The pressing question on everyone’s mind right now is: What leverage and pressure points do Arab countries have to thwart the plan to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and from the West Bank to Jordan? This is the plan that U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly discussed in recent hours.
The reality confirms that there is a Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic consensus, even from some European countries, on the necessity of rejecting these schemes aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause through population displacement, direct Israeli control over the Gaza Strip, and possibly the re-establishment of settlements in the area that Israelis had settled before their withdrawal under Ariel Sharon in 2005.
Anyone who examines the statement issued by Cairo on October 8, 2023, just one day after the events of October 7, in which Egypt warned against the “forced or voluntary displacement” of Palestinians and the liquidation of the “Palestinian cause,” will realize that Egypt had strong antennae and precise calculations regarding Israel’s intentions and the Zionist lobby in the United States, which surrounds the new U.S. president and pushes for complete alignment between the vision of the extreme Israeli right and Trump’s agenda regarding the Palestinian issue.
Aware of this scheme, the majority of the Arab world, led by Egypt and Jordan, has declared its complete rejection of the plan to displace Palestinians from their lands. This confirms that Arab countries possess significant leverage that they can activate in the coming days against the U.S. president’s statements. These leverage points include:
1. Rejecting the Carrot-and-Stick Policy
Since October 7, American and Israeli rhetoric has not stopped discussing the necessity of displacing Palestinians. The division of the Gaza Strip into three sectors with barriers like Kisufim and Netzarim was aimed at pushing residents from the north and center toward the south to leave Gaza. This is the same goal pursued by the so-called “Generals’ Plan” in northern Gaza over more than 120 days of Israeli massacres in areas north of the Netzarim axis. Everyone in Tel Aviv and Washington knows that the current Israeli military targeting of Jenin and Tulkarm in the West Bank has a clear goal: to displace West Bank residents toward the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. At various stages of the Israeli war on Gaza, Israel has published detailed plans claiming they are suitable for displacing Palestinians and resettling them in Egypt. There has been talk of vast sums of money offered to Egypt to persuade it to accept the idea, but Egypt—with all its dignity and despite various economic challenges—has rejected all temptations and billions. The same has been repeated with Jordan, which has repeatedly affirmed that Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians. This complete Arab rejection sends a message to the U.S. president that Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem are the lands of the Palestinian state, and this issue is not up for negotiation or sale, as the White House has tried with Panama, Greenland, and Canada.
2. Wielding Public Opinion
Most U.S. embassies in Arab countries have sent “situation assessments” to Washington stating that America’s blind bias toward Israel threatens U.S. interests in the region. American newspapers have published several letters sent to the previous U.S. administration, including from the U.S. embassies in Jordan and Oman, which clearly stated that continued U.S. pressure on the Palestinian side and full support for Israel would harm U.S. interests for an “entire Arab generation.” This is a warning bell that Arab countries can activate in the face of Trump’s plans.
3. A Diplomatic “Wall of Resistance”
Arab countries, led by Egypt and Jordan, along with other active Arab states, can “build a diplomatic wall of resistance” against Washington’s schemes regarding the Palestinian cause. Egypt, along with its Arab brothers and freedom-loving people worldwide, has succeeded in convincing various regional and international powers of the dangers of displacing Palestinians from their lands or liquidating the Palestinian cause at the expense of the Palestinian people. In every bilateral and multilateral summit, Cairo and Amman have emphasized the dangers of liquidating the Palestinian cause through the displacement of its people. Today, the entire world is against this project, including the previous U.S. administration, which clearly stated its opposition to displacement or Israeli occupation of Gaza, whether temporary or permanent.
4. Survival and Resilience
Perhaps the most prominent and powerful leverage against Tel Aviv and Washington to stop the displacement plan is the Arab countries’ assistance in ensuring the “survival of Palestinians” on their lands by providing the largest possible amount of medical and humanitarian aid to Gaza’s residents. For example, Egypt and its Arab brothers have successfully delivered thousands of tons of humanitarian and medical aid, as well as fuel trucks, to Gaza. No one can forget the first day of the ceasefire, when around 916 aid trucks entered Gaza in a single day.
5. The Political Alternative
One of the strongest messages sent by a Gaza resident to the U.S. president was a call to use his influence and power to bring peace and stability between Palestinians and Israelis, rather than displacing people and expelling them from their homes. Arab countries can work on this by “persistently insisting” on a political solution, emphasizing the meaning and benefits of peace when achieved between the Palestinian and Israeli sides, pushing for a two-state solution, and pressuring the U.S. and Israel to accept the UN General Assembly resolution of May 10, 2024, which recognized the establishment of a Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, supported by 147 out of 193 UN member states.
6. Legal Rejection
In these complex and sensitive issues, it is important for Arab positions to be grounded in international law, international humanitarian law, and the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which clearly consider the displacement of populations from their lands as a “full-fledged war crime” and a “crime against humanity” because it is based on ethnic cleansing by expelling 2.2 million Palestinians from their homes. No Arab country can accept Trump’s proposal, even if his vision claims that the expulsion would be “temporary.”
6 Reasons for Rejection
Arab countries reject this dangerous plan based on several reasons, including:
Undermining the Two-State Solution: The Arab world cannot accept this American proposal because it deprives the Palestinian state of its people. A state, by definition, consists of “land, people, and authority,” and if Palestinians are expelled, there will be no state. The population is a “key pillar” of the state, and the Palestinian state, since its initial acceptance as an “observer state” in December 2012, includes the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. Therefore, emptying Gaza of its population means emptying the Palestinian state of its essence.
Demographic Imbalance: Today, Palestinians outnumber Israelis in terms of population. The number of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and within the Green Line exceeds the number of Israelis in Israel. Expelling 2.2 million people from Gaza would create a demographic imbalance in favor of Israel. On September 17, 2023, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics announced that the Palestinian population had nearly doubled since the “Nakba” in 1948, now estimated at 14.3 million worldwide, including 6.4 million refugees. In contrast, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reported that only 6.814 million Jews currently live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Comparing these statistics confirms that Palestinians in historic Palestine number over 7 million, compared to 6.8 million Israelis. Thus, the goal of Trump’s plan is clear: to expel Palestinians so that Israelis can achieve demographic superiority, especially as Israel has confirmed that around 85,000 Israelis have permanently left Israel since October 7, 2023.
Liquidating the Palestinian Cause: Displacing Gaza residents to Egypt and West Bank residents to Jordan would mean the complete end of the Palestinian cause. No Arab country can accept the liquidation of the Palestinian cause after supporting the Palestinian struggle for over 100 years. A country like Egypt supported the Palestinian struggle even before the establishment of Israel, starting with the Palestinian revolt of 1920, known as the “Buraq Revolution,” and supported the Great Palestinian Revolt of 1936, all before the Nakba of 1948.
Severe Damage to Arab National Security: Arab countries cannot allow the expulsion of Gaza’s residents because the survival and resilience of the Palestinian people on their land is a key part of Arab national security. The Arab world cannot accept or tolerate this highly dangerous plan.
Opening the Door to Territorial Concessions: Displacing Gaza’s residents and accepting it would mean direct Israeli control over Gaza and the West Bank. Trump might later accept the annexation of Gaza and the West Bank to Israel, a scenario that no one can tolerate, especially Gaza’s residents, who have endured over 15 months of bombardment with 2,000-pound bombs, which Trump has resumed exporting to Israel.
No Return: Arab countries know for certain that talk of a temporary exit for Gaza’s residents is a “big deception,” and that the U.S. and Israel will not allow those who leave Palestinian territories to return. The best evidence of this is UN Resolution 194, which calls for the return of around 700,000 Palestinians who left their homes in 1948 during the Nakba, and to this day, Israel refuses their return.
The scene of Palestinian residents returning to northern Gaza, which includes the governorates of Gaza and North Gaza, Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, Jabalia town, and the Jabalia refugee camp, confirms that the plan of the U.S. president and the extremists behind him in Washington and Tel Aviv will fail resoundingly.
