King Abdullah II was at the White House on Tuesday as U.S. President Donald Trump doubled down on his demand that Jordan permanently take in Palestinians and support the United States to take over Gaza — a plan that Trump said will “be wonderful” for the Middle East.
“You’re going to see some great progress,” Trump told the Jordanian king in front of reporters in the Oval Office ahead of their meeting. “The whole thing will come. It’s not a complex thing to do.”
He added, “You’re going to have stability in the Middle East for the first time. And the Palestinians, or the people that live now in Gaza, will be living beautifully in another location. They’re going to be living safely.”
Pressed by a reporter, Trump said that the Palestinians will live “where we ultimately choose as a group,” which could be “a parcel of land in Jordan … a parcel of land in Egypt,” and elsewhere.
Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi have rejected Trump’s plans to forcibly relocate an estimated 1.9 million Palestinians from Gaza into neighboring Jordan and Egypt so the U.S. can take over and “own” the territory.
The king declined Trump’s invitation to share his counteroffer with reporters.
“I think we have to keep in mind that there is a plan from Egypt and the Arab countries. We’ve been invited by [Saudi Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman to discussions in Riyadh,” Abdullah said, stressing the need to find a mutually beneficial solution.
“We’re going to have some interesting discussions today,” he said, adding that Jordan is immediately prepared to take in 2,000 children who are sick with cancer and other illnesses.
Trump maintained that the United States will not be purchasing Gaza but did not elaborate on his takeover plan.
“We’re going to have it, and we’re going to keep it, and we’re going to make sure that there’s going to be peace, and there’s not going to be any problem, and nobody’s going to question it,” he said.
It’s a high-stakes meeting for Abdullah that comes as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warn that if Hamas does not return Israeli hostages by noon Saturday, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that was agreed upon Jan. 19 will end.
“I don’t think they’re going to make a deadline, personally. I think they want to play tough guy. But we’ll see how tough they are,” Trump said Tuesday, adding that he rejects the incremental nature of the swap.
“They either have them out by Saturday at 12 o’clock or all bets are off,” he said.
The agreement between Israelis and Hamas on the number of hostages being released for Palestinians held in Israeli jails was negotiated for months by the Biden administration together with Qatar and Egypt.
Hamas on Monday threatened to delay the next planned release of Israeli hostages because of what it said are Israeli violations of the truce. On Tuesday, Netanyahu said he has ordered the Israeli military to surround Gaza.
“The decision that I passed unanimously in the Cabinet is this: If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will be terminated, and the IDF will return to intense fighting until Hamas is finally defeated,” he said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Aid threats
Ahead of the king’s visit to Washington, Trump warned that U.S. assistance to Jordan and Egypt could be in jeopardy if they don’t meet his demands on Gaza.
On Tuesday he seemed to backtrack, saying, “I don’t have to threaten that. … I think we’re above that.”
Jordan and Egypt are major recipients of U.S. military and economic aid. The U.S. provided Amman with almost $1.7 billion in foreign aid in fiscal 2023, the most recent period with complete data, according to U.S. government information. It gave Cairo about $1.5 billion during the same period.
Trump first floated the idea of developing Gaza into what he calls “the Riviera of the Middle East” during Netanyahu’s visit to the White House last week. The proposal sent shock waves throughout the Middle East and placed Abdullah in a difficult spot between keeping military and diplomatic ties with a key ally and popular support for Palestinians at home.
The Jordanian king has been under immense pressure to maintain good relations with the U.S. over the years while absorbing the shocks from Washington’s policy that has drifted toward Israel’s ultra-right parties, particularly since the first Trump administration, said Zaha Hassan, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“There is no set of circumstances in which the king will accept Palestinian displacement into Jordan,” Hassan told VOA.
“The issue is existential for the king and his continued reign,” she said.
Threat to Jordan’s stability
Nearly 3 million Palestinians are in Jordan — refugees and naturalized Jordanian citizens of Palestinian descent who came as refugees during Al-Nakba, the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
An influx of Palestinians from Gaza would dramatically increase strains on an already struggling economy and could upend the fragile demographic balance in Jordanian society, which includes hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.
Palestinians, and those who support their cause in Jordan, will not accept more displacement, said Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“This will create domestic unrest,” he told VOA, adding that an influx would include Hamas members and supporters, creating a terror threat for the kingdom that would turn Jordan into a staging ground for attacks on Israel.
“All of these things will create very, very severe threats to Jordan’s stability and maybe even survival,” he said.
Jordanian officials have rejected the forced relocation of Palestinians as morally wrong. Palestinians are adamant they will not leave the land they consider rightfully theirs.
Trump’s plan could also disrupt the fragile peace between Israel and Jordan under a 1994 peace treaty.
“That agreement would be in jeopardy, as it was based on certain guarantees from the U.S. and premised on a political solution for Palestinians, who had signed an interim agreement with Israel a year earlier,” Hassan said.
Israeli far-right politicians, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, support Trump’s plan, as do most Israelis, according to a survey by the country’s Channel 12 media.
United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said Trump’s proposal is “unlawful, immoral and irresponsible,” and worse than ethnic cleansing.
“It’s inciting to commit forced displacement, which is an international crime,” she said last week at a news conference in Copenhagen.
Pressed by a reporter, Trump maintained he will stick to his plan to develop Gaza no matter what alternatives Arab countries may offer.
“I think it’s going to be something that’s going to be magnificent for the Palestinians. They’re going to be in love with it,” Trump said. “I did very well with real estate. I can tell you about real estate. They’re going to be in love with it.”
VOA’s Margaret Besheer and Natasha Mozgovaya contributed to this report.