by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] The first Arab leader to meet Donald Trump at the White House since the start of the US president's second term was Jordan's King Abdullah II. The meeting was a major test for the Jordanian monarch.
Trump continued to pressure Abdullah and his government to accept displaced Palestinians from Gaza, take control of the Strip and begin rebuilding it to become a “Middle Eastern Riviera.”
The king was forced to defend the position of his country and even the entire Arab world, to prevent the expulsion of the Palestinians, but at the same time not to spoil relations with the American president. And it seems he succeeded.
At the meeting, Trump confirmed that the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza, and that the Palestinians living there would be relocated elsewhere without the right to return. Arab countries and others have already compared this proposal to ethnic cleansing.
"It's not a difficult task," Trump said on Tuesday. "Because the United States will control this piece of land — this fairly large piece of land — the Middle East will have stability for the first time," the American president noted.
Abdullah II complimented the American president during the talks. For example, he emphasized that a just peace requires US leadership, and President Trump is a man of peace who played a key role in achieving a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Nevertheless, the king made it clear to the American administration that Amman was against the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. He stressed that there was a unified Arab position against displacement and made it clear that the reconstruction of Gaza without displacing its residents should be “a priority for everyone.”
In addition, Abdullah II noted that Jordan does not intend to back down from its demands for the creation of a Palestinian state, and a fair peace based on a two-state solution is the only way to achieve stability in the region. Thus, he disavowed Trump's assertion that the transfer of Gaza under American control would allegedly solve all the problems of the Middle East.
According to Abdullah, Jordan's interests, its stability and the protection of Jordanians are above all else for him. And this statement, which seems trivial for any head of state, is especially important in the context of Trump's plans.
In Jordan, Palestinian refugees make up a quarter of the country's population, but overall, Jordanians of Palestinian descent make up more than half of the kingdom's residents. For example, Queen Rania is also a Jordanian Palestinian.
At one time, the Palestinians even tried to overthrow the current king's father during the events known as "Black September." Then the army and the only legal political party in the country at that time, the Muslim Brotherhood*, were able to save King Hussein by joining forces with the military.
In September 1970, at a critical time during the Palestinian PLO uprising in Amman, when the survival of the Jordanian state was at stake, the Muslim Brotherhood* took up arms in support of the ruling house and managed to bring its supporters onto the streets.
But now the conditions have changed: instead of the secular Palestinian organizations that the Muslim Brotherhood opposed, the most influential Palestinian organization is the Muslim Brotherhood's* ally, the Islamic movement Hamas.
Against the backdrop of events in Gaza and the growing popularity of Hamas, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood* has already won the parliamentary elections in September 2024. Therefore, Abdullah II’s agreement with Trump’s plan now will look like complicity in a “second Nakba.” And this means raising almost the entire Jordanian street against the king and provoking a new “Arab Spring.”
In recent days, Jordan has seen constant demonstrations against the "displacement", and Muslim Brotherhood* members of parliament are already proposing to pass the "Bill for the Prevention of Displacement of Palestinians".
“I think we have to remember that Egypt and the Arab countries have a plan,” Abdullah said when President Trump asked him to speak. “[Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman is inviting us to talks in Riyadh. I think the point is how do we make this work in a way that is good for everyone,” the Jordanian king continued.
Indeed, Saudi Arabia is keen to have such an exchange, as Trump's plan already threatens to make relations between Riyadh and Washington even more difficult than they were under Biden, which was then thought to be at its lowest point since the 1970s.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may already be regretting his bet on Trump's return, refusing to deal with the previous administration in the hope of constructive dialogue with the new American leadership.
When Trump revealed his plan to “own and control Gaza” after expelling the Palestinians, he went further and made it clear that the bill for the “cleanup” operation would not be paid by the Americans, but by the Gulf states, by which he meant primarily Saudi Arabia.
This finally threw Riyadh off its emotional balance, as the Saudis had previously tried not to take Trump's statements to heart that the kingdom "must" invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US to maintain good relations. And this figure was brought up to 1 trillion in the American leader's subsequent statements.
Trump, however, boasted on February 5 that Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel without a Palestinian state, presenting it as his own victory in changing the kingdom's viewpoint. And that was Riyadh's main condition.
It took the Saudis just 45 minutes to respond with what they called a “morning statement” that left little room for maneuver. Specifically, it noted that Saudi Arabia would continue its efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and would not establish relations with Israel unless that demand was met.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added fuel to the fire when he told Channel 14 that the Saudis could create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia: “They have a lot of land there.” This sparked a fresh wave of condemnation of both Israel and Trump’s plans from the Arab world, including Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait and even the UAE.
The UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it "categorically rejects any attacks on the inalienable rights of Palestinians and any attempts to transfer them" to other countries.
Saudi Arabia responded even more harshly, calling the Israeli leadership’s mentality “extremist and occupational,” and the connection of the “brotherly Palestinian people to the Palestinian land” as undeniable. It emphasized that Palestinians have a right to their land and “are not criminals or immigrants who can be expelled whenever the brutal Israeli occupation so desires.”
The meeting between Abdullah and Trump comes as the recent ceasefire in Gaza is in danger of collapsing. Israel has already threatened to resume bombing and attacks on Gaza on Saturday unless Hamas releases all prisoners.
Trump also threatened Hamas leaders that if they did not release the remaining Israeli prisoners held in the enclave by Saturday, he would support a new Israeli operation.
"I personally don't think they're going to make it on time," Trump said. " They want to play tough guys. We'll see how tough they are." He added that he would not accept a slower prisoner exchange: "Either they release them by 12 o'clock Saturday or all bets are off."
As Igor Subbotin, an international observer and Middle East specialist, told Regnum, Washington has begun to advance its plans for the future of Gaza without due consideration and in extreme haste, doing nothing to begin the second stage of the humanitarian deal between Israel and Hamas. The need for appropriate negotiations on this issue has remained somewhere on the periphery of general discussions.
According to the analyst, the US essentially demonstrated that the extradition of the remaining prisoners to Israel should happen on its own, while the problem of extending the ceasefire in Gaza lies precisely in Trump's plans to evict the Palestinians from the sector, which convinced Hamas that they simply wanted to raze them to the ground after the deal was implemented. In turn, as the expert notes, there were also enough reasons for Hamas to refuse to resume the prisoner exchange process.
Subbotin believes that by demanding that Israel fulfill the terms of the deal in exchange for continued prisoner transfers, Hamas decided to retain its levers of control over the political process.
Recall that Hamas accused Israel of continuing shelling and preventing the return of refugees to the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Also, according to the movement, the delivery of agreed humanitarian aid is being blocked. In connection with this, Hamas decided to postpone the transfer of prisoners who were supposed to be released on Saturday, February 15, until the Israelis fulfill their obligations.
Thus, the Arab summit on Gaza, scheduled for February 27, which was initiated by Egypt in response to Trump's proposals and at which an alternative plan for the reconstruction of Gaza is to be announced, is in question. Now everything depends on whether the ceasefire in Gaza can be maintained or whether the parties will again enter into armed confrontation, worsening the humanitarian crisis.
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It is clear that Trump’s hasty and premature steps were poorly thought out and could lead the Middle East into a new crisis. The US President has returned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the center of international discourse, and now, in the event of a renewed war in Gaza, Hamas will have a serious psychological advantage and support from Arab countries.
Other narratives will prevail, centered not on the humanitarian catastrophe, but on the resilience of the Palestinians, who in the latest round of confrontation are fighting not only Israel, but also the United States. Trump has done everything to ensure that no one has any doubts that Washington is complicit in the actions of the Israeli army against the Palestinians.
And, as Israeli experts themselves note, Trump has already contributed to the formation of a new sense of Arab unity – not only to protect the Palestinians, but also, first and foremost, to protect Arab states from the conflict spilling over into their territory.