No artificial solution can liquidate the just Palestinian cause

Less than 48 hours after US President Donald Trump made the vague but outrageous suggestion that Jordan and Egypt should consider taking in more than a million Gazans “temporarily, or could be long term,” hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans on Monday made the long and arduous journey from the southern part of the Strip to the north, under the watchful eye of the Israeli army.

The scene of a flood of men, women and children, carrying scant personal belongings, marching across the so-called Netzarim Corridor, which dissects the narrow strip of land into north and south, was daunting, to say the least. They had been stranded at the crossing point for two days after Israel reneged on its obligation to open the corridor on Saturday, as per the first phase of the ceasefire agreement reached two weeks ago.

But after intermediaries resolved the snag involving the release of one Israeli woman held captive by Islamic Jihad, they were allowed to head to northern Gaza, which lies mostly in ruin following 15 months of Israeli airstrikes and meticulous demolitions by the army. The message was emphatic and defiant: even though these hundreds of thousands of hapless Palestinians were going back to where their homes once stood and where they now lie in ruins, they were determined to claim what is theirs. They were not going away, no matter what.

These scenes — as biblical in their enormity and symbolism as it is possible to be — were Gazans’ response to President Trump’s suggestion that they, almost 70 percent of whom are refugees from the 1948 and 1967 debacles, once again be displaced away from historical Palestine. No nation has displayed such a profound attachment to its native land.

Trump’s suggestion came on Saturday in an ad hoc statement given to reporters after he received a call from King Abdullah of Jordan. His logic was that Gaza was now “a demolition site” where “people are dying” and that there was a need “to clean out the whole thing.”

He said he would raise the same issue with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. But almost immediately, Jordan and Egypt responded to Trump’s proposal by stressing their objection to any plan to transfer the Palestinians from their land. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that Amman opposed the displacement of Palestinians and insisted that “Jordan is for the Jordanians and Palestine is for the Palestinians.”

In a statement, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry “rejected any infringement on Palestinian inalienable rights, whether by settlement or annexation of land or by the depopulation of that land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land, whether temporarily or long-term.”

In a statement from his office on Sunday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects aimed at displacing our people from the Gaza Strip,” adding that the Palestinian people “will not abandon their land and holy sites.”

The message sent by the Palestinians of Gaza was emphatic and defiant: they were not going away, no matter what

Osama Al-Sharif

Palestinian factions, including Hamas, rejected the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and condemned Trump for siding with Israel’s far right, which had welcomed the US president’s proposal. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described Trump’s proposal as “excellent,” while former minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said work must start to encourage the voluntary departure of Gazans.

Trump’s suggestion has created a backlash in Jordan and Egypt, two countries that had vehemently warned against and opposed Israeli attempts to transfer Gazans from their homes when the war started more than a year ago. For Jordan, it raised fears that Trump was now implementing the extremist Israeli plan to push Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan. The Likud and other radical Jewish parties have long promoted the so-called Jordanian option or stated that “Jordan is Palestine.”

King Abdullah has repeatedly warned that Jordan will never be “an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.” For Jordanians, this represents an existential danger and a red line that threatens the peace treaty with Israel. It could even lead to war.

For Egypt, the proposal to house millions of Gazans in Sinai is also a red line that threatens its national security and can never be accepted.

Jordan and Egypt are close allies of the US and depend on Washington’s financial and military aid. Last week, the State Department suspended all foreign aid programs, exempting only Israel and Egypt. That decision and Trump’s Gaza proposal have left Amman wondering what the new administration might be planning.

Jordan has been particularly affected by Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital during his first term. King Abdullah, as well as the Palestinians, also rejected Trump’s 2020 peace plan, which offered the Palestinians much less than what they claimed under the two-state solution.

King Abdullah will be the first Arab leader to meet with Trump in Washington in the second week of February. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely be at the White House next week. The most pressing question now is how Trump will follow up on his proposal during the two leaders’ visits.

Trump has taken credit for forcing Israel and Hamas to embrace a ceasefire deal and exchange of captives before his inauguration. He also raised eyebrows when he said that he did not think the ceasefire deal would hold, even as both sides carried out two exchanges as part of the first phase of the agreement.

US officials tried to justify Trump’s proposal by saying that the reconstruction of Gaza will take years and that millions of people in the beleaguered Strip need sustainable humanitarian aid that cannot be provided under the current conditions. Hamas has said that, while it was able to thwart Israeli plans to depopulate Gaza, resettle the Strip and create a permanent buffer zone in the north — all at a hefty and intolerable cost to the people of Gaza — Trump is stepping in to overturn such achievements.

Some pundits have suggested that Trump may go further by negotiating land swaps involving Israel, the Palestinians and Egypt to kick-start his 2020 peace plan. Palestinians fear that Trump may soon bless Israel’s plan to annex significant chunks of the West Bank and force a new reality. That reality may leave the Palestinians in the West Bank in self-ruled cantons, while creating a Palestinian mini-state in the remnants of a newly drawn Gaza.

Such one-sided solutions are cosmetic and will never resolve a century-old conflict that has the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination on their native land at its core. The Palestinians have survived expulsion, pogroms, mass murder and ethnic cleansing, yet they remain attached to their motherland. No artificial solution can liquidate the Palestinians or their just cause.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010