Says he is asking Jordan and Egypt to take as many as 1.5 million Gazans in what would be an historic act of the crime of ethnic cleansing, reports Joe Lauria.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, left, and President Donald J. Trump, in 2017 at the White House. (White House/Shealah Craighead)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
U.S. President Donald Trump said he has asked King Abdullah II of Jordan to help “clean out” more than a million people from Gaza.
“You’re talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said he told Abdullah in a phone conversation. “Over the centuries it’s had many, many conflicts. And I don’t know, something has to be done.”
The president said he would speak with Egyptian leader Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Sunday to ask the same thing.
“I said to [Abdullah], ‘I’d love you take on more,’ because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One on Saturday. “I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people.”
Egypt has repeatedly told Israel since the latter’s genocide began in October 2023 that it would not take Palestinians from Gaza. A majority of Jordan’s population are already descendants of Palestinians displaced by Israel beginning in 1948. Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, said Jordan’s opposition to such a plan was “firm and unwavering,” Reuters reported.
Israeli officials welcome President Trump’s idea and urge Netanyahu to collaborate with Trump
US President Trump to the King of Jordan: Move a million and a half Palestinians from the ruins in Gaza to Jordan and Egypt : “It’s about moving a million and a half people, and we’ll…
— Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) January 26, 2025
The Jordanian readout of the call with Trump said that Abdullah “stressed the pivotal role of the U.S. in pushing all sides to work towards achieving peace, security, and stability for all in the region.”
Just five days into his second term as president, Trump left no doubt about what his intentions are for Gaza.
He tried to present what he was saying as humanitarian concern, but only the most ill-informed person about Gaza would not see that he is talking about committing the crime of forcibly relocating a population.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention “prohibits the forced transfer of protected people out of or into occupied territory” and customary international law considers involuntary population transfers to be illegal.
A Demolition Site
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on Oct. 9, 2023, just two days into the genocide. (Naaman Omar apaimages/Wikimedia Commons)
“It’s literally a demolition site,” Trump said of Gaza, which essentially has undergone an Israeli urban renewal plan with the people still living in the buildings.
“Almost everything is demolished and people are dying there, so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” Trump said.
Building housing “at a different location” means they will never return to Gaza.
On Monday, speaking like the New York real estate mogul that he is, Trump referred to Gaza as “a phenomenal location.”
“That place has to be rebuilt in a different way,” he said.
“You know, Gaza is interesting, it’s a phenomenal location, on the sea,” he went on with a slight smile. “The best weather, you know, everything is good. It’s like some beautiful things could be done, but it’s very interesting.”
These comments are in line with the most extreme sentiments of Israeli leaders who want Gaza cleansed of Arabs and repopulated with Israelis.
“Autocrats do not care about human life: they think in the aggregate and see people as assets to exploit,” said New York University historian Ruth Ben-Chiat on X. “A clean out, in autocratic terms, often means mass death and deportation.”
Autocrats do not care about human life: they think in the aggregate and see people as assets to exploit. A clean out, in autocratic terms, often means mass death and deportation. https://t.co/Iv1KbTsHzE
— Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) January 26, 2025
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister called Trump’s plan a “wonderful idea.” He said “only outside-the-box thinking over new solutions will bring … peace and security,” the Financial Times reported.
Francesca Albanese, the U.N.’s special rapporteur for the Occupied Territories, said, “Ethnic cleansing is anything but an ‘out-of the box’ thinking … No matter how one packages it … It is illegal, immoral and irresponsible.”
Ethnic cleansing is anything but an “out-of the box” thinking, no matter how one packages it. It is illegal, immoral and irresponsible. https://t.co/GhuHNOEo49
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) January 26, 2025
On Monday, Trump also said he was “not confident” the ceasefire would hold. On Saturday he released delivery of 2,000 lb. bunker buster bombs that Israel has used on civilian areas.
The Biden administration had delayed delivery as an attempt to show “concern” for civilians during the election run.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former 25-year U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
Genocide Joe, or Orange Genocide. That’s your choice. Even here on CN there are commenters who apologize, make pathetic excuses, and believe in fairy tales about the Adelson/Musk/DT regime. Despite the cheap PR stunts and endless bullshit, the two factions are exactly the same. I miss George Carlin because he used unambiguous Plain English to accurately describe things, we can imagine what he would say about Genocide Joe and Orange Genocide DT
I am not sure that Hamas would be willing to go along with such a plan.
Besides, once Trump acquires Greenland, everything will be fine…
I have a suggestion for President Trump to address where the now homeless Gazan Palestinians can be moved to: let’s get rid of all the hundreds of thousands of illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank and have the homeless and displaced Palestinians of Gaza move into all the units of modern housing created thereby. An enlarged West Bank could be the contiguous Palestinian state that has been the aim all along, right?
Who could say no to this deal of a century?
If anyone should be expelled, it would be the illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That would free up instantly available housing for a large portion of homeless Gazan Palestinians, and eliminate the fracturing of Palestinian West Bank territory.
Yes, but that’s not gonna happen unfortnately.
just don’t listen to the conniving conman. (Sorry, conman and felon.)
The definition of genocide includes the forced removal of a people from their homeland. Trump is advocating genocide.
Zionists are obviously machines controlled by AI. There is NO human feeling or intelligence in Trump or his Zionist sidekicks.