Trump suggested Saturday relocating over a million Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries “where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” a plan unequivocally rejected by Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, and the Arab League comprising all 22 Arab states. His remarks came after Israel and Hamas began implementing a ceasefire agreement on Jan. 19, brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States, halting deadly fighting that had lasted for over 15 months.
PEACE AT RISK
Many Arab experts believed that Trump’s proposal limits chances for Middle East peace, derails the two-state solution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and intensifies tensions in a region already plagued by crises. Ahmed Kandil, head of the international studies unit at Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said such U.S. ideas ignore the root cause of the conflict, referring to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. “The insistence of Trump’s administration on not addressing the root causes of the Palestinian issue will only prolong and complicate the crisis and spread chaos in the region,” the Egyptian expert told Xinhua. Kandil stressed that the solution lies in the UN resolutions that affirm the Palestinian people’s right to establish their independent state on the 1967 borders, warning of the consequences of Washington’s “blind support” for Tel Aviv. He further criticized Trump’s idea of relocating Palestinians to neighboring countries as “absurd and illogical.” “It is unreasonable to expect these countries to shoulder the liquidation of the Palestinian cause in favor of Israel’s far-right movement,” Kandil said, warning that such a U.S. approach undermines any prospects for lasting peace.
Given the region’s control of the Suez Canal, a vital route for international trade, and its role as a major oil exporter, “any chaos or instability in this region will negatively impact U.S. interests, the interests of its European allies, and the global economy,” according to Kandil. For his part, former Palestinian Ambassador to Egypt Barakat Al-Farra told Xinhua that Trump’s proposal “adds fuel to the fire” in a vulnerable region suffering from chaos in several spots, including Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria, among others. “When the United States, the world’s greatest power, puts forward such a proposal, it only complicates the problems and worsens the situation in the volatile Middle East region,” he said, stressing that the U.S. complete bias towards Israel harms regional peace, security, and stability, as well as the U.S. interests in the region. “The consequences will be dire if the United States insists on holding onto this vision,” Al-Farra said.
GAZANS RETURNING HOME
The resilience of Palestinians in the face of adversity has been on full display as hundreds of thousands of internally displaced residents have recently returned to their homes in northern Gaza, even though those homes have been reduced to rubble during the conflict that has left over 47,000 Palestinians dead since Oct. 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s health authorities. This remarkable scene of throngs of Palestinians walking back home sends “a powerful message” about their determination to stay on their land and rejection of any displacement attempts, Al-Farra said.
The former Palestinian diplomat continued that the relocation proposal, coming from a so-called “Mideast peace sponsor,” is “entirely unacceptable — both in form and substance — not only to Palestinians but to the entire Arab world,” noting that it was also rejected by many European, Asian, and Latin American states, as well as Canada and Australia. Al-Farra’s view was echoed by Egyptian political science professor Tarek Fahmy, who saw that the return of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza “practically demonstrates their rejection of the idea of displacement.” Fahmy highlighted the necessity of bringing the issue to the international arena, noting that Gaza evacuation is regionally and internationally rejected. “It seems that Trump, instead of calming the conflict in the Middle East, is further exacerbating tensions in the region,” said the Egyptian professor.
