Why we are concerned about cleaning up Bibi's mess in Gaza is beyond me. Israel leveled the place...they own it.
On the other hand, if other nations can provide a safe place for Gazans that's superior to the ruble left over from Israel tactical misteps? This whole thing is stranger and sadder than fiction.
Trump Says U.S. Would Take Over Gaza as Visit by Jordan’s King Highlights Obstacles
Leader of the small Middle East country sidesteps questions about whether he would accept evacuated Palestinians
In a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House, President Trump reiterated his plan to have the U.S. take control of Gaza and relocate its residents.
By Michael R. Gordon and Omar Abdel-Baqui, WSJ
Updated Feb. 11, 2025
WASHINGTON—The first Arab leader to come to the White House since President Trump called for taking control of Gaza and relocating its two million residents dodged a public confrontation but avoided endorsing Trump’s improbable plan.
With Jordan’s King Abdullah II next to him Tuesday in the Oval Office, Trump again vowed to “take” Gaza, prompting Abdullah to shift uncomfortably in his chair and to emphasize that Arab governments would counter with their own plan for postwar Gaza later this month.
“I have to look into the best interests of my country,” said Abdullah. “Let’s wait until the Egyptians” present their ideas, he said.
As he sought to mollify Trump, the Jordanian monarch said that his country would accept 2,000 sick children from Gaza, an announcement that Trump applauded. But the president went on to repeat his idea that Gaza would be turned into an oceanfront vacation destination, with hotels and housing for people from across the Middle East.
Trump promised that the U.S. would “cherish” Gaza. But he bluntly reiterated that the U.S. would take over the war-shattered strip. “We are going to take it.” Asked what authority he would invoke, he said, “United States authority.”
Egypt said Sunday that it would host a summit of Arab leaders later this month to discuss “the new and dangerous developments in the Palestinian issue.” While Egypt hasn’t publicly spelled out the terms of a potential plan, it is expected to call for keeping the population in place without outlining arrangements to secure and administer the enclave.
Few Middle East experts think Trump’s plan is practical in large part because of the Palestinian fear of being forced into a permanent exile and Jordan and Egypt’s refusal to accept them. Some have raised concerns about international law and whether the plan would constitute ethnic cleansing.
“I reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” Abdullah said in a statement after meeting Trump. “Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all.”
From Trump’s perspective, his plan has the virtue of simplicity, some of its proponents say. Not only might it make it easier to rebuild Gaza, but it hints at a solution for the unsolved question of how to remove Hamas from the territory. Since everybody would be called on to leave the enclave, the remaining Hamas fighters and sympathizers also would depart. Later, the international community could determine who would be allowed to live in the reconstructed enclave, and Hamas would be shut out.
At a minimum, says some of the idea’s advocates within the Trump administration, it will spur Arab countries to put forth a plan to deal with the security and financial challenges of rebuilding Gaza.
“Right now, the only one who’s stood up and said I’m willing to help do it is Donald Trump,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during an interview Monday with SiriusXM Patriot. “All these other leaders, they’re going to have to step up. If they’ve got a better idea, then now is the time. Now is the time for the other governments and other powers in the region, some of these very rich countries, to basically say, okay, we’ll do it.”
Jordan and Egypt are on the spot, current and former U.S. officials said.
“Abdullah faces a complicated task: how to explain to Trump why Arab leaders have a problem with his call and yet also show they also understand that there must be a practical approach to reconstructing Gaza and why this can only be done with Hamas no longer in control,” said Dennis Ross, who served as a senior Middle East official in Democratic and Republican administrations. “Striking that balance requires offering practical suggestions for how to do it and showing how it fits into Trump’s desire to expand the Abraham Accords.”
The accords were brokered by the U.S. during Trump’s first administration and normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, a breakthrough Trump hopes will be expanded to include normalized Israeli ties with Saudi Arabia.
Some U.S. officials see the threat of cutting aid to Jordan, which Trump alluded to as recently as Monday but appeared to put aside on Tuesday, as a double-edged sword. The U.S. has economic leverage over Jordan, including substantial economic and military aid. But cutting support to Jordan could foster instability in the region.
“Even the Israelis would have to understand that cutting off the $1 billion plus to Jordan could create the kind of instability that they don’t need with their longest and arguably least defensible border,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator.
“The Jordanians can’t afford to walk away from Trump,” Miller said. “The leverage is on Trump’s side. I just don’t think the king is going to agree. It’s not a real estate deal to Abdullah. It’s an existential problem.”
While Trump said there was no need to threaten to withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt to pressure them, he didn’t explain how the U.S. would take control of Gaza without using military force or how its populations, including the militant group Hamas, would be persuaded to leave. Nor did he explain what role would be played by Israel, which has been fighting a 16-month war in Gaza.
Rebuilding the shattered territory would take a long time, Trump said, adding that some Palestinians might return for work but not to reclaim their land and reoccupy their homes.
Small, resource-limited Jordan, which established formal ties with Israel in the 1990s and where millions of the Palestinian diaspora live, has long been a bastion of relative stability in a volatile region. It hosts U.S. troops and helped Israel fend off missile attacks from Iran last year. The U.S. agreed in 2022 to provide Jordan with about $10 billion in aid over seven years.
But a sluggish labor market, high poverty levels among refugees, low trust in public institutions and decreased U.S. aid to agencies that assist Jordan could fan the flames of brewing political discontent.
Protests in support of the Palestinian cause have taken place frequently in the country’s capital, leading to rare open criticism of the government and its diplomatic and economic relations with Israel. Protesters have at times gathered near the U.S. and Israeli embassies, where they clashed with Jordanian forces.
During Jordan’s last parliamentary election, in 2024, a political party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that gave rise to Hamas and is banned in many countries, captured enough votes to become the largest bloc in the House of Representatives.
Abdullah can’t afford to be seen as cooperating in an enterprise that will be portrayed in the Arab world as a betrayal of the Palestinians, particularly amid internal security concerns exacerbated by the flow of illegal weapons smuggled from Syria for years under the Assad regime.
“The proposal is catastrophic,” said Oraib Rantawi, director-general of the Amman, Jordan-based Al Quds Center for Political Studies. “We cannot accept gambling with the country’s security, national identity, and very existence.”
Jordan risks again becoming a hotbed of militancy if armed Palestinian elements enter the country en masse. Abdullah’s great grandfather, King Abdullah I, was killed by a Palestinian assassin in 1951. His father, King Hussein, expelled thousands of Palestinian militants after months of brutal armed clashes between the army and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the early 1970s.
Trump had invited Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi to meet at the White House as well.
But Sisi is concerned about the optics of meeting with Trump and the risk of being cornered publicly while the U.S. leader is pushing an idea for Gaza that is anathema to much of Egypt’s population and a security concern for its military, Egyptian officials said. Egypt didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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