds particular resonance. The country absorbed successive waves of Palestinian refugees, starting in 1948 during the war that led to Israel’s creation.

In 1970, armed Palestinian factions tried to seize control of the country from King Abdullah’s father Hussein, a brief but violent conflict known as “Black September.” Memories of the incident haven’t faded more than 50 years later, not least from the country’s current king, as the country grapples with a delicate demographic balance between its Palestinian and native Jordanian populations.

 

A tank of the Palestinian Liberation Army takes position on September 24, 1970, during fighting between the Jordanian army and Palestinian Fedayeens in the so-called Black September events.
A tank of the Palestinian Liberation Army takes position on September 24, 1970, during fighting between the Jordanian army and Palestinian Fedayeens in the so-called Black September events.  AFP/Getty Images
 
 

At a moment when popular dissatisfaction with the king is growing, the question of how to proceed could become an existential one, both for Abdullah and for his US-focused geopolitics.

A destabilized Jordan would prove deeply problematic both for the United States and Israel. Already, some opposition figures in Jordan have called for the kingdom to turn its attention away from the US and toward China, Russia or wealthy Arab states.

All that complicates Trump’s plan to move more than a million Palestinian refugees there. Yet so far, he hasn’t acknowledged those difficulties, confident instead that he will be able to negotiate some workable solution.

“I have a feeling that despite them saying no, I have a feeling that the king in Jordan and that the general — president — but that the general in Egypt will open their hearts and will give us the kind of land that we need to get this done,” Trump said last week, referring in the latter instance to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a former military officer.

Tuesday’s meeting was not the first conversation between Trump and Abdullah about accepting more Palestinian refugees.

“I said to him, ‘I’d love for you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess,’” Trump told reporters after he spoke by phone to the Jordanian leader late last month.

At the time, Trump had not revealed publicly his new plan to take “long-term ownership” of the strip. Trump officials did not circulate his plan with Jordanian or Egyptian officials before the president announced it from the East Room.

And while Trump had been discussing his idea with aides for several days, it was not written down before it appeared in his prepared remarks alongside Netanyahu last Tuesday.

An Arab government official who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter told CNN that it’s still unclear if the US has fully worked through the details of Trump’s plan. The official said that Arab officials will discuss the matter with the Trump administration and propose ideas for Gaza’s future that would not involve expelling its Palestinian residents.

How that can be reconciled with Trump’s own idea isn’t clear.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments. 

Author: Kevin Liptak, CNN

Source: CNN:::

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