In an interview that aired Monday, President Trump explicitly said Palestinians would not have the right to return to Gaza under his plan for the US to “take over” the territory.
When asked by Fox News host Brett Baier if the Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, Trump said, “No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing. In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.”
The interview was taped on Saturday, and Trump made similar comments the following day while aboard Air Force One. “It’s a big mistake to allow the Palestinians or the people to be living in Gaza to go back yet another time,” he said on Sunday.
Trump’s repeated comments that Palestinians would be removed permanently, which means ethnic cleansing, contradict the White House, which said Palestinians would only be “temporarily relocated” during reconstruction.
In the interview with Baier, Trump insisted he could make a deal with Jordan and Egypt despite the strong opposition from Arab states and Palestinians themselves. “I think I could make a deal with Jordan, I think I could make a deal with Egypt. You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year,” he said.
Egypt has announced an emergency Arab summit that will be held on February 27 in response to Trump’s plan. On Sunday, Cairo said that in recent days, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty “made a series of phone calls with several Arab counterparts to mass regional efforts in a bid to thwart the US proposal of displacing the Palestinian people.”
Jordan’s King Abdullah arrived in Washington on Monday and is set to hold a meeting with Trump on Tuesday. According to Reuters, Abdullah plans to tell Trump that his plan “to resettle Palestinians from Gaza in Jordan is a recipe for radicalism that will spread chaos through the Middle East, jeopardize the Kingdom’s peace with Israel, and even threaten the country’s very survival.”
