King Abdullah II also joined other Arab leaders on March 4 to support an Egyptian plan to spend $53 billion (€49.6 billion) to rebuild Gaza by 2030 and to set up a new transitional government to replace Hamas.
Three weeks after the White House meeting, the first helicopters and ambulances left Gaza to cross Israel and the West Bank into Jordan after being delayed for a few days amid a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The children and their escorts will stay for the duration of their treatment before being sent home, according to Jordanian authorities.
Avoiding a greater danger
Since taking office in January, the U.S. president has repeatedly floated a plan, supported by the Israeli right, to forcibly move millions of Palestinians from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt, in violation of international law. Both countries fear the initiative could destabilize them internally.
Jordan is on particularly high alert. Authorities fear that any new transfer of Palestinians to their territory, where more than half of the population is Palestinian or of Palestinian descent, would prompt serious unrest. They worry it would not only upset the country’s delicate demographic balance, but also effectively mark the end of a two-state solution, fueling anger across the country. Jordan also regards illegal population displacement as a red line in its peace treaty with Israel.
“The strategy Jordan is following is not to confront Trump publicly in any way, because that’s not going to achieve results, but to explain to him and to the administration the dangers of any mass transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza and into Jordan or Egypt,” said Marwan Muasher, Jordan’s former foreign minister and now vice president of studies for the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.
Jordan also has many “friends” across U.S. institutions “whom it relies on, at least to contain [these] unexpected, unpredictable movements of a bull in a china shop,” said Oraib Al Rantawi, director general of the Al Quds Center for Political Studies.