For decades, the question of whether and how Palestinians might build a state in their homeland has been at the center of Middle East politics — not only for the Palestinians, but for Arabs around the region, many of whom regard the Palestinian cause almost as their own.
Forcing Palestinians out of their remaining territory, Arabs say, would doom Palestinian statehood and destabilize the entire region in the process.
So it was a nightmare for the Palestinians’ closest Arab neighbors, Egypt and Jordan — and a dream for Israel’s far-right-dominated government — when President Trump proposed moving everyone out of the Gaza Strip and onto their soil, an idea he repeated in a White House news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday.
Egypt and Jordan have responded with categorical “nos” — even if their reasons aren’t all borne out of pure concern for the Palestinian plight: Cairo dreads what Palestinian refugees in Sinai would mean for Egypt’s security. Militants could launch attacks at Israel from Egyptian soil, inviting Israeli retaliation, or be recruited into the local insurgency in Sinai that Egypt has battled for years. Jordan’s king has to reckon with a population that is more than half Palestinian, so to accept more such refugees could further raise tensions.
That refusal has been backed up by political independents and opposition figures in Egypt, along with mouthpieces for the country’s authoritarian government, underscoring how the Palestinian issue can unify even the bitterest political opponents there.
Khaled el-Balshy, the editor of one of the few remaining Egyptian media outlets that are not pro-government and the head of the national journalists’ union, issued a statement on Wednesday calling Mr. Trump’s proposal “a clear violation of human rights and international laws.”
Moustafa Bakry, a loudly pro-government member of Parliament, suggested, without giving specifics, that Egypt could repel the displacement with force. “Egypt can move forward with other measures, because the Egyptian military can never allow this,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.
But Mr. Trump has shown little regard for the two countries’ concerns, their sovereignty or the idea of Palestinian statehood.
“They say they’re not going to accept,” Mr. Trump said of Egypt and Jordan during an earlier meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in the Oval Office. “I say they will.”
If he presses ahead with his proposal, the president may have ways of bending them to his will. Egypt and Jordan are among the top recipients of American military aid; Mr. Trump has mentioned the funding in recent weeks, without publicly threatening to pull it over the Gaza issue. With Egypt’s economy in crisis, the government is dependent on loans, including from the International Monetary Fund, in which the United States is the largest shareholder.
One reason the United States has given billions of dollars to Egypt and Jordan over the years is their special status as the first Arab countries to agree to peace treaties with Israel. The United States brokered those agreements after years of conflict, seeing them as key to the security of Israel. The arrangements have long been viewed as foundational to Middle East stability.
Egypt has cooperated closely with Israel on security in its restive Sinai Peninsula, which borders both Gaza and Israel. But while Egypt and Jordan are on speaking terms, and sometimes more, with Israel, their populations have never stopped seeing Israel as an enemy, especially after its most recent assault on Gaza.
Analysts say the incentives of keeping U.S. aid, which makes up a limited portion of each country’s budget, are minor compared to their fears of alienating their populations by appearing complicit in what many see as ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Though the rulers of both countries frequently brook little dissent, often using repression to silence internal criticism, analysts say they cannot afford to ignore public opinion.
“It’s no joke going up against Trump, particularly for Egypt and Jordan,” said Paul Salem, the vice president for international engagement at the Middle East Institute in Washington. But since “this would really be a bridge way too far for much of public opinion,” he added, “there is no other option for an Arab leader. I don’t see what else they could do.”
For President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, the issue is particularly sensitive because he has tried to rally public support by painting himself as a champion of the Palestinians. Popular discontent over rampant inflation and government mismanagement had been growing before the war in Gaza began in October 2023, which allowed Mr. el-Sisi to regain some popularity with strong denunciations of Israel and promises to stand by the Palestinians.
But the shine wore off as the war went on and Egyptian social media swirled with reports of signs that Egypt’s leaders was cooperating with Israel. The government has arrested dozens of Egyptians who were protesting Israeli actions.
Mr. el-Sisi and his allies have tried to counteract the discontent, with Egyptian pro-government media frequently trumpeting Egypt’s role in delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza and pro-government politicians congratulating Mr. el-Sisi on personally brokering the recent cease-fire agreement. (Egypt served as one of the mediators on the deal, along with Qatar and the United States.)
Allowing Palestinian displacement into Egypt would “wreck the narrative of ‘I’m defending the country,’” said Maged Mandour, an Egyptian political analyst.
Egypt also sees the possibility of Palestinians settling en masse in Egypt as a serious security threat, government officials, diplomats and analysts say. Officials worry that members of militant groups among the forcibly displaced Palestinians could launch attacks at Israel from Egyptian soil, inviting Israeli military retaliation.
Egypt is also wary that Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, could stoke militancy and spread its influence in Egypt. Cairo has spent years trying to quash political Islamism and an insurgency at home.
Jordan, with its far smaller population — including many people of Palestinian descent — is perhaps even more vulnerable. Jordan’s monarchy has also had a tense history with militant Palestinian factions.
Far-right Israelis have long talked of Jordan as the place where Palestinians forced out of Gaza and the West Bank should make their homes, raising fears in Jordan that if people from Gaza are forced out, Israel would next turn to the West Bank.
Many, if not all, would likely be forced to go next door to Jordan, which is already unsettled by tensions between citizens who are of Palestinian descent and those who are not, analysts say.
Yet analysts said Israel’s hard-line government appeared so confident of U.S. support for its actions that it may be willing to destabilize relations with its neighbors.
But relying on U.S. backing to push through its ambitions over the strenuous objections of its neighbors will not be sustainable in the long run, said H.A. Hellyer, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and the Center for American Progress in Washington. He argued that “the only way for the Israelis to have long-term, sustainable security in the region is they have to actually integrate into the region.”
Some experts, including ones close to the Egyptian government, held out hope that Mr. Trump was merely taking an extreme starting position that would soften over negotiations.
As a businessman, “he will withdraw when it does not work out,” predicted Samir Farag, a former Egyptian military officer who often comments on Egyptian security affairs in pro-government outlets, in an interview on Wednesday.
But Mr. Hellyer said that the rhetoric from some people close to Mr. Trump who back the displacement plan and emphasize that even the West Bank should be considered Jewish land would make Arabs regard any Trump plan with extreme suspicion.
A much more limited version of the plan might be “theoretically acceptable” to Egypt and Jordan, he said, “but they’re ruining any possibility of that, because the framing of the whole thing now is, ‘We want to clear it out.’”
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