Trump’s Palestinian displacement idea condemned by Jordan, human rights organisations

Palestinian analyst Ghassan al-Khatib said Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, as well as the Jordanians and Egyptians, would reject Trump’s plan: “I don’t think that there is a place in reality for such an idea.”

There was no immediate comment from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office but his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a crucial member of the governing coalition, called Trump’s proposal a “great idea”.

Netanyahu’s far-right governing partners have long advocated what they describe as the voluntary emigration of large numbers of Palestinians and the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Human rights groups have already accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, which United Nations experts have defined as a policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove the civilian population of another group from certain areas “by violent and terror-inspiring means.”

Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said Trump’s proposal, if implemented, “would amount to an alarming escalation in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and exponentially increase their suffering.”

History of displacement

Before and during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, some 700,000 Palestinians – a majority of the prewar population – fled or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel, an event the Palestinians commemorate as the Nakba — Arabic for catastrophe.

Israel refused to allow them to return because it would have resulted in a Palestinian majority within its borders. The refugees and their descendants now number around 6 million, with large communities in Gaza, where they make up the majority of the population, as well as the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

In the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 300,000 more Palestinians fled, mostly into Jordan.

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The decades-old refugee crisis has been central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was one of the thorniest issues in peace talks that last broke down in 2009. The Palestinians claim a right of return, while Israel says they should be absorbed by surrounding Arab countries.

Many Palestinians view the latest war in Gaza, in which entire neighbourhoods have been shelled to oblivion and 90 per cent of the population have been forced from their homes, as a new Nakba. They fear that if large numbers of Palestinians leave Gaza, then they too may never return.

Steadfastly remaining on one’s land is central to Palestinian culture, and was on vivid display in Gaza on Sunday, when thousands of people tried to return to the most heavily destroyed part of the territory but were blocked.

A red line for countries that made peace with Israel

Egypt and Jordan fiercely rejected the idea of accepting Gaza refugees early in the war, when it was floated by some Israeli officials.

Both countries have made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. They fear that the permanent displacement of Gaza’s population could make that impossible.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has also warned of the security implications of transferring large numbers of Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, bordering Gaza. Trump was yet to talk to him about his latest idea.

Hamas and other militant groups are deeply rooted in Palestinian society and are likely to move with the refugees, which would mean that future wars would be fought on Egyptian soil. That could unravel the historic Camp David peace treaty, a cornerstone of regional stability.

“The peace which we have achieved would vanish from our hands,” Sissi said in October 2023, after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel triggered the war. “All for the sake of the idea of eliminating the Palestinian cause.”

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That’s what happened in Lebanon in the 1970s, when Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation, the leading militant group of its time, transformed the country’s south into a launchpad for attacks on Israel. The refugee crisis and the PLO’s actions helped push Lebanon into a 15-year civil war in 1975. Israel invaded twice and occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 until 2000.

Jordan, which clashed with the PLO and expelled it under similar circumstances in 1970, already hosts more than 2 million Palestinian refugees, the majority of whom have been granted citizenship.

Israeli ultranationalists have long suggested that Jordan be considered a Palestinian state so that Israel can keep the West Bank, which they view as the biblical heartland of the Jewish people. Jordan’s monarchy has vehemently rejected that scenario.

Can Trump force Egypt and Jordan to accept refugees?

That depends on how serious Trump is about the idea and how far he is prepared to go.

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US tariffs – one of Trump’s favourite economic tools – or outright sanctions could be devastating for Jordan and Egypt. The two countries receive billions of dollars in American aid each year, and Egypt is already mired in an economic crisis.

But allowing an influx of refugees could also be destabilising. Egypt says it is currently hosting some 9 million migrants, including refugees from Sudan’s civil war. Jordan, with a population of less than 12 million, is hosting more than 700,000 refugees, mainly from Syria.

US pressure would also risk alienating key allies in the region with whom Trump has had good relations – not only Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, but the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of whom support the Palestinian cause. Qatar and Egypt have been crucial mediators for the fragile Hamas-Israel ceasefire now in place.

That would potentially complicate efforts to broker a historic agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalise relations, something Trump tried to do during his previous term as part of his Abraham Accords and expects to complete in his current one.

AP