Friends,
What started out as an aside by President Trump is raising alarm bells in Arab capitals and sparking protests in the West Bank and in Egypt.
A handful of words President Trump continues to repeat: send Gazans to Egypt and Jordan.
The comments—allegedly also brought up in Trump’s recent conversations with Jordan's King Abdullah and Egypt's President Abdelfatteh El-Sisi—have been met with sharp denials.
On Wednesday, Sisi described the forced resettlement of Gazans as “an injustice in which we cannot participate” while King Abdullah stressed to diplomats in Brussels “Jordan’s firm position on the need to keep the Palestinians on their land.”
Amid the firestorm, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi simply declared on Sunday “Jordan for the Jordanians, Palestine for the Palestinians.”
The forcible transfer of a population under occupation is a war crime, illegal under international law.
But more than its illegality, Jordan, Egypt, and governments across the Middle East fear its fallout: instability and conflict whose trajectory will be impossible to predict.
They cite history: the last forcible displacement of Palestinians set of a chain of events that led to conflict across the Levant and sowed the seeds for today’s war.
There are real security and economic concerns. But the bigger threat is popular anger. The Egyptian and Jordanian publics fiercely oppose the idea and would view any facilitating of the emptying of Gaza by their governments as a “betrayal” to the Palestinians, to the Arab and Muslim cause, and to their social contracts at home.
Even amid the threat of Trump suspending the $1 billion-plus in annual US aid to Jordan and to Egypt as leverage, both countries have been steadfast in their rejection.
In Amman, there is alarm. In Ramallah, there is wariness. And in Gaza: a defiant refusal.
In this week’s edition I will break down why the forcible displacement of Palestinians is an existential threat to Egypt and Jordan, and what course they are taking to prevent President Trump from taking his proposal beyond words.
-Taylor
‘Transferred’ Palestinian populations have never been allowed to return
Egypt and Jordan are keenly aware that a “temporary” resettlement will likely be permanent. In 1948, around 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homeland by war and the creation of Israel, a multi-generational trauma known as the “Nakba,” or catastrophe. An additional 280,000 were driven out by the 1967 War, mostly to Jordan. Today, there are more than 5.9 million registered Palestinian refugees displaced within the West Bank and Gaza or living in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and further abroad. None have been able to return to their historic homeland. The fact that the transfer of Palestinians to Jordan as an “alternative homeland” is a stated goal by Israel’s far-right and part of Israeli public discourse has led Jordan and Egypt to view the concept an existential threat.
‘War’ with Israel
Jordan and Egypt are two of a handful of Arab states with peace treaties with Israel, both monumental diplomatic achievements that have become linchpins of regional security. Yet the potential infiltration of their countries by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, or simply individuals committed to armed resistance, would invite Israeli military response on their territories. The result? A state of undeclared war between Jordan, Egypt and Israel. Jordan and Egypt are wary of being dragged into Israel’s conflict with Hamas and armed resistance groups—and see the hosting of one million-plus people as the potential to transform their lands into a proxy battleground.
History guides their fears. The expulsion of Palestinians by Israel during the 1967 war led Palestinian fedayeen fighters to launch attacks on Israel from Jordan, inciting an Israeli invasion of Karama, Western Jordan, in 1968—a battle that pitted Jordanian armed forces against the Israeli military. in 1969, Palestinian fedayeen forces raised their arms against the Jordanian army. The resulting expulsion by Jordan of Palestinian fighters and their families into Lebanon sowed the seeds for Lebanon’s civil war and Israel’s subsequent invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and 1982.
It’s the Economy, stu-
Jordan’s national unemployment rate hovers at 20%; over 30% outside the capital Amman. Egypt has witnessed multiple years of high inflation and currency devaluation. The Egyptian pound fell two-thirds against the US dollar since 2022, pushing an estimated 60% of Egyptians below the poverty line. Both Jordan and Egypt are deeply in debt; Egypt’s debt stand at 95% of its GDP, Jordan’s debt-to-GDP ratio is at 90%. The war has hit both countries’ tourism economies and the fees Egypt collects through the Suez Canal. Jordan's and Egypt’s health and education sectors are overburdened, under-resourced and understaffed. A sudden influx of one million-plus people would push up the prices of rent, spark inflation, and be a burden on government services and increasingly scarce resources such as water.
Unrest at Home
By accepting the forcible transfer of Gazans, the Jordanian and Egyptian governments would be seen by their publics as facilitating a new Nakba, or catastrophe, a symbol of Arab nations’ subservience to the West.
In recent days, protests have erupted on the Egyptian side of Rafah and Jordanian political groups and figures have begun to openly question the kingdom’s reliance on America over the prospect. For the past 15 months, Egyptian and Jordanian security forces have attempted to contain ongoing protests against Israel and the Gaza war amid rising popular demands for both countries to annul their peace treaties with Israel. Allowing the mass displacement of Palestinians would be seen as a final “betrayal.” The resulting boiling over of popular anger, at a time of economic frustration, has the potential to spark unrest in Egypt and Jordan and threaten the survival of both regimes.
What I’m Hearing
Jordan and Egypt are currently lobbying Saudi Arabia and the UAE to push back against “transfer” with the Trump Administration in public and in private. The Arab League has also denounced Trump’s proposal in a bid to present a united Arab and Muslim front. Turkey, too, has joined the anti-Gazans transfer-front. Saudi Arabia, which views potential instability in Jordan along its Western borders as a national security threat, reportedly pushed back against Trump’s calls in a meeting this week with US envoy Steve Witkoff.
What I’m Watching
Will President Trump attempt to cut American aid to Egypt and Jordan as leverage? How strong will Saudi Arabia hold the line? What reconstruction pledges will be made if and when the Israel-Hamas ceasefire reaches the second round? There are a host of factors in the coming days that will determine whether Trump’s remarks become official US policy or are relegated to last week’s musings.
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