-Analysis-
CAIRO — The daily developments around the Palestinian issue — especially with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan’s growing rejection of the plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza — make me want to extend my thanks to U.S. President Donald Trump. His vile rhetoric has led to a shift in what we hear from both the government and media in these three countries, bringing us closer to the consensus many had called for to oppose the Israeli campaign of genocide in Gaza.
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We have observed a change in the tone of Saudi official responses to Israeli and U.S. proposals, especially after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that the kingdom has enough land to provide a state for the Palestinians.
This coincided with his repeated statements about the nearing normalization with Riyadh, whose responses had always been routine, conditioned on the establishment of a Palestinian state first. Recently, however, they have adopted harsher language.
Arab diplomatic shift
We witnessed Jordan’s mobilization of all the Hashemite throne’s tools, leveraging historical ties with the U.S. and the UK, to assert its firm stance against displacement. This came in response to the wide Arab backlash against King Abdullah II’s unfortunate remarks with Trump, which were seen as falling short compared to his previous statements before and after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The interaction and pressure resulted in clear U.S. statements exonerating the king and affirming he had not agreed to displacement, along with an unprecedented video from Trump to the Jordanian people praising the king’s efforts.
For the first time, on Tuesday evening, Egypt hinted in an official statement at the possibility of destabilizing diplomatic relations with Israel, following Trump and Abdullah’s meeting. The statement asserted that “any vision for resolving the Palestinian issue must consider avoiding jeopardizing the region’s peace achievements.”
This came a day after the use of the term “Al-Quds Al-Sharif” as the hoped-for capital of the Palestinian state instead of “East Jerusalem,” and days after Egypt’s permanent representative to the UN attacked the Israeli envoy for probing questions (akin to testing the waters) about Egyptian armament in Sinai. This followed President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s clear speech rejecting displacement and admiring the return of displaced Gazans to their lands.
Even on social media, we notice numerous anonymous and known Gulf and Egyptian accounts that previously spread negative messages about Palestinian resistance or promoted vague messages about the genocide, now shifting closer to supporting the cause.
Donald Trump hosts a meeting with the King of Jordan, Abdullah II Ibn Al-Hussein, at the White House on February 11, 2025.
Trump’s proposal fallout
We are witnessing an unusual scene in the context of Arab positions in recent decades — not just due to the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their resistance, which revived the cause and reordered priorities, but primarily due to the “blessings” of Trump’s proposal.
This proposal plainly translated the Zionist aspirations of Israeli leaders and their global lobby, vividly presenting to new generations of Arab leaders and peoples the Zionist right-wing dreams — from Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s teachings to Itamar Ben-Gvir’s outbursts — of emptying Palestine and replacing Arabs with Jews based on a biblical premise: erasing peoples from the land equation.
Perhaps these unintended positives explain Netanyahu’s initial hesitation to openly support Trump’s proposal. He refrained for days before engaging provocatively during his Washington visit, possibly seeing it as an opportunity to entrench his long-standing “deterrence peace” theory, create a new conflict arena to distract Israelis from his legal troubles, obscure the failures of the genocide campaign, and cover his West Bank aggression aimed at displacement through increased pressure on the Palestinian population and gradual demographic changes.
The aim was to isolate the Palestinian cause from the fate of the region’s peoples.
While Trump’s ignorance of Middle Eastern intricacies is evident, Netanyahu fully understands that displacement can only succeed by “erasing peoples” from the political decision-making equation on two levels. The first, quintessentially Likud (major right-wing political party in Israel), is disregarding the Palestinian people and their inalienable rights under international humanitarian law — undermining non-transferable rights like self-determination, national independence, land ownership, citizenship, sovereignty, and the right to life, housing and movement.
The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People was established in 1975 by a UN General Assembly resolution to counter emerging Israeli crimes after the 1967 Naksa. Few know that Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin — who partnered with the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the Camp David Accords and shared the Nobel Peace Prize — was the first to challenge the committee’s work through forced displacement, especially from agricultural lands, and expanded settlements by annexing land for military use. This resulted in the confiscation of 30% of West Bank lands, 94% of which were privately owned.
Arab disconnection
The second level of erasing peoples is the complete separation of Arab regimes’ policies from their peoples’ anti-Israel, anti-normalization stances. We must admit that the disinformation efforts since the Egypt-Israel peace treaty have successfully installed influential regimes and figures, altered doctrines within certain institutions and swayed some elites.
The primary goal was not normalization — “nature prevails over normalization,” as Lenin El-Ramly aptly put it through Adel Imam’s character Bekhit Heneidik in the 2000 film Hello America. Nor was it to accept Israel’s existence as an indisputable reality. The aim was to isolate the Palestinian cause from the fate of the region’s peoples, reducing official engagement to either labeling it a central but hollow issue or considering it too unique to generalize.
The long delay in seeing an almost unified official Arab stance and genuine widespread interest, as witnessed after Trump’s proposal, is a regrettable testament to the success of Zionist and U.S. efforts in disorienting the Arab conscience and scattering its geopolitical priorities.
Palestinians walk through the rubble in Khan Younis, after Israeli forces withdrew as part of the ceasefire argument.
Betting on true alignment
This moment could mark a new beginning, where raw truths are laid bare before generations unfamiliar with major wars and leaders unburdened by radical ideas or shared Arab destiny visions. Yet, the relentless U.S.-Zionist pursuit proves that individual survival, remote support for Palestinians, equal friendship with Israelis, and envisioning the future devoid of the past are naive illusions that would crumble instantly if the Zionist war machine is unleashed or if Washington cuts aid or reviews relations.
Aligning regimes with their peoples is the only path to surviving Trump’s blackmail.
This moment’s virtue also lies in distinguishing Arab positions, revealing key policy determinants of each regime — who can be relied upon and who warrants caution. This will become clearer as we approach the Riyadh meeting next Wednesday and the emergency Arab summit on Feb. 27.
There is no time to waste with parties that see no alternative to Trump’s plan, tolerate displacement under softer terms, or accept financial incentives at the expense of the Palestinian cause and post-war reconstruction, particularly when Gaza’s next-day plan is integral to Egypt’s national security amid current threats.
Arab unity against displacement
As preparations for this plan continue — whether Trump truly awaits it or feigns interest — imposing it as the sole viable option to halt displacement requires Arab regimes, particularly Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar, to align with their peoples’ supreme interests and futures.
Aligning regimes with their peoples is the only safeguard against Trump’s blackmail and Netanyahu’s ambitions, achievable only through serious internal political openness, reconciliation with opponents and lifting restrictions on freedoms to strengthen domestic fronts against regional turmoil.
Substantively, the “Support Committee” project must be central to the Arab plan, building on Egypt’s ongoing mediation efforts, with Hamas and Fatah assuming specified responsibilities and updating the overall Palestinian Authority structure for lasting reconciliation.
Trump’s threats present a “last-chance” opportunity in the guise of a harsh test.
It is now perilous to yield to any Arab or Western pressures that ignore Gaza’s realities and power balances or attempt to bypass or politically sideline the resistance, as that would hand Israel an unearned victory.
This also necessitates leveraging European discomfort with Trump’s economically perilous proposals, and intensifying efforts by Egypt and Jordan to promote the Arab plan in Western capitals, and build UN public opinion with the Global South — especially those who have tirelessly supported Palestine.
Trump’s threats, made tangible by Netanyahu, present a “last-chance” opportunity in the guise of a harsh test. Perhaps it will compel Arabs — rulers and ruled alike — to purge themselves of complacency, selfishness, oblivion and subservience, drop by drop (as Anton Chekhov depicted the shedding of serfdom), and awaken one day free from genocide’s burdens, betrayal and past mistakes. Only then can we truly talk about the future.
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