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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-ethnic-cleansing-not-trumps-plan-every-us-president-bush-embraced-it">middleeasteye.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Trump didn't invent the Gaza ethnic cleansing plan. It's been US policy since 2007</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Jonathan Cook</div>
<div class="gmail-meta-data">
<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">February 14, 2025</div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intention from day one of his "revenge" <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-war-gaza" target="_blank">attack on Gaza</a>, launched 16 months ago, was either ethnic cleansing or <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-gaza-war-eight-methods-genocide" target="_blank">genocide in Gaza</a>.</p>
<p>His ally in genocide for the next 15 months was former <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/us" target="_blank">US </a>President Joe Biden. His ally in ethnic cleansing is current US President Donald Trump. </p>
<p>Biden <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-plan-ethnic-cleansing-north-gaza-headache-washington" target="_blank">provided </a>the 2,000lb bombs for the genocide. Trump is reportedly <a href="https://www.jfeed.com/news-israel/sretab" target="_blank">providing</a>
an even larger munition - the 11-ton MOAB, or massive ordnance air
blast bomb, with a mile-wide radius - to further incentivise the
population’s exodus. </p>
<p>Biden <a href="https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1880128605872648474" target="_blank">claimed</a> that <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel" target="_blank">Israel</a> was helping the people of Gaza by "carpet bombing" the enclave - in his words – to "eradicate" Hamas. Trump <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-biden-israel-bomb-gaza-hamas-war-023b36984c6116c128b5e47f117bba2a" target="_blank">claims</a> he is helping the people of Gaza by "cleaning them out"– in his words – from the resulting "demolition site". </p>
<p>Biden called the destruction of 70 percent of Gaza’s buildings "self defence". Trump <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/trump-issues-gaza-ceasefire-ultimatum-to-hamas-as-he-warns-all-hell-is-going-to-break-out-if-hostages-not-returned-13306938" target="_blank">calls</a> the imminent destruction of the remaining 30 percent "all hell breaking loose". </p>
<p>Biden <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/biden-ceasefire-credit/" target="_blank">claimed </a>to be "working tirelessly for a ceasefire" while encouraging Israel to continue the murder of children month after month. </p>
<p>Trump claims to have negotiated a ceasefire, even as he has turned a blind eye to Israel <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-did-israel-violate-ceasefire-gaza-hamas" target="_blank">violating</a>
the terms of that ceasefire: by continuing to fire on Palestinians in
Gaza and the West Bank; by refusing entry into Gaza of vital aid trucks;
by allowing in almost none of the promised tents or mobile homes; by
denying many hundreds of maimed Palestinians treatment abroad; by
blocking the return of Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza; and
by failing to engage with the second phase of the ceasefire
negotiations.</p>
<p>Those Israeli violations, although widely reported by the media as Hamas "claims", were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/world/middleeast/trump-israel-gaza-cease-fire-deal-jordan.html" target="_blank">confirmed</a> to the New York Times by three Israeli officials and two mediators.</p>
<p>In other words, Israel has broken the agreement on every count – and
Trump has stood foursquare behind this most favoured client state every
bit as much as Biden did before him. </p>
<h3>'Hell breaking loose'</h3>
<p>As Israel knew only too well in breaching the ceasefire, Hamas only
ever had one point of leverage to try to enforce the agreement: to
refuse to release more hostages. Which is precisely what the Palestinian
group <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ye69ey4pyo" target="_blank">announced</a> last Monday it would do until Israel began honouring the agreement. </p>
<p>In a familiar double act, Israel and Washington then put on a show of mock outrage. </p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/trumps-mission-recolonise-palestine-revives-failed-19th-century-american-efforts" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/2025-02-05T122321Z_1881022740_MT1SOPAJHK250205006_RTRMADP_3_SOPA%281%29.jpg.webp?itok=sm0rO6D8" width="400" height="250" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img">
</a></p><p>Trump's plan to colonise Gaza echoes failed 19th-century American missions</p>
<p>
<br></p></div>
<p>Trump lost no time escalating the stakes dramatically. He <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds2rHgPd_EE" target="_blank">gave </a>Israel
- or maybe the US, he was unclear - the green light to "let hell break
out", presumably meaning the resumption of the genocide.</p>
<p>This will happen not only if Hamas refuses to free the three
scheduled hostages by the deadline of noon this Saturday. Trump has
insisted that Hamas is now expected to release all of the hostages.</p>
<p>The US president said he would no longer accept "dribs and drabs"
being released over the course of the six-week, first phase of the
ceasefire. In other words, Trump is violating the very terms of the
initial ceasefire his own team negotiated.</p>
<p>Clearly, neither Netanyahu nor Trump have been trying to save the agreement. They are working tirelessly to blow it up.</p>
<p>Israel’s Haaretz newspaper <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2025-02-09/ty-article/.premium/its-a-show-israeli-sources-believe-netanyahu-intends-to-derail-gaza-cease-fire/00000194-e71b-dc0f-a7de-ff3be1e10000" target="_blank">reported</a>
as much last weekend. Israeli sources revealed that Netanyahu’s goal
was to "derail" the ceasefire before it could reach the second stage
when Israeli troops are supposed to fully withdraw from the enclave and
reconstruction begin. </p>
<p>"Once Hamas realizes there won't be a second stage, they may not complete the first," a source told the paper.</p>
<p>Hamas insisted on a gradual release of hostages precisely to buy
time, knowing that Israel would be keen to restart the slaughter as soon
as it got the hostages home. </p>
<p>The Palestinians of Gaza are back to square one. </p>
<p>Either accept that they will be ethnically cleansed so that Trump and
his billionaire friends can cash in on reinventing the enclave as the
"Riviera of the Middle East", paid for by stealing the revenues from <a href="https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Natural-Gas-Piece-of-Trumps-Controversial-Gaza-Plan.html" target="_blank">Gaza’s gas fields</a>, or face a return to the genocide. </p>
<h3>Quiet part out loud</h3>
<p>As should have been clear, Netanyahu only <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-war-lie-ceasefire-trump-just-told-you" target="_blank">agreed</a>
to Washington’s "ceasefire" because it was never real. It was a pause
so the US could recalibrate from a Biden genocide narrative rooted in
the language of "humanitarianism" and "security" to Trump’s far more
straightforward tough-guy act.</p>
<p>Now it’s all about the "<a href="https://x.com/Acyn/status/1889375399056179341" target="_blank">art of the deal</a>" and real-estate development opportunities. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As ever, Trump has a disturbing habit of saying the quiet part out
loud. Of tearing away the already-battered veneer of western
respectability</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But of course Trump’s plan to "own" Gaza and then "clean it out" has
left his allies in Europe – in truth, his satraps - squirming in their
seats. </p>
<p>As ever, Trump has a disturbing habit of saying the quiet part out
loud. Of tearing away the already-battered veneer of western
respectability. Of making everyone look bad.</p>
<p>The truth is that over 15 months Israel failed to achieve either of
its stated objectives in Gaza – eradicating Hamas and securing the
return of the hostages – because neither was ever really the goal. </p>
<p>Even Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had to <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/blinken-we-assess-that-hamas-has-recruited-almost-as-many-new-fighters-as-it-has-lost/" target="_blank">concede</a> that Israel’s mass slaughter had served only to recruit as many fighters to Hamas as it had killed. </p>
<p>And Israeli military whistleblowers <a href="https://www.972mag.com/tunnels-hamas-lethal-gas-bombs-gaza/" target="_blank">revealed </a>to
the website +972 last week that Israel had killed many of its hostages
by using indiscriminate US-supplied bunker-buster bombs.</p>
<p></p>
<p>These bombs had not only generated huge blast areas but also served
effectively as chemical weapons, flooding Hamas’ tunnels with carbon
monoxide, asphyxiating the hostages. </p>
<p>The indifference of the Israeli leadership to the hostages’ fate was
confirmed by Israel’s former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, in an
interview with Israeli TV Channel 12. </p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48ADwSrPG9w" target="_blank">admitted</a>
that the army had invoked the so-called Hannibal directive during
Hamas’ breakout of Gaza on 7 October 2023, allowing soldiers to kill
Israelis rather than risk letting them be taken hostage by the
Palestinian group.</p>
<p>These matters, which throw a different light on Israel’s actions in Gaza, have, of course, been almost completely <a href="https://www.medialens.org/2025/media-silent-over-israels-use-of-the-hannibal-directive-on-7-october-2023/" target="_blank">blanked</a> out by the western establishment media. </p>
<h3>Damage limitation</h3>
<p>Israel’s plan from the outset was the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And now Trump is making that explicit.</p>
<p>So explicit, in fact, that the media have been forced to go into
frenzied damage-limitation mode, employing one of the most intense
psy-ops against their own publics on record.</p>
<p>Every euphemism under the sun has been resorted to to avoid making
clear that Trump and Israel are preparing to ethnically cleanse
whoever’s left of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza. </p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-did-israel-violate-ceasefire-gaza-hamas" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/beit-lahia-boys-ride-car-mattresses-gaza-ceasefire-bashar-taleb-afp-11-february-2025.jpg.webp?itok=AnvjNmFe" width="400" height="250" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img">
</a></p><p>How did Israel violate the ceasefire in Gaza?</p>
<p>
<br></p></div>
<p>The BBC speaks of "<a href="https://x.com/medialens/status/1887092246102601875" target="_blank">resettling</a>", "<a href="https://x.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1889246636410351763" target="_blank">relocating</a>" and "<a href="https://x.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1889229169596194899" target="_blank">moving away" </a>the population of Gaza.</p>
<p>In other <a href="https://x.com/BBCWorld/status/1887462745303359921" target="_blank">reports</a>, Palestinians are inexplicably on the brink of “leaving”. </p>
<p>The New York Times <a href="https://x.com/AssalRad/status/1889121502299353357" target="_blank">refers</a> to ethnic cleansing positively as Trump’s "development plan", while Reuters indifferently <a href="https://x.com/AssalRad/status/1887367381112266779" target="_blank">calls</a> it "moving out" Gaza’s population.</p>
<p>Western capitals and their compliant media have been put in this
uncomfortable position because Washington’s client states in the Middle
East have refused to play ball with Israel and Trump’s ethnic cleansing
plan. </p>
<p>Despite the ever-mounting slaughter, Egypt has refused to open its
short border with Gaza to let the bombed, starved population pour into
neighbouring Sinai.</p>
<p>There was, of course, never any question of Israel being expected to
allow Gaza’s families to return to the lands from which they were
originally expelled, at gunpoint, in 1948 in order to create a
self-declared Jewish state. </p>
<p>Then, as now, the western powers colluded in Israel’s ethnic
cleansing operations. This historical context western media prefer to
gloss over – even on the rare occasions when they concede that there is
any relevant background other than a presumed Palestinian barbarism.
Instead the media resort to evasive terminology about "cycles of
violence" and "historic enmities". </p>
<p>Backed into a corner by Trump’s outbursts of the past few days,
western politicians and the media have preferred to suggest that his
administration’s "development plan" for Gaza is actually an
innovation. </p>
<p>In truth, however, the president isn’t advancing anything new in
demanding that Gaza’s Palestinians be ethnically cleansed. What’s
different is that he is being unusually - and inadvisably – open about a
long-standing policy.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Israel has always harboured plans to expel Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and from the West Bank to Jordan.</p>
<p>But more to the point, as was <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/features/analysis-there-plan-force-palestinians-sinai" target="_blank">noted </a>by
Middle East Eye a decade ago, Washington has been fully on board with
the Gaza half of the expulsion project since the latter stages of George
W Bush’s second presidency, in 2007. For anyone struggling with maths,
that was 18 years ago. </p>
<p>Every US president, including Barack Obama, has leant on Egypt’s
leader of the time to allow Israel to drive Gaza’s population into Sinai
– and each one has been rebuffed. </p>
<h3>Open secret</h3>
<p>This open secret is not widely known for exactly the same reason that
every western pundit and politician is now pretending to be appalled
that Trump is actually advancing it.</p>
<p>Why? Because it looks bad - all the more so couched in Trump’s vulgar
real-estate sales pitch in the middle of a supposed ceasefire.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Israel’s plan from the outset was the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And now Trump is making that explicit</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Western leaders had hoped to bring about the ethnic cleansing of Gaza
with more decorum – in a “humanitarian” way that would have been more
effective in duping western publics and maintaining the West’s claim to
be upholding civilised values against a supposed Palestinian barbarity.</p>
<p>Since 2007 Washington and Israel’s joint ethnic cleansing project has been known as <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/features/analysis-there-plan-force-palestinians-sinai" target="_blank">the "Greater Gaza Plan</a>". </p>
<p>Israel’s siege of the tiny enclave, which began in late 2006, was
designed to create so much misery and poverty in the tiny enclave that
the people there would clamour to be allowed out. </p>
<p>This was when Israel <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-starvation-diet-gaza/11810" target="_blank">began</a> formulating a so-called "starvation diet" for the people of Gaza, counting the calories to keep them alive but only barely. </p>
<p>Israel’s conception of Gaza was that it was like a tube of toothpaste that could be squeezed. As soon as <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/egypt" target="_blank">Egypt</a> relented and opened the border, the population would flood into Sinai out of desperation.</p>
<p>Every Egyptian president was bullied and bribed to give in: Hosni
Mubarak, Mohamed Morsi, and General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. They all
refused.</p>
<p>Egypt was under no illusions about what was at stake after 7 October
2023. It fully understood that Israel’s levelling of Gaza was designed
to squeeze the tube so hard the top would be forced off. </p>
<h3>Pressure on Egypt</h3>
<p>From the outset, officials like Giora Eiland, Israel’s former national security adviser, <a href="https://archive.ph/ig5Zv" target="_blank">stated</a> publicly that the goal was to make Gaza "a place where no human being can exist". </p>
<p>Just a week into Israel’s slaughter, in October 2023, military spokesperson Amir Avivi <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-mounting-evidence-israel-ready-cleanse-gaza" target="_blank">told</a>
the BBC that Israel could not ensure the safety of civilians in Gaza.
He added: "They need to move south, out to the Sinai Peninsula."</p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/saudi-arabia-israel-trump-netanyahu-forced-bin-salman-draw-line-palestine" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/Saudi%20Arabia%27s%20Crown%20Prince%20Mohammed%20bin%20Salman%20looks%20on%20during%20his%20meeting%20with%20the%20US%20Secretary%20of%20State%20in%20Riyadh%20on%20October%2023%2C%202024%20-afp.jpg.webp?itok=d2MK22bV" width="400" height="250" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img">
</a></p><p>How Trump and Netanyahu forced Mohammed bin Salman to draw a line on Palestine</p>
<p>
<br></p></div>
<p>The next day, Danny Ayalon, a Netanyahu confidant and former Israeli ambassador to the US,<a href="https://x.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1713130977000591589" target="_blank"> amplified</a>
the point: "There is almost endless space in the Sinai Desert… We and
the international community will prepare the infrastructure for tent
cities." </p>
<p>He concluded: "Egypt will have to play ball."</p>
<p>Israel’s thinking was divulged in a leaked policy draft from its intelligence ministry. It <a href="https://www.calcalist.co.il/local_news/article/rj2mplngp" target="_blank">proposed</a>
that, after their expulsion, Gaza's population would initially be
housed in tent cities, before permanent communities could be built in
the north of Sinai. </p>
<p>At the same time, the Financial Times reported that Netanyahu was
lobbying the European Union on the idea of driving the enclave’s
Palestinians into Sinai under cover of war. </p>
<p>Some EU members, including the Czech Republic and Austria, were said
to have been receptive and floated the idea at a meeting of member
states. An unnamed European diplomat <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-netanyahu-lobbied-eu-push-egypt-accept-gaza-refugees" target="_blank">told</a> the FT: "Now is the time to put increased pressure on the Egyptians to agree." </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Biden administration supplied the bombs to maintain the pressure.</p>
<p>Sisi was only <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/sisi-holds-key-trumps-sinai-plan-palestinians" target="_blank">too aware</a>
of what Egypt was up against: a concerted western plan to ethnically
cleanse Gaza. None of it had anything to do with Trump, who was more
than a year away from being elected president.</p>
<p>In mid-October 2023, days into the slaughter, Sisi <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/19/egypt-rafah-crossing-aid-enter-gaza-why-closed-israel-us-egypt" target="_blank">responded</a>
in a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: "What is
happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force civilian residents to take
refuge and migrate to Egypt, which should not be accepted." </p>
<p>That was precisely why he dedicated so much effort to shoring up the
short border shared between Gaza and Sinai both before and after
Israel’s genocide began.</p>
<h3>Peace sales pitch</h3>
<p>Part of what makes Trump’s sales pitch so surreal is that he is
half-heartedly sticking to the original script: trying to make the plan
sound vaguely humanitarian. </p>
<p>At the same time as re-arming Israel and warning of "all hell breaking loose", he has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2LztpKxUew" target="_blank">spoken </a>of finding "parcels of land" in Egypt and Jordan where the people of Gaza "can live very happily and very safely". </p>
<p>He has contrasted that with their current plight: "They are being
killed there at levels that nobody’s ever seen. No place in the world is
as dangerous as the Gaza Strip… They are living in hell."</p>
<p>That seems to be Trump’s all-too-revealing way of describing the
genocide Israel denies it is carrying out and the one the US denies it
is arming. </p>
<p>But the talk of helping Gaza’s population is just the rhetorical
leftovers from the old sales pitch when previous US administrations were
preparing to sell ethnic cleansing as integral to a new stage of the
fabled "peace process". </p>
<div>
<p><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/Pro-Palestinian%20protesters%20attend%20a%20rally%20against%20US%20President%20Donald%20Trump%27s%20recent%20remarks%20on%20Gaza%20and%20Israeli%20Prime%20Minister%20Benjamin%20Netanyahu%20in%20Sydney%20on%20February%207%2C%202025.-afp.jpg" width="433" height="244" alt="Pro-Palestinian protesters attend a rally against US President Donald Trump's recent remarks on Gaza and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Sydney on February 7, 2025." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;">
</p>
Pro-Palestinian protesters attend a rally against US
President Donald Trump's recent remarks on Gaza and Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Sydney on 7 February, 2025 (AFP)
</div>
<p><span><img src="cid:ii_m75hrkwd0" alt="image.gif" width="15" height="15"></span></p>
<p><span><img src="cid:ii_m75hrkwf1" alt="image.gif" width="15" height="15"></span>As Middle East Eye <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/features/analysis-there-plan-force-palestinians-sinai" target="_blank">noted back</a>
in 2015, Washington had been recruited to the Greater Gaza Plan in
2007. Then the proposal was that Egypt would give 1,600 sq km area in
Sinai - five times the size of Gaza - to the Palestinian leadership in
the West Bank, headed by Mahmoud Abbas. </p>
<p>Palestinians from Gaza would be "encouraged" – that is, pressured
through the siege and aid blockade, as well as intermittent episodes of
carpet bombing known as "mowing the lawn"– to flee there.</p>
<p>In return, Abbas would have to forgo a Palestinian state in historic
Palestine, undermine the right of return of Palestinian refugees
enshrined in international law, and pass the burden of responsibility
for repressing the Palestinians on to Egypt and the wider Arab world. </p>
<p>Israel advanced the Sinai plan between 2007 and 2018 in the hope of
sabotaging Abbas’ campaign at the United Nations seeking recognition of
Palestinian statehood.</p>
<p>Notably, Israel’s large-scale military assaults on Gaza – in the
winter of 2008, 2012 and again in 2014 – coincided with reported Israeli
and US efforts to turn the screws on successive Egyptian leaders to
concede parts of Sinai.</p>
<h3>'Waterfront property'</h3>
<p>Trump is already deeply familiar with the Greater Gaza Plan from his first presidency. Reports from 2018 suggest he <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/sisi-holds-key-trumps-sinai-plan-palestinians" target="_blank">hoped</a> to include it in his "deal of the century" plan to bring about normalisation between Israel and the Arab world. </p>
<p>In March that year the White House <a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/readout-gaza-conference-white-house/" target="_blank">hosted </a>19 countries in a conference to consider new ideas for dealing with Gaza’s mounting, entirely Israeli-made crisis. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If Trump refuses to relent, the direction things head next for the people of Gaza hangs chiefly on neighbouring Egypt and Jordan</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As well as Israel, the participants included representatives from Egypt, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/jordan" target="_blank">Jordan</a>, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/saudi-arabia" target="_blank">Saudi Arabia</a>, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/qatar" target="_blank">Qatar</a>, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/bahrain" target="_blank">Bahrain</a>, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/oman" target="_blank">Oman</a> and <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/uae" target="_blank">the United Arab Emirates</a>. The Palestinians <a href="https://www.dci.plo.ps/en/article/8433/B" target="_blank">boycotted</a> the meeting.</p>
<p>A few months later, in the summer of 2018, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/tags/jared-kushner" target="_blank">Jared Kushner</a>, Trump’s son-in-law and architect of his Middle East plan, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-visiting-israel-saudi-arabia-egypt-push-middle-east-peace-plan-975914" target="_blank">visited</a> Egypt. A short time later Hamas sent a delegation to Cairo to learn about what was being proposed.</p>
<p>Then, as seemingly now, Trump was offering a purpose-built zone in
Sinai with solar-power grid, desalination plant, seaport and airport, as
well as a free trade zone with five industrial areas, financed by the
oil-rich Gulf states.</p>
<p>Revealingly, a veteran Israeli journalist, Ron Ben-Yishai, reported
at the time that Israel was threatening to invade and bisect Gaza into
separate northern and southern sectors to force Hamas’ compliance. That
is exactly the strategy Israel prioritised last year during its invasion
and then set about emptying north Gaza of its residents.</p>
<p>Trump also sought to deepen the crisis in Gaza by withholding
payments to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa).
That same policy was actively pursued by Israel and the Biden
administration during the current genocide. </p>
<p></p>
<p>Since Trump took office, Israel has <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/unrwa-chief-says-israels-banning-operations-will-undermine-gaza-ceasefire" target="_blank">banned </a>Unrwa activities anywhere in the occupied Palestinian territories.</p>
<p>Trump’s team revived their own interest in the ethnic cleansing plan
the moment Israel launched its genocide – long before Trump knew whether
he would win the November 2024 election. </p>
<p>In March last year, nearly a year ago, Kushner used exactly the same language Trump does now. He <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-property-israel-negev" target="_blank">observed</a>
that "there’s not much of Gaza left at this point", that the priority
was to "clean it up", and that it was a "valuable waterfront
property". He insisted the people of Gaza would have to be "moved out". </p>
<h3>Rabbit in the headlights</h3>
<p>If Trump refuses to relent, the direction things head next for the
people of Gaza hangs chiefly on neighbouring Egypt and Jordan: they must
either accept the ethnic cleansing plan, or Israel will resume the
extermination of Gaza’s population.</p>
<p>Should they demur, Trump has <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/trump-threatens-cut-aid-jordan-if-it-doesnt-accept-forced-removal" target="_blank">threatened</a> to cut US aid – effectively decades-old bribes to each not to come to the Palestinians’ aid while Israel brutalises them.</p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/trump-arab-leaders-netanyahu-how-much-longer-run-amok" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/us-trump-jordan-abdullah-meet-february-2025-andrew-harnik-getty-images-afp.jpg.webp?itok=StQwIiP-" width="400" height="250" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img">
</a></p><p>How much longer will Arab leaders let Trump and Netanyahu run amok? </p>
<p>
<br></p></div>
<p>King Abdulah of Jordan, during a visit to the White House this week, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIbalE4EOHQ" target="_blank">looked like</a> a rabbit caught in the headlights. </p>
<p>He dared not anger Trump by rejecting the plan to his face. Instead
he suggested waiting to see how Egypt - a larger, more powerful Arab
state - responded.</p>
<p>But privately, as MEE has <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jordan-ready-war-israel-if-palestinians-expelled-into-its-territory" target="_blank">reported</a>,
Abdullah is so fearful of the destabilising effects of Jordan colluding
in Gaza’s ethnic cleansing – which he regards as an "existential
issue" for his regime - that he is threatening war on Israel to stop
it. </p>
<p>Similarly, Egypt has shown its displeasure. In the wake of Abdullah’s humiliating visit, Sisi has <a href="https://archive.ph/wnZiJ" target="_blank">reportedly postponed</a> his own meeting next week with Trump – in a clear rebuff – until the ethnic cleansing plan is off the table. </p>
<p>Cairo is said to be preparing its own proposal for how Gaza can be
reconstructed. Even Washington’s oil-rich ally Saudi Arabia is <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/5/non-negotiable-saudi-arabia-flatly-rejects-trumps-gaza-takeover-plan" target="_blank">in revolt</a>. </p>
<p>It is rare to see Arab states show so much backbone to any US
president, let alone one as vain and strategically unhinged as Trump. </p>
<p>Which may explain why the US president’s resolve appears to be weakening. On Wednesday his press secretary Karoline Leavitt <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-appears-shift-gaza-he-tasked-arabs-draw-plan" target="_blank">suggested</a>
that Trump was now seeking from "our Arab partners in the region" a
counter-proposal, a "peace plan to present to the president". </p>
<p>And in another sign that Trump may be hesitating, Netanyahu <a href="https://x.com/BarakRavid/status/1889742055099801809" target="_blank">walked back</a>
his threat to resume the genocide unless all the hostages were freed on
Saturday. He is now demanding only the three that were originally
scheduled. </p>
<p>Reports from Gaza are that Israel has also significantly <a href="https://x.com/AbubakerAbedW/status/1889771157470982487" target="_blank">stepped up </a>its aid deliveries.</p>
<p>All of which is welcome news. It may buy the people of Gaza a little more time.</p>
<p>But we should not lose sight of the bigger picture. Israel and the US
are still committed to "cleaning out" Gaza, one way or another, as they
have been for the past 18 years. They are simply looking for a more
propitious moment to resume. </p>
<p>That could be this weekend, or it could be in a month or two. But at least Biden and Trump have achieved one thing. They have<b> </b>made sure no one can ever again mistake the crushing of Gaza for a peace plan. </p>
<p><i>The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.</i></p>
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