Trump’s Gaza plan complicates the hoped Saudi Israeli deal

President Trump praised the 2020 Abraham agreements that formed formal ties between Israel and four Arab countries as one of the greatest performance of foreign policy of his first term.

Now he strives for his long desired goal to join Saudi Arabia to the chords but he may have just given himself a serious setback. Mr Trump’s proposal to transfer both two million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and then rebuild the enclave, because the “Rivièra of the Middle East” some of the people he needs to close the deal , prevented.

The Gaza idea was quickly rejected by Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia. The Gulf Powerhouse released a pre-dawn statement immediately after Mr Trump had made the proposal on Tuesday evening alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Washington.

The Kingdom made it clear that, according to his requirement, it states that a Palestinian state is first determined before it will normalize relations with Israel. The condition that the Saudis have stood on In the past year, “non -negotiable and not subject to compromises,” said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs An explanation On Wednesday.

The statement immediately contradicted Mr Trump, who had just told reporters in Washington Saudi -Arabia had dropped the condition. A senior Saudi royal said what the American leader suggested would amount to an “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza.

By proposing to ‘clean up’ Gaza, Mr. Trump little but suspicion and anger earned in Arab countries. Efforts of the US government to mitigate the position, in which State Secretary Marco Rubio suggests that Gazanen would only be moved temporarily, have made little to assemble them.

The issue of the Palestinian state is the core of the controversy about the Gaza proposal of Mr Trump. For many Arabs, the development of Palestinians is Anathema because it would beat their hope for an independent state.

Egypt and Jordan, the countries that Mr Trump has suggested, could be persuaded to take Gazans, have remained publicly non -unpleasant that they would never accept a massive displacement of Palestinians. Civil servants, journalists and analysts in both countries said that history spoke for themselves: when Palestinians are forced from their houses, they are not allowed.

Since the war in Gaza, both countries have taken the Palestinians that need medical help. Egypt has accepted at least 100,000 medical evacués and others who fled the adjacent enclave. Jordan, many of the population of Palestinian descent, treats dozens of injured people from Gaza.

But participation in any forced or permanent relocation of Palestinians from Gaza would be “morally and legally horrible,” said Abdel Monem Saied Aly, a pro-governmental Egyptian political analyst and columnist.

Given the broad support of the Saudi population for the Palestinians, it would be difficult for the government to accept an agreement that does not tackle their ambitions for the State. Public indignation in the Kingdom about the war, and now about the proposal of Mr. Trump to empty Gaza has complicated the prospects of a deal with Israel that would be difficult to take off.

Before Mr. Trump took office his second term, there was some reason for modest optimism that could move forward the standardization of Saudi Israel. A to hold up Between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas was reached on the eve of the inauguration of Mr. Trump’s on January 20. And the new US president has promoted a good working relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the actual ruler of Saudi Arabia.

But now some tensions seem to be in that relationship.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former espionage function and former ambassador of Saudi Arabia in the United States, CNN said on Wednesday that Mr. Trump will “get an earful here”, not only about the lack of wisdom in what he proposes, also the injustice of ‘ethnic cleaning’.

If to underline his point, he wore one Palestinian black and white controlled Kaffiyeh Instead of his traditional white headdress.

The four Arab governments that the Abraham Accords – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – despite criticism, they did this that they have been giving up what had been the Arabic condition for any ties with Israel for decades, the establishment of a Palestinian state.

When Bahrain and the Emirates became the first two nations that signed the similarities, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, called it “a stab in the Palestinian people.” Mr. Abbas rules parts of the West Bank of Israel.

After 15 months of war in Gaza, it is unlikely that the indignant Arab public now accepts similar compromises and the Israeli government led by Mr Netanyahu resists the Palestinian state firmly.

“If standardization with Saudi Arabia depends on the progress in the direction of a Palestinian state, even by a millimeter, this will not happen. Period, “the Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was quoted last month by the Israeli army radio.

The Saudis were the historical signing of the Abraham agreements, but when the deal spread to Morocco and Sudan, the Saudi crown prince called Israel A “Potential ally” In an interview from 2022 with the Atlantic Ocean.

In September 2023, the Crown Prince became the first leader of the Kingdom to openly discuss the possibility of establishing relationships with Israel in Exchange for a defense pact With the United States and assistance in developing a civil nuclear program. He did not mention the Palestinian state as a condition.

In an interview with FOX News at that time, the crown prince said that such an agreement would require a good life for the Palestinians’. The instructions then pointed to the possibility that Saudi Aarabia might also be willing to reduce his insistence on a Palestinian state before he forges ties with Israel.

Then came the attack on Israel led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people. The 15 -month Israeli military campaign that followed, killed more than 46,000 people in Gaza, according to local health officials, who make no distinction between citizens and fighters. The war destroyed the densely populated and impoverished territory.

Since the war, the Saudi government has changed its tone and said that the region should be on an irreversible path to the state for the Palestinians.

“We have some red lines,” said Prince Khalid Bin Bandar, the Saudi ambassador in the United Kingdom, at the end of last month. “And for us to put an end to the last 75 years of pain and suffering caused by one problem, a Palestinian state must include.”

It is possible that both Mr Trump and Saudi leadership prepare maximalistic positions as principles in a negotiation and will shift at a certain moment to reach a compromise.

Many people in the four countries who have normalized ties with Israel are shocked by the war in Gaza and have publicly protested the agreement. While the freedom of association and meeting in Bahrain are very limited, the government allowed the protests.

Although Egypt and Jordan have had peace treaties with the Israelis for decades, their audience has never been warmed up for Israel and the ties are seriously tense by the war.

This week, Egyptian officials told foreign diplomats in Cairo that their rejection of Gazan displacement was unsalful. In public, they repeated that Egypt focused on bringing the cease-fire agreement and providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians there.

Egypt “confirms the complete rejection of a proposal or concept aimed at eliminating the Palestinian case by developing or developing their historic home country and its seizure, either on a temporary or permanent basis,” said the foreign Ministry of Egypt on Thursday in one statement on a statement.

Political analysts in the vicinity of the governments in Egypt and Jordan suggested that the leaders of the two countries would try to convince Mr Trump to accept an alternative plan for the recovery of Gaza with regard to help and help from their country .

“Egypt and Jordan have been historically busy with the Palestinian cause, and they must be an integral part of every solution,” said Khaled Okasha, director of the Egyptian Center for Thought and Strategic Studies, a think tank that is coordinated by the government. “But not the one who suggests Trump.”

Fatima Abdulkariannim Contributed reporting of Ramallah, on the West Bank.