Arab leaders firmly reject Donald Trump’s plan to forcibly displace Gazans [Getty]
Arab nations have mounted a fierce pushback against US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan, banding together in a rare united front.
Across the region, even Washington’s closest friends have recoiled at the proposal, with countries including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar rallying to try and block it.
Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday said the prospect of Palestinian displacement from Gaza and the West Bank – which he warned would follow – “is unacceptable for the Arab world, which has fought this idea for 100 years”.
“We Arabs are not about to capitulate in any way now,” he said at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.
Over the past two weeks, Trump has insisted on his proposal to “just clean out” Gaza, which he says the United States would control, while the enclave’s 2.4 million inhabitants would be displaced to Egypt and Jordan.
In the face of staunch opposition, he suggested he could halt aid to Cairo and Amman if they refused.
But again on Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II stressed the “unity” of their countries’ positions on Gaza, calling for immediate reconstruction “without displacing the Palestinian people from their land”.
Even those who have drawn closer to Israel in recent years – including Saudi Arabia, which seemed close to normalising relations before the outbreak of the Gaza war – have refused to budge.
“Arab states cannot be seen as siding with the United States and Israel and supporting a policy of ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza,” said Anna Jacobs of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“The Palestinian issue is too sensitive and too important for Arab publics,” she told AFP.
Unified Arab position
Both Egypt and Jordan are key US allies with decades of security cooperation with Israel, but have not yielded an inch.
Sisi called Trump’s idea an “injustice” that his country “cannot take part in”.
After his talks with the US president in Washington on Tuesday, King Abdullah II reiterated his country’s “steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank”.
“This is the unified Arab position,” the king of Jordan — home to over two million Palestinians — wrote on social media.
Saudi Arabia, which has been engaged in years-long US-brokered normalisation talks, has also drawn a firm line against displacement.
Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has made it clear that any normalisation deal with Israel hinges on the creation of a Palestinian state.
The UAE, which signed the Abraham Accords normalising ties with Israel in 2020, has also joined the pushback, rejecting any compromise of the “inalienable rights of the Palestinian people”.
Bahrain — also a signatory to the Abraham Accords — this week called for the “establishment of a Palestinian state with full sovereignty and in a way that allows peaceful coexistence with Israel”.
Moment of unity
The issue has brought the region, often plagued by geopolitical rivalries, together in a rare display of unity.
Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa — himself seeking US support to ease sanctions on his country, and whose Islamist background has raised concerns particularly in Egypt — called Trump’s plan “a very huge crime that cannot happen”.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, also a close US ally, rejected on Wednesday “proposals that would lead to any type of displacement of Palestinians from their land”.
The united front is also a matter of necessity.
Egypt has since the start of the war warned that mass displacement from Gaza threatens its national security, but it cannot go against Trump alone.
“Egypt lacks economic leverage, but the Gulf’s support strengthens its decision-making power on the international stage and in front of Trump,” Michael Hanna, director of the US programme at the International Crisis Group, told AFP.
At the end of the month, Cairo is set to host an Arab summit on the Palestinian territories, which could be followed by an emergency ministerial meeting of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, according to its foreign ministry.
Ahmed Maher, an Egyptian political researcher, said that the Arab world’s message has been clear: “there can be no forced relocation, and the solution is the two-state model.”
“Any discussion beyond these two points is off the table,” he told AFP.
