Trump's Gaza plan is an impossible choice.. The Guardian: Arab countries are in a humiliating position due to their historical weakness on Palestine

The Guardian newspaper saw that US President Donald Trump's plan to displace the people of Gaza leaves the Arab countries with an impossible choice, and that this humiliating dilemma touches the soul of the region itself, and its leaders are the ones who brought this dilemma upon themselves, due to their historical weakness regarding Palestine.

“The Arab states are in a bind,” wrote Nisreen Malik, a columnist for The Guardian. “Jordan’s King Abdullah was confused in the Oval Office last week when the press and Donald Trump asked him about the latter’s plan for Gaza. He is in a difficult position, wanting to keep Trump on his side while at the same time not approving of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.”

Immediately afterward, anonymous Egyptian “security sources”—not subject to leaks without strategic direction from President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi—said that Sisi would not accept an invitation to visit Washington as long as the Gaza displacement plan was on the agenda.

Now, this may have been more for Egyptian public consumption than for Trump’s benefit—Egypt is in no position to make an enemy of the new administration—but it still shows how difficult it will be for Trump to secure the approval of America’s closest allies.

Saudi Arabia also postponed a visit to the United States once Trump announced his intentions regarding Gaza. In a noticeable change in tone, Saudi Arabia, which before October 7, 2023 was on its way to normalization with Israel, lost its patience, although it is usually not inclined to make harsh statements.

This was highlighted when Benjamin Netanyahu said he might want to get the Palestinians out of Gaza “they have a lot of land, he said,” Saudi state media unleashed a storm of insults against him. And when Trump announced his plan, Saudi authorities immediately issued a statement rejecting it.

According to the Guardian article, “The (Saudi) government was so keen to signal this rejection that it issued the statement at 4am local time.”

Meanwhile, leaders are scrambling to calibrate their responses at an emergency summit in Saudi Arabia — but they will find it difficult to do so without running afoul of Trump, the Arab public or world opinion over the plan’s illegitimacy.

“The current approach is going to be difficult,” the UAE ambassador to the US said when asked if his government could find “common ground” with Trump on Gaza. He might have been able to get away with it. But perhaps he felt it was a bit too strong, going on to say that “we are all in the business of finding solutions” and that “I don’t really see an alternative to what is being proposed.”

The clip immediately began circulating on social media as evidence of the UAE’s support for ethnic cleansing. Clearly, there is no consensus on Trump’s approach to Gaza, or even how to respond to it, among countries that form a political bloc but have divergent interests.

Time is running out. On Sunday, Marco Rubio began a trip to Israel and the Middle East, and the conversations that some have been avoiding on Trump’s floor will have to take place there. Now the need to come up with a common line and strategy on behalf of the Arab states is urgent.

Arabs Trump Plan

The mission is to find a middle ground, according to the article, which saw that “flattery to Trump and rejection of his plan for Gaza are two irreconcilable matters, and every time a single head of state interacts with Trump or is asked about Gaza, there is a risk of a comment that might inflame emotions or anger the American emperor.”

"The Arab summit seems very far away when every day brings another maneuver from Trump or threats to end the ceasefire in Gaza, as this scramble is part of a larger problem, as the Arab countries are unable to agree on a position on Palestine," she noted.

Before October 7, some Arab states had secured normalization agreements with Israel, and were in the works with others, and a Palestinian state was a plausible possibility that seemed technically possible, although in reality everyone knew it was more remote than ever. But the war killed that possibility, and Trump buried it.

With the stakes so high, it is impossible for Arab states to cooperate with Israel and the United States on Gaza and Palestine in one way or another without nullifying something major. The political landscape is delicately balanced. Egypt and Jordan are the most important parties when it comes to any displacement of Palestinians from Gaza because of their proximity, and they would be most affected by any resettlement campaign.

They are also major recipients of U.S. foreign aid, with weak economies and governments with unstable mandates, and these payments and military aid are in part a reward for these countries as “stable” actors in the region, acting as buffers between Israel, Iran, Hamas and all their proxies, absorbing refugees and facilitating the movement of U.S. military assets across the region.

The loss of US aid weakens not only their economies, but also their militaries and security services and their ability to maintain the patronage and repression necessary for political stability, according to an article in the British Guardian.

Difficulty of implementing the Gaza plan

But there are other calculations: agreeing to a plan that essentially involves expelling Palestinians would turn all the receiving and facilitating states into parties to what would simply be a wider and different conflict between Israel and Palestine, according to the Guardian article.

Rather than the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza being the end of one thing, it will be the beginning of another, with the horror of mass displacement at the top of it. “It is unfathomable not only in terms of cruelty and criminality, but also in terms of practicality, since 35% of Jordan’s population are refugees,” the writer said.

“We can forgive Trump for not understanding this given how invisible they are, but there are millions of them living in these countries who may not have a say in how their politics are run, but of course they do. It has been dealt with historically but by no means erased,” the writer writes.

"It is not safe to assume that the mass expulsion of Palestinians will not set off something explosive, either in terms of popular discord, or its exploitation by competing political players or even extremists," she continued.

Palestine and the Arabs' historical position

In short, Arab governments are being forced to confront and settle an issue that touches the very essence of the contemporary region. -according to the writer, who asked- what does Arab identity mean anymore? Is it just a group of countries that speak the same language and share borders?

But with regimes and elites so intertwined with the West that they can no longer survive on their own terms? Or do these regimes still retain some sense of agency, some echoes of political integrity and duty to other Arabs?

But beyond the existential choice, here is what Arab leaders should learn from Trump’s orders to their lands and peoples: The price of the status quo in which the United States has settled is now so high that it makes less sense on a practical basis.

According to the British newspaper article, “Submitting to Trump means accepting a position of complete dependence and inviting new domestic challenges, all for the sake of an ‘untrustworthy president,’ challenging whom would entail a complete reshaping of policy in the region that may seem too great to contemplate.”

The Arab political elites find themselves in this humiliating position because of their historical weakness regarding Palestine, according to the author of the article, who said: “It is a concentrated expression of their weakness, their restrictions, and the short-sightedness of their self-interests.”

The article concluded by saying: “The future of Gaza is no longer an issue that can be handled skillfully while saving face indefinitely,” adding: “The Trump plan is a gateway to the ultimate erosion of the integrity and sovereignty of the broader Middle East.”