US President Donald Trump’s proposal to “clean” the Gaza Strip by carrying more than one million Palestinians to neighboring countries raises new questions about US policy in the Middle East, with opponents talking about ethnic cleansing, warning of Risk of regional chaos.

Trump said on Saturday that Jordan and Egypt would want to accept the Palestinians from Gaza who have been displaced internally by the devastating Israeli war. “We’re talking about one and a half million people and we are cleaning,” reporters told reporters at Air Force One.

Possible transfer, he said, “could be temporary” or “could be long -term.” Both countries immediately rejected the proposal.

But if approved, the proposal will signal a change from the attitude of the Biden government, which insisted that Gaza should not be deserted, but also a shift from the long -term US position that Gaza should be part of a future Palestinian state. At the same time, the proposal will mark the alignment of the Trump government with the most radical far -right politicians of Israel, who are calling for the transfer of Palestinians outside the enclave to open the way for the Jewish settlement.

Trump’s proposal was adopted by extremists of Israeli politicians, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has triggered a dispute by arguing that “there is no Palestinian people” and former Minister of National Security Ittamar Ben Gavir In anti -Arab racism.

Palestinian politicians denounced Trump’s proposal as a plan of ethnic cleansing of Gaza residents from their land.

And in the United States, even Senator Lindsay Graham, one of Israel’s most ardent supporters in Congress, told CNN that he did not believe the idea was “practical”.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” said Graham, referring to Trump.

Experts warn that in addition to moral and legal concerns, an influx of refugees into neighboring Arab countries could destabilize them and make an existential threat. The acceptance of Trump’s proposal, they say, would cause extensive public anger and a danger to these governments.

“A second Palestinian Nakba”

“If they accept to participate in hospitality and therefore in ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, this would undoubtedly be outrageous and truly destabilizing for both countries,” said Timothy Kaldas, Deputy Director of the Institute of Tahir.

Both the Egyptian and Jordanian governments “would be faced with the internal opposition if they were considered by their audience that they consent to a second Palestinian Nakba,” said Hassan Alhassan, a senior Middle Eastern Policy Partner Bahrain, referring to 1948, when about 700,000 Palestinians fled or expelled from their homes to historical Palestine during the creation of Israel.

Israel has banned them and their offspring to return, leaving millions of refugees in neighboring countries without citizenship or perspectives of permanent resettlement.

“Since the Palestinians of Gaza are very unlikely to leave voluntarily, a forced movement to Egypt or Jordan would be an existential threat to these two countries,” Alhassan said.

For Jordan, which is already hosting millions of Palestinians, a change in the demographic situation “would threaten the power of the monarchy,” he said, adding that “neither Egypt nor Jordan can afford to host millions of refugees.”

Egypt and Jordan are two of the narrower allies of the US in the Middle East and the main recipients of US aid who have aligned their regional policies with US interests for decades. It was the first Arab countries to signed peace conditions with Israel and maintained close relations with him, including security coordination, despite broad public discontent.

Jane Kinninmont, a conflict specialist in the European Leadership Network, a podcast disorder’s thinking tank and co -star, said that over time, Jordan and Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. What remains to be seen, he added, is how far these countries will get to “send a clear message to Washington that mass displacement will not eliminate the conflict”.

“It is important for regional countries to emphasize that the refugee issue is one of the levers of the current conflict and to become more Palestinians will not solve it. This is exactly the heart of the conflict, “said Kinninmont.

Security concerns

On Sunday, both Egypt and Jordan rejected displacement or re -installing Palestinians.

“Jordan is for the Jordanians and Palestine is for the Palestinians,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Aiman ​​Safadi said at a press conference in Amman on Sunday. “Our rejection to the movement is stable and unchanged.”

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry also said that it rejects “the expulsion or encouragement of the transfer or removal of Palestinians from their land”.

Throughout the war, Jordan and Egypt rejected internal calls for interruption of relations with Israel, and Egypt played a key mediating role between Israel and Hamas.

In October 2023, demonstrations broke out in both countries to support the Palestinians in Gaza, with many showing dissatisfaction with the cooperation of their governments with Israel, given the large number of human lives caused by the Israeli war.

Caldas, of the Tahrir Institute, said that the acceptance of the transfer of Palestinian population would be more expensive for the two countries than to lose American aid based on both countries.

Egypt and Jordan are already hosting a significant number of refugees.
Since January, there were 877,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered in Egypt, according to the UNHCR. In May, Palestinian Ambassador to Cairo, Diab al-Louch, said that 100,000 Gaza residents passed to Egypt since the start of the war, according to Reuters.

In Jordan, more than 2.39 million Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA, the UN service for Palestinian refugees, the service said.

Both countries also have security concerns about the possibility of their territories being targeted by Israel, Alhassan said. This could further undermine the peace conditions they have signed with Israel, he said.

“Trying to desert Gaza by its Palestinian residents, Trump … does the grace of Israel’s far -right fanatics,” Alhassan said.

“In an ironic way, Trump’s proposal, if it were to be implemented, would actually be self -destructive,” he said. The destabilization of Egypt and Jordan would “favor Islamic political forces, especially the Muslim Brotherhood”, and they would “prove much less friendly to the US and more sympathetic to Hamas”.