President Donald Trump’s request to Jordan and Egypt to take in some of Gaza’s people has raised alarm bells across the region. There are grave concerns that America would back Israel’s attempts to throw Palestinians out of their homeland.  

Trump’s request to the Arab countries ties in with the views of Israel’s hardliners to clear Palestinians out of the Biblical "promised land.’’ Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right minister who resigned from the Netanyahu cabinet following the ceasefire agreement with Hamas, has welcomed Trump's remarks.  

“I don’t know, something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished, and people are dying there, so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change,” Trump said.  

BY Seema Guha

Was Trump referring to the temporary or permanent settlement of Gaza residents outside the strip? No one, perhaps not even the President is sure. The off-the-cuff remarks by Trump, however, raise the question: Is the US invested in getting a permanent peace between Israel and Palestine--One that allows both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace side by side and implements the two-state solution? There are no clear indications that the Trump administration is thinking beyond the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Once that happens, will the US lose interest and allow the world’s longest conflict to simmer on?  

Trump had been praised for getting the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the prisoner-swap agreement in place. The ceasefire came into effect a day before Trump took office for the second term. It turns out that it is the same three-part deal that the Biden administration had announced last May. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, ensured that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fell in line.  

This has led to the hope that Trump, unlike Joe Biden, would be in a position to assert American power to get Israel on board for a lasting solution. As of now, there are no signs that Trump would waste time and energy on a peace plan.  

Expectedly, both Jordan and Egypt have rejected the idea of settling more Palestinians on their territory. So has Hamas. “The Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have endured death and destruction over 15 months in one of humanity’s greatest crimes of the 21st century, simply to stay on their land and homeland,” Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, is reported by the international press as saying. “Therefore, they will not accept any proposals or solutions, even if seemingly well-intentioned under the guise of reconstruction, as proposed by U.S. President Trump. Ordinary Palestinians will never accept such a proposal,’’ Naim explains.  

Donald Trump, who has excellent ties with the Arab world, especially with Saudi Arabia, will find it difficult to push this proposal on Arab governments.  

During his last term in office, Trump got the Abraham Accords signed. His son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose family has close ties with Netanyahu, played a pivotal role in getting the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco Sudan and Israel normalise relations.  

But Saudi Arabia, the largest Sunni power in the region, did not follow the others. While the Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, was eager to get on board, his father, King Salman, was not ready. Saudi Arabia’s royal family holds the key to Islam’s most sacred sites in Mecca and Medina. As leader of Sunni Muslims around the world, the King was more circumspect than the Crown Prince.  

BY Outlook Web Desk

The two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian issue has been on the cards for several decades. As time passed, the world forgot about a Palestinian state. The last time there was interest was during the Oslo Accord that was signed in 1993 between Yitzhak Rabin and Yaseer Arafat. Since then the world, including Palestine’s Arab neighbours, had put the Palestine issue on the back burner.  

However, after the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s war on Gaza reduced the enclave to rubble and over 47,000 Palestinian deaths, Arab governments cannot afford to ignore their plight.  

On Tuesday, deep inside Chinese Mongolia, the Harmanpreet Singh-led Men in Blue did just about enough to beat a spirited Chinese side. The occasion: the final of the Asian Champions Trophy 2024.

Saudi Arabia has already announced that it would normalise ties with Israel but not before the two-state solution was accepted. The ruling families may not care what is happening in Gaza, but the ordinary people in bazaars and mosques across the Arab world would be aghast. So there is no way that Arab kingdoms and sheikhdoms will go against people’s sentiment and accept depopulating even parts of the Gaza Strip.  

So even if Trump wishes to create the promised landgppbet, Arab leaders will refuse to play ball.