Trump Vows to Press King of Jordan on Gaza Cleansing

The U.S. president said he would consider using aid to Jordan and Egypt as leverage to make them take part in the war crime of ethnically cleansing Gaza, reports Joe Lauria.

By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News

As King Abdullah II of Jordan prepares to visit the White House on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters he could withhold aid to both Jordan and Egypt if their leaders don’t agree to accept the nearly 2 million Palestinians that Trump wants expelled from Gaza.

 “Yeah, maybe, sure, why not? If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes,” Trump said. 

Jordan is the third biggest recipient of combined military and economic U.S. foreign aid ($1.7 billion) and Egypt is the fourth ($1.5 billion). Only Ukraine ($17.2 billion/2 percent military) and Israel ($3.3 billion) were ahead of them. 

Thus Trump holds leverage over both Amman and Cairo. And it looks like he might not be afraid to use it. Despite a week of outrage, derision and disbelief that followed Trump’s revelation that he wanted to transfer all Palestinians from Gaza, he seems more determined than ever to do it.

Asked in a TV interview that aired on Monday if the Palestinians could return after he supposedly rebuilds Gaza, Trump said bluntly: “No, they wouldn’t.”

“We’ll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are where all of this danger is,” the real estate magnate said. “In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land.”

Once his real estate deal is complete the Palestinians won’t return. Notice he said “I” would own Gaza, not the United States.

What Distraction?

Despite days of this very clear language, pundit after pundit, one social media pontificator after another say Trump is just trying to artfully shock people for an ulterior motive, or that it’s all just a distraction. But a distraction from what? If there is anything he’d want to distract people from it would be the commission of one of the most heinous war crimes: the ethnic cleansing of an entire population.

But instead Trump announced his intention to do it live, a week ago under the full glare of TV lights in the East Room of the White House with an overjoyed Israeli prime minister at his side. He wants to put it right in our faces. It’s no distraction. He speaks as though he is doing the Palestinians a favor. 

Perhaps it’s time to understand that he might just be meaning what he says. King Abdullah is about to find out at the White House on Tuesday when he sits down with Trump in the Oval Office.

Abdullah’s reign is on the line. If he says no to Trump, he could be flushing $1.7 billion a year. That’s nearly 4 percent of Jordan’s $50.8 billion GDP. But only roughly 25 percent of that is military aid, about $429 million.

If he says yes, there will be upheaval in Jordan, a nation already made up by a majority of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Taking in Palestinians from Gaza could open the way for an even greater influx from the West Bank if the extremists in Tel Aviv begin their ethnic cleansing there.

Analysts say Abdullah acquiescing to ethnic cleansing and increasing the population of Palestinian refugees is a combination that could topple him.  It’s likely Abdullah will say no to Trump. 

The calculation for Egypt could be different. Of the $1.5 billion in U.S. aid, $1.2 billion funds the military. Without U.S. assistance, the Egyptian military could draw near to collapse, despite the many business ventures it is involved in.

It’s an amount Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi could not afford to lose. But he would have to take in the majority of the Gazan refugees, given the proximity. The streets of downtown Cairo would go wild in protests likely rivaling those that brought down Hosni Mubarak.

There is no easy way out for Sisi. He could suggest to Trump that Egypt would turn to Russia and China to replace U.S. aid, if he can get it.

Of course the part Trump doesn’t dwell on now is how is he going to take over Gaza with Hamas still in power? Israel failed to defeat it after 15 months. But all indications are that the fighting is soon to resume, after Hamas paused the hostage handovers because of what it says are Israeli ceasefire violations.

The bellicose rhetoric is rising. Trump has warned Hamas that if it does not release all the remaining Israeli hostages by “12 o’clock on Saturday,” the cease-fire is over. “All hell is going to break out,” he said.

In Trump’s mind the Israelis will provide the muscle, the Gulf the financing, Egypt and Jordan the land and he will own it all.  

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former 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. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on X @unjoe.