Middle East Press on: Unity, Gaza, Peace, Sinai, Hamas, Terrorists, Palestinians: New Age Islam's Selection, 29 January 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
29 January 2025
Sinai: The Key To Solving Gaza’s Crisis And Achieving Regional Peace
Unity Can Only Be Earned By Action
Hostages Returning Home Brings A Range Of Emotions For Israelis
The Hamas Prisoner Release Is A Justification For Death Penalty For Terrorists
Mubarak Accepted Us Request To Settle Palestinians In Egypt, UK Documents Show
Gaza’s New Model For Palestinian Unity
No Artificial Solution Can Liquidate The Just Palestinian Cause
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Sinai: The Key To Solving Gaza’s Crisis And Achieving Regional Peace
By Yaron Schwartz
January 29, 2025
Anyone who truly studies the maps can see that Sinai is the solution.
Those who view the Palestinian problem and regional peace as a real estate issue should see the Sinai Peninsula as the geopolitical and humanitarian solution.
With its vast area and tiny population, the Sinai can serve as a solution to decades of hardship and political stasis for the residents of Gaza and Israel, and an opportunity for Egypt. The Sinai can provide a safety for Gazans and an economic solution for Egypt’s ailing economy. It can help bring peace and security to the entire region.
As President Donald Trump said, a day after his inauguration, “[Gaza]’s got to be rebuilt in a different way. Gaza is interesting. It’s a phenomenal location. On the sea. The best weather. Some fantastic things could be done with Gaza.’’
Indeed, after Hamas is destroyed and with the Gaza Strip demilitarized and the remaining population deradicalized, Gaza can host an envious golf course, with luxury beach-side resorts. It could become the “greatest golf course on earth.”
But until then, the Sinai is the best solution. The peninsula, which is part of Egypt, shares natural geographic continuity with both Israel and Gaza, however, the contrast between the latter and the adjacent Sinai is stark.
Sinai covers an area 165 times larger than Gaza and more than twice the size of Israel (over 60,000 sq.km.) with a population only one-third the size of Gaza (600,000 inhabitants), making it one of the most scarcely populated places in the region.
Northern Sinai’s Mediterranean coast is particularly promising, featuring abundant groundwater resources. Likewise, northwestern Sinai, east of the Suez Canal, has seen substantial Egyptian investment in agricultural development, including freshwater canal systems and an extensive infrastructure development that includes a network of roads and highways connecting Sinai to mainland Egypt via tunnels that run under the Suez Canal.
WITH THIS kind of infrastructure, northern Sinai can be an ideal location for developing new communities for Gaza’s residents. Its broad open spaces can support large-scale development projects, benefiting both Egypt’s economic challenges and Israel’s security concerns. With sufficient international investment, this can be achieved in record time.
International financial investment can allow Gazan civilians to receive compensation in the form of large lots of land in the Sinai – an area that could be purchased from Egypt by the international community or by Saudi Arabia at above market value.
While such a solution may sound unprecedented, in 2017, Saudi Arabia purchased the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir from Egypt, providing the Egyptian government with essential economic relief. Egypt, with a current annual budget deficit of $12 billion, inflation at 12%, and unemployment at 7.5%, Egypt could certainly use a similar deal.
This approach could also offer it significant geopolitical advantages: international recognition for addressing the Gaza crisis and facilitating the realization of its long-term goal to develop Sinai. Such a solution may accommodate regional dynamics and interests.
“I’d like Egypt to take people,” Trump said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, ‘You know, it’s over.’”
Trump said the part of the world that encompasses Gaza has “had many, many conflicts” over centuries. He said resettling “could be temporary or long term.”
“Something has to happen, so, I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
Qatar, a country with 300,000 citizens and some three million foreign workers, has served as a mediator to the hostage negotiations and could also help find a resolution to the Gaza-Israel conflict. Instead of financing terror, it could take in Gazan workers.
For Israel, the key lesson from the October 7, 2023 Hamas atrocities is that it cannot allow a genocidal terrorist organization anywhere near its borders.
With the Sinai solution, security concerns can become economic springboards and the time has never been better to explore this possibility.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-839694
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Unity Can Only Be Earned By Action
By Jpost Editorial
January 29, 2025
The appointment of Yechiel Leiter as Israel’s new ambassador to the US comes at a time of significant challenges in the Israel-US relationship. Leiter’s role is more critical than ever, as he seeks to navigate increasing political polarization, shifting attitudes within the American Jewish community, and a world where support for Israel can no longer be taken for granted.
Leiter has set a clear and ambitious tone for his tenure. “I’ll speak in every synagogue, regardless of denomination, that will have me,” he told The Jerusalem Post. This approach aims to mend divides within the American Jewish community, where tensions between liberal and Orthodox Jews have grown. The legacy of previous ambassadors, such as Ron Dermer, who were seen as favoring Orthodox perspectives, left liberal Jews feeling alienated.
But this inclusivity won’t be an easy task. Reform and Conservative Jews, many of whom feel sidelined by Israeli policies on issues such as conversion, prayer spaces at the Western Wall, and judicial reforms, require more than diplomatic overtures. However, these conversations must also address substantive policy concerns, not just focus on unity.
Beyond the Jewish community, Leiter faces the growing polarization in US politics. “Israel has historically been a bipartisan issue, and it’s crucial that we keep it that way,” he said. Yet the reality is more complicated. While Republicans remain staunch allies, significant portions of the Democratic Party have grown increasingly critical of Israeli policies, particularly regarding settlements and relations with Palestinians.
These divides were evident during debates over US military aid to Israel and public criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Diving his attention
The ambassador’s decision to divide his initial outreach equally between Republicans and Democrats demonstrates his recognition of this challenge. However, it will require careful navigation to bridge the gap without alienating one side or the other.
One of the most significant challenges Leiter highlighted is the changing relationship with Evangelical Christians, a traditionally strong base of support for Israel. “We’re seeing a generation of Evangelical Christians that feels less connected to Israel than their predecessors,” he noted. Younger Evangelicals, more focused on social justice issues, are less likely to view Israel as central to their faith. Leiter’s challenge will be to reinvigorate this connection while addressing their concerns, a task that demands both sensitivity and strategic messaging.
The aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attacks has added another layer of complexity to the US-Israel relationship. While these events sparked renewed solidarity among some American Jews, they also intensified criticism of Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank. Leiter acknowledged the dual nature of this moment, saying, “American Jews who were once distant are now rediscovering their connection to Israel. My goal is to be there for them during this critical moment of reflection and reconnection.” Yet this renewed connection could be fleeting unless Israel addresses deeper concerns about its policies and actions.
The Biden administration’s relationship with Israel presents additional hurdles. While publicly supportive, the administration has voiced concerns about settlement expansion, judicial reforms, and other policies seen as undermining democratic values. “We need to show that Israel is not aligned with one party but remains a cause that transcends politics,” Leiter emphasized. Maintaining this balance will be essential as Israel seeks to preserve its bipartisan standing in Washington.
Despite these challenges, Leiter remains optimistic about the potential for unity. “This isn’t about picking sides; it’s about building relationships with Jews, Christians, Republicans, and Democrats alike,” he said. His vision of bringing diverse groups together reflects the belief that Israel’s strength lies in its ability to unite people around shared values.
The stakes for Israel’s new ambassador to the US have rarely been higher. As Leiter himself put it, “Our strength comes from unity, and that’s the message I intend to carry forward in my work as ambassador.” But unity cannot simply be declared – it must be earned through action. Building bridges across divides, whether within the Jewish community, between political parties, or with younger generations, requires patience, empathy, and a willingness to listen.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-839701
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Hostages Returning Home Brings A Range Of Emotions For Israelis
By Idit Druyan Ohayon
January 29, 2025
The videos of Hamas terrorists emerging from hiding, climbing onto white Toyotas with weapons drawn, and celebrating in the streets of Gaza while surrounding the hostages – is heartbreaking, infuriating, and shattering for Israelis forced to watch from the sidelines.
Fifteen months of bloody conflict in which Israeli society paid the ultimate price with the lives of its finest men and women, all under the belief that we were working to defeat Hamas, only to watch its fake media conference yesterday and discover there is neither victory nor deterrence.
Hamas is celebrating a triumph.
What about the politicians? What about Israeli public opinion? For months, the aggressive campaign to return the hostages has prepared public opinion to accept a deal at any cost.
On the other side, we face vile terrorists who scorn human life, demanding the release of mass murderers – individuals who planned attacks and killed dozens, including infants, families, young men, and women.
Comes at a cost
The release of these terrorists comes with a certain cost of blood; they will return to carry out attacks on Israeli soil, send killers, and butcher children in their beds.
The Otzma Yehudit party, led by MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, chose to leave the government, in the meantime at least, to show its electorate that it has a moral spine and that it will not take part in a government that does not eliminate the Hamas terror organization.
The ministers of the Religious Zionist Party have chosen the most difficult path. On the one hand, they remain in the government to ensure the continuation of the fighting and the preservation of key positions of power while refusing to rely on previous arguments of “influencing from within.”
On the other hand, they and their communities live with the price of war and terror. How can they look into the tearful eyes of their children and community members after learning that the murderers of their friends and families are being released?
How can they send their loved ones to future rounds of fighting when Hamas has received fuel and “humanitarian aid”?
This is an impossible decision, and perhaps they did the only thing they could to blunt the issue: voting against the deal, knowing it would be approved regardless, while simultaneously ensuring that cabinet decisions include amendments as conditions for their future participation in the government.
These amendments include demands for the continuation of the fighting, the dismantling of Hamas, and Israeli oversight of the humanitarian aid trucks – added as a “special clause” in the cabinet’s decision.
But is Israel truly capable, under the current military and political leadership, of returning to fight and ensuring Hamas’s destruction? Furthermore, does the military and political echelon have the legitimacy to ask reservists to return to battle after Hamas regroups?
Such legitimacy is possible only if the IDF prepares for a completely different kind of war than what has been waged in Gaza so far: a war involving population evacuation, abandoning the raid strategy in favor of intense combat, halting aid to Hamas, and equipping soldiers to achieve results with fewer casualties.
These are, as I understand, part of the agreements involving Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and Defense Minister Israel Katz. All of this is with American backing that Hamas will not rule Gaza.
Let me end with tears of joy from the past few hours, touching the heart of every Israeli, after the reunion of the freed hostages with their families. At the same time, there is terrible anxiety about the terrorists who are also reuniting with their families. It is fitting to conclude with the eternal declaration: Am Yisrael Chai! (The people of Israel live!)
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-839678
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The Hamas Prisoner Release Is A Justification For Death Penalty For Terrorists
By Gil Troy
January 29, 2025
If anyone had any doubts after Hamas’s October 7 mega-atrocity, the terrorist organization has now made it clear: to deter terrorism, civilized countries need a death penalty, implemented swiftly, after mass terror events. Allowing terrorists to hang out in prison until they are traded for innocents taken hostage is absurd, spurring more terrorists to violence.
The Gaza ceasefire agreement has condemned Israelis to ride an emotional roller coaster for the next few weeks. First, Hamas releases some hostages, drip, drip, three, four at a time. Israelis try looking past their drug-induced smiles, hoping to see the strength that sustained them, fearing a glimpse of the brutality Hamas systematically imposed on them for nearly 500 days.
While delighting in the hostages’ liberation, calling these strangers by their first names because they feel like family, everyone braces for the hangover. That includes the anguished cries of families whose relatives are not on this cruelly truncated list, or yet another story about yet another terror victim whose life was cut too short by the mass-murdering evildoers Israel keeps releasing to free innocents.
It’s a grotesque exchange. Philosophers – and propagandists – can contrast Israelis’ cult of life, and the price Israel pays to free each holy hostage, with Hamas’s death cult, as they deify murderers of children, of students eating at Hebrew University’s cafeteria, of a shopper going about his business on a sunny day.
Still, people of conscience worldwide have to wonder: how can we prevent this spectacle – and are our leaders enabling it?
When politicians say: “We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” it’s as credible as debtors saying: “The check is in the mail.” Most Western leaders don’t just negotiate with terrorists, they facilitate the sick black market whereby innocents kidnapped are considered suitable currency to liberate homicidal maniacs.
Have terrorists received a new incentive?
Today’s approaches doubly incentivize terrorists. They know that if they survive the attack, they face years in well-tended jails, bonding with like-minded buddies. And, in Israel’s case, they know they can spend those years suing its Supreme Court, demanding rights and indulgences for themselves that their tyrannical leaders don’t grant others. Meanwhile, their presence in prison encourages future murderers to go violent, hoping to “liberate” these imprisoned comrades.
A SPECIAL death penalty for terrorists – imposed swiftly – will help break the cycle. It won’t eliminate terrorism, or even hostage-taking to free other, less wicked, prisoners. It will, however, minimize the pain Israelis are currently enduring. Perhaps, next time – and there will be a next time – survivors won’t be forced to watch the murderers of their loved ones go free, and then brazenly celebrate their “victory” over human decency.
Urging any country to put individuals to death through a legal process is not a stance to take casually. The subject is especially sensitive in Israel, having been founded after the Holocaust and after thousands of years during which Jews were unfairly put to death for worshipping incorrectly.
But today’s terrorism epidemic is so out of control that it requires extreme measures. The death penalty will deliver justice, restore some deterrence, and is a merciful move: for those murdered and for those unknowns who might be future targets if the terrorists roam free again.
Even former president Joe Biden, as he went out in a blaze of pardons and clemencies, singled out terrorism as particularly heinous. He commuted the death sentences of 37 cop killers, prison-guard murderers, and deadly bank robbers. But he kept three mass murderers on death row, including two terrorists.
Last fall, the Center for Strategic and International Studies warned that in the US, “the number of domestic terrorist attacks and plots against government targets motivated by partisan political beliefs in the past five years is nearly triple the number of such incidents in the previous 25 years combined.” The New Year’s Day jihadist attack in New Orleans proved that the Islamist threat from abroad – including the threat of outsiders manipulating American citizens – also looms.
Safeguards are essential. Limit this death penalty to mass terrorists who killed three or more, or terrorists who slaughtered minors under 18. But justice must also be swift. Appeals after exceptionally speedy trials should be allowed only within three months and expedited by special tribunals. Within a year of any terrorist attack, punishment should be meted out.
Although Israel needs such legislation most acutely, other Western democracies should pass similar laws. The message to an Israel still reeling from October 7’s mass murders – and thousands of attacks since – would be: “We’ve got your back.”
Terrorists command attention by preying on people of conscience while sowing confusion. Terrorism must be fought resolutely – and with moral clarity.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-839675
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Mubarak Accepted Us Request To Settle Palestinians In Egypt, UK Documents Show
By Amer Sultan
January 28, 2025
Donald Trump wasn’t the first US president to request that Egypt resettle Palestinians on its soil. More than four decades ago, Ronald Reagan’s administration made the same request to Hosni Mubarak, the late Egyptian president. Mubarak agreed to the proposal, British documents reveal.
The documents confirm that Mubarak informed the US that his acceptance was conditional on a broader settlement to the Middle East conflict.
In February 1983, Mubarak discussed the issue with the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during his visit to London on his way back from Washington where he met with Reagan.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) showed that before their formal plenary talks, Mubarak requested a tete-a-tete with Thatcher with the presence of no-one else. During this bilateral meeting, which lasted for 45 minutes, Mubarak discussed in detail some issues that “he repeated in summary forms during the full talks”, Thatcher’s private secretary said in a note.
Mubarak’s visits to Washington and London came eight months after Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, alleging that its military operation against the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) fighters is a response to the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov, by the Palestinian Abu Nidal Organisation.
The Israeli military then occupied southern Lebanon after large-scale attacks on the Palestinian fighters, the Syrian army and armed Islamic organisations in the country.
At the beginning of the occupation, the Israelis besieged the PLO and some units of the Syrian army in west Beirut. After the intervention of Philip Habib, the US special envoy to the Middle East, the PLO withdrew from west Beirut after the massive destruction caused by the Israeli military operation.
Concluding that the situation in the Middle East was extremely tense, Mubarak sought to convince the US and Israel to accept the establishment of a Palestinian entity within the framework of a confederation with Jordan as a prelude to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the future. In his talks with Thatcher, he presented his vision for a settlement in the Middle East.
Mubarak “said that when he had been asked earlier to accept Palestinians from Lebanon, he told the United States that he could do so as part of a comprehensive framework for a solution,” minutes from the talks reveal.
Mubarak expressed his readiness to receive Palestinians from Lebanon in Egypt, despite his awareness of the risks involved in such a move.
He informed Thatcher that he “told (Philip) Habib that by making the Palestinians leave Lebanon, the United States risked causing dozens of difficult problems in various countries.”
Thatcher warned that any potential future Palestinian state will not grant the Palestinians, who forcibly fled after the establishment of Israel in 1948, their right to return to their homes in Palestine as the UN resolution states.
“Even the establishment of a Palestinian state could not lead to the absorption of the whole Palestinians in the diaspora,” she said.
However, Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, Egypt’s then-minister of state for foreign affairs, said: “The Palestinians would, however, then have their own passports, and will take different attitudes.”
“We should in fact have not just an Israeli state and a Jewish diaspora, but a small Palestinian state and a Palestinian diaspora,” he added.
The documents show that discussions did not address the conditions of the remaining Palestinian refugees outside Palestine.
All political factions in Lebanon reject the idea of settling Palestinians on Lebanese soil, insisting that their country will not become an alternative to the Palestinians’ right to return to their homes in accordance with the UN resolution.
After 19 years, the Lebanese government strongly refused pressure to have the Arab Summit held in Beirut in March 2002 approve the Arab Peace Initiative with Israel because it did not include the Palestinians’ right of return. Emile Lahoud, then-Lebanese president, warned that the initiative’s lack of a clause on the right of return would mean settling the Palestinians in Lebanon, which he said was unacceptable.
As a compromise, a requested clause was added calling for “a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.” This resulted in the Arab leaders approving the initiative put forward by the late Prince Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, the then-Saudi crown prince.
The British PM hinted to her support for the idea of a federation between Jordan and a Palestinian state. She said that this solution “is what most people envision.”
Then-British Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, Lord Francis Pym, asked whether Israel, under a Labour government, would accept the concept of a small, demilitarised Palestinian state. Dr. Osama El-Baz, Mubarak’s political advisor, replied that “the first step should be a Palestinian entity united in a federation with Jordan”. He predicted that this “could evolve in ten to fifteen years to a demilitarised Palestinian state.”
Ghali thought that an Israeli Labor government “might be able to envisage such a development” which Thatcher characterised as “a radical change of policy”, raising “doubt” that such an Israeli government “could obtain acceptance from the Israeli people” of it.
In addition, she expressed reservations about the establishment of a Palestinian state independent of Jordan, saying: “Some feel that an independent Palestinian state might be subject to the domination of the Soviet Union.” However, Dr El-Baz refuted this fear as a “wrong perception”, arguing that a Palestinian state will never “be dominated by the Russians.”
He explained that such a state will depend economically on the oil-rich Arab states “who were vehemently opposed to the establishment in the area of a pro-Soviet state.” The Egyptian presidential advisor added that Saudi Arabia is an example of those states that will never allow this to happen. “Any Palestinian state must be demilitarized,” Al-Baz continued. Therefore, it “will not receive Soviet weapons.”
Mubarak supported Al-Baz’s perspective, saying that not a single Arab country would accept a Palestinian entity dominated by the Soviets.
To further reassure Thatcher, Mubarak added that “a Palestinian state will never be a threat to Israel”. He even expected the Palestinians in Kuwait and the rest of the Gulf “will never return to a Palestinian state.”
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250128-mubarak-accepted-us-request-to-settle-palestinians-in-egypt-uk-documents-show/
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Gaza’s New Model For Palestinian Unity
Ramzy Baroud
January 28, 2025
Even those of us who have long emphasized the importance of the Palestinian people’s voice, experience and collective action in Palestinian history have been shocked by the cultural revolution resulting from the Israeli war on Gaza.
By cultural revolution, I mean the defiant and rebellious narrative evolving in Gaza, where people see themselves as active participants in the popular resistance, not just mere victims of the Israeli war machine.
When the ceasefire came into effect on the 471st day of the Israeli genocide, Gazans rushed to the streets in celebration. Media outlets reported that they were celebrating the ceasefire, but judging by their chants and songs and the symbols on display, they were celebrating their collective victory, steadfastness (sumud) and resilience against the powerful Israeli army, supported by the US and other Western countries.
Using basic means, they rushed to clean their streets, clearing debris to allow the displaced to search for homes. Though their homes had been destroyed — 90 percent of Gaza’s housing units have been damaged, according to the UN — they were still happy, even to sit on the wreckage. Some prayed atop concrete slabs, some sang in large, growing crowds and others cried but insisted no power could ever uproot them from Palestine.
Social media was flooded with Gazans expressing a mix of emotions, though they were mostly defiant, expressing their resolve not just in political terms but also in other ways, including humor.
Of course, the bodybuilders returned to their gyms to find them mostly destroyed. Rather than lament their losses, they salvaged machines and resumed training amid collapsed walls and ceilings punctured by Israeli missiles.
There was also the father and son who composed a song in the “ahazej” style, a traditional Levantine vocalization. The son, overjoyed to find his father alive, was reassured by his father that they would never abandon their homeland.
As for the children — those who were not among the 14,500 killed, according to UNRWA — they resumed their childhood. They claimed destroyed Israeli tanks in Rafah, Beit Hanoun and elsewhere as their new playgrounds.
One teenager, pretending to be a scrap metal salesman, yelled, “One Israeli Merkava tank for sale,” as his friends filmed and laughed. He finished by saying, “Make sure you send this video to (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu,” before moving on, unfazed.
This does not mean Gaza is free of unimaginable pain, which is difficult for the rest of the world to fully comprehend. The emotional and psychological scars of the war will last a lifetime and many will never fully recover from the trauma. But Gazans know they cannot afford to grieve in the usual way. So, they emphasize their identity, unity and defiance as a way to overcome their grief.
Parallel to its military assault on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has invested heavily in attempting to divide the Palestinian people and shatter their spirit.
In Gaza, its warplanes dropped millions of flyers on starving refugees, urging them to rebel against Palestinian factions by providing Israel with the names of “troublemakers.” The Israeli army offered large rewards for information, but little was achieved. These flyers also called for tribal leaders to take control of their areas in exchange for food and protection. To punish those who resisted, Israel systematically killed clan representatives and councilors who tried to distribute aid throughout Gaza, especially in the north, where famine was devastating.
Against overwhelming odds, Palestinians remained united. When the ceasefire was declared, they celebrated as one nation. With Gaza destroyed, Israel’s actions obliterated the Strip’s class, regional, ideological and political divides. Everyone in Gaza became a refugee: the rich, the poor, Muslims, Christians, city dwellers and refugee camp residents were all equally affected.
The unity that remains in Gaza, despite one of the most horrific genocides in modern history, should serve as a wake-up call. It proves that the narrative that Palestinians are divided and need to “find common ground” is false.
The old notion of political unity through a merger of the Palestinian Authority and various Palestinian factions is no longer viable. The reality is that the fragmentation of the Palestinian political landscape cannot be solved through mere political agreements or negotiations between factions.
However, a different kind of unity has already taken root in Gaza and, by extension, across Palestinian communities throughout the Occupied Territories and the rest of the world. This unity is visible in the millions of Palestinians who have demonstrated against the war, chanted for Gaza, cried for Gaza and developed a new political discourse around it.
This unity does not rely on talking heads on Arabic satellite channels or secret meetings in expensive hotels. It needs no diplomatic talks. Years of endless discussions, “unity documents” and fiery speeches have only led to disappointment.
True unity has already been achieved, as felt in the voices of ordinary Gazans who no longer identify as members of a faction. They are Gazzawiyya. Palestinians from Gaza, and nothing else.
This is the unity that must now form the foundation of a new discourse.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2588121
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No Artificial Solution Can Liquidate The Just Palestinian Cause
Osama Al-Sharif
January 28, 2025
Less than 48 hours after US President Donald Trump made the vague but outrageous suggestion that Jordan and Egypt should consider taking in more than a million Gazans “temporarily, or could be long term,” hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans on Monday made the long and arduous journey from the southern part of the Strip to the north, under the watchful eye of the Israeli army.
The scene of a flood of men, women and children, carrying scant personal belongings, marching across the so-called Netzarim Corridor, which dissects the narrow strip of land into north and south, was daunting, to say the least. They had been stranded at the crossing point for two days after Israel reneged on its obligation to open the corridor on Saturday, as per the first phase of the ceasefire agreement reached two weeks ago.
But after intermediaries resolved the snag involving the release of one Israeli woman held captive by Islamic Jihad, they were allowed to head to northern Gaza, which lies mostly in ruin following 15 months of Israeli airstrikes and meticulous demolitions by the army. The message was emphatic and defiant: even though these hundreds of thousands of hapless Palestinians were going back to where their homes once stood and where they now lie in ruins, they were determined to claim what is theirs. They were not going away, no matter what.
These scenes — as biblical in their enormity and symbolism as it is possible to be — were Gazans’ response to President Trump’s suggestion that they, almost 70 percent of whom are refugees from the 1948 and 1967 debacles, once again be displaced away from historical Palestine. No nation has displayed such a profound attachment to its native land.
Trump’s suggestion came on Saturday in an ad hoc statement given to reporters after he received a call from King Abdullah of Jordan. His logic was that Gaza was now “a demolition site” where “people are dying” and that there was a need “to clean out the whole thing.”
He said he would raise the same issue with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. But almost immediately, Jordan and Egypt responded to Trump’s proposal by stressing their objection to any plan to transfer the Palestinians from their land. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that Amman opposed the displacement of Palestinians and insisted that “Jordan is for the Jordanians and Palestine is for the Palestinians.”
In a statement, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry “rejected any infringement on Palestinian inalienable rights, whether by settlement or annexation of land or by the depopulation of that land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land, whether temporarily or long-term.”
In a statement from his office on Sunday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects aimed at displacing our people from the Gaza Strip,” adding that the Palestinian people “will not abandon their land and holy sites.”
Palestinian factions, including Hamas, rejected the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and condemned Trump for siding with Israel’s far right, which had welcomed the US president’s proposal. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described Trump’s proposal as “excellent,” while former minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said work must start to encourage the voluntary departure of Gazans.
Trump’s suggestion has created a backlash in Jordan and Egypt, two countries that had vehemently warned against and opposed Israeli attempts to transfer Gazans from their homes when the war started more than a year ago. For Jordan, it raised fears that Trump was now implementing the extremist Israeli plan to push Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan. The Likud and other radical Jewish parties have long promoted the so-called Jordanian option or stated that “Jordan is Palestine.”
King Abdullah has repeatedly warned that Jordan will never be “an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.” For Jordanians, this represents an existential danger and a red line that threatens the peace treaty with Israel. It could even lead to war.
For Egypt, the proposal to house millions of Gazans in Sinai is also a red line that threatens its national security and can never be accepted.
Jordan and Egypt are close allies of the US and depend on Washington’s financial and military aid. Last week, the State Department suspended all foreign aid programs, exempting only Israel and Egypt. That decision and Trump’s Gaza proposal have left Amman wondering what the new administration might be planning.
Jordan has been particularly affected by Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital during his first term. King Abdullah, as well as the Palestinians, also rejected Trump’s 2020 peace plan, which offered the Palestinians much less than what they claimed under the two-state solution.
King Abdullah will be the first Arab leader to meet with Trump in Washington in the second week of February. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely be at the White House next week. The most pressing question now is how Trump will follow up on his proposal during the two leaders’ visits.
Trump has taken credit for forcing Israel and Hamas to embrace a ceasefire deal and exchange of captives before his inauguration. He also raised eyebrows when he said that he did not think the ceasefire deal would hold, even as both sides carried out two exchanges as part of the first phase of the agreement.
US officials tried to justify Trump’s proposal by saying that the reconstruction of Gaza will take years and that millions of people in the beleaguered Strip need sustainable humanitarian aid that cannot be provided under the current conditions. Hamas has said that, while it was able to thwart Israeli plans to depopulate Gaza, resettle the Strip and create a permanent buffer zone in the north — all at a hefty and intolerable cost to the people of Gaza — Trump is stepping in to overturn such achievements.
Some pundits have suggested that Trump may go further by negotiating land swaps involving Israel, the Palestinians and Egypt to kick-start his 2020 peace plan. Palestinians fear that Trump may soon bless Israel’s plan to annex significant chunks of the West Bank and force a new reality. That reality may leave the Palestinians in the West Bank in self-ruled cantons, while creating a Palestinian mini-state in the remnants of a newly drawn Gaza.
Such one-sided solutions are cosmetic and will never resolve a century-old conflict that has the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination on their native land at its core. The Palestinians have survived expulsion, pogroms, mass murder and ethnic cleansing, yet they remain attached to their motherland. No artificial solution can liquidate the Palestinians or their just cause.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2588102
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