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cover of episode Trump's "clean out Gaza" plan puts Middle East stability at risk

Trump's "clean out Gaza" plan puts Middle East stability at risk

2025/1/27
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World in 10

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Josie Ensor
特朗普
美国企业家、政治人物及媒体名人,曾任第45任和第47任美国总统。
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特朗普:我建议约旦和埃及接收加沙地带的巴勒斯坦难民,以清理加沙地带,并为巴勒斯坦人在其他地方建造住房,让他们能够和平生活。 这一提议并非正式政策,而是我即兴发表的言论,源于记者对我与约旦国王阿卜杜拉通话的追问。我长期以来都是以色列的盟友,我的家人也支持这一计划。 我的目标是为巴勒斯坦人创造更好的生活条件,即使这意味着他们需要搬迁到其他地方。重建加沙需要数年甚至数十年时间,如果没有人居住,重建过程可能会更容易,更快地为加沙居民提供适宜居住的房屋。 Josie Ensor:特朗普的提议会给约旦和埃及带来经济灾难,并扼杀巴勒斯坦建国的希望。如果约旦和埃及不接受特朗普的提议,美国可能会对他们采取惩罚性措施,例如贸易制裁,这将使他们陷入困境。 特朗普的提议对埃及和约旦来说是不可行的,会严重损害他们的经济和地区地位。特朗普现在组建的内阁成员大多是亲以色列人士,这使得埃及和约旦不得不更加认真地对待他的提议。 虽然一些以色列右翼政客认为加沙居民在其他国家的生活会更好,但这并不代表大多数加沙居民的意愿,而且其他国家的生活条件也未必更好。加沙居民不愿离开家园,因为他们从历史经验中了解到离开的风险和不确定性。 内塔尼亚胡的目标可能是将加沙的海滨地区重新安置为以色列定居点,而不是重建加沙。特朗普的计划可能会导致埃及和约旦等地区主要盟友实力削弱,从而导致地区不稳定。沙特阿拉伯与美国关系密切,但其对巴勒斯坦问题的立场可能会影响特朗普的决策。

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Donald Trump's suggestion to relocate Palestinians from Gaza has sparked outrage. This controversial proposal, seemingly made without official channels, puts Jordan and Egypt in a difficult position due to potential economic repercussions from the US.
  • Trump's departure from the two-state solution policy
  • Jordan and Egypt's potential economic vulnerability due to US trade relations
  • The proposal's lack of official channels and Trump's off-the-cuff remarks
  • Netanyahu's support and previous attempts to implement similar plans

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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Alex Dibble and Toby Gillis. Over the weekend, Donald Trump departed from decades of US foreign policy, which has called for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine issue. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the American president revealed he's told Jordan and Egypt that they should help...

clean out, that's a quote, the Gaza Strip by relocating Palestinians displaced by the war there. Trump said he'd like to get involved with some of the Arab nations to build housing in a different location where they, that's Palestinians, can live in peace for a change.

The idea has been met with fury. Palestinians do want to live in peace, but in Gaza. Jordan and Egypt want that too, and the reason they haven't opened their borders to Palestinians in the past

is the fear that doing so would end all hope of a two-state solution. But they might now have to consider it. Our guest today is The Times and Sunday Times US correspondent Josie Ensor, who has also spent many years covering the Middle East. Josie, why does Donald Trump suggesting this put Jordan and Egypt in such a tough position?

As someone that's followed the region for a long time, I sort of understand the history of both countries' acceptance of Palestinian refugees over the decades. I mean, first off, it would be an economic disaster for either of them. On top of that, they also know that it would basically essentially kill any notion of a Palestinian statehood if they were to accept these people from Gaza. Right.

Both countries have already taken in millions of Palestinians over the decades who have not been allowed to return home. But if Trump wants to get punitive, I mean, just like he did over the weekend with Colombia, it leaves them, as you say, between a rock and a hard place. The US is both Egypt and Jordan's third largest trading partner. So, I mean, if Trump were to pull a move like that, it would essentially cripple them.

Do you think that that is Donald Trump's plan, that if they don't do as he says, they're going to be negatively impacted in other ways? What's kind of interesting is that this was not sort of official policy that was sent out in a statement.

This was something that Trump essentially blurted out to a reporter on Air Force One after some pretty dogged questionings from that reporter about his call with King Abdullah of Jordan. So this wasn't a readout from either countries. This wasn't stated policy. This was something that he essentially just said off the cuff when he was he was pushed to talk about it.

I mean, Trump is a longtime ally of Israel's. He's also been heavily influenced by family members like Jared Kushner, who was his White House advisor in the first term and obviously his son-in-law. And members of his family have essentially suggested that

the cleansing of Gaza before. You know, they've talked about this waterfront property in Gaza and it would, you know, be a shame to go to a waste sort of thing. So it's very clear that this is something that he wants, perhaps on even on a personal level. And this is something that Netanyahu himself has been pushing for both privately and publicly since the October 7th attacks.

essentially a move to bring in settlers into Gaza. It was rejected behind closed doors by the Biden administration and he's obviously finding an ear now to this plan.

Now, you mentioned that the US is the third largest trade partner for Egypt and Jordan. Is that relationship so vital to both that if it were to be a choice between either accepting Trump tariffs or sticking to their principles on Gaza, that actually their economies might win that battle?

I think, I mean, Jordan put out a statement, the foreign minister put out a statement shortly afterwards. Sisi was supposed to have talked to Trump yesterday. That's the president of Egypt. And I haven't read a readout from that yet. I mean...

The Egyptian embassy to the US kind of posted an op-ed that it did in 2023 on this subject without issuing a new comment that was basically saying that this was unworkable, this was a totally unworkable deal. It would doom them economically, it would doom their standing in the region as a kind of supporter of the Palestinian cause. For both of them, I mean, this is really an impossible position. And it's very difficult to know whether, you know, this isn't the first time that

that Trump has threatened something and maybe not gone through with it. What you have this time, however, is a cabinet that he's assembled. If you look at Mike Huckabee, the Israel ambassador, you look at Lee Stefanik, who's now been appointed to the UN. I mean, he's surrounded himself by pro-Israel zealots that will help him affect some of the things that he's now saying. So Egypt and Jordan are

might have to take the idea much more seriously than perhaps they had done under previous administrations. I mean, they've never come under any real pressure to take in what is 2 million Garzons who they know will probably never be likely to return.

Josie, is there no truth behind the message by some of Israel's right-wing politicians that life would be better, at least in the short to medium term, for Gazans in another country than in the place where 60% of the buildings and indeed 100% of vital services have been impacted?

Yeah, I mean, you've seen members of Netanyahu's kind of more extreme right part of his coalition, like Finance Minister Smotrich, celebrating Trump's comments and essentially saying that Gazans would have a better life elsewhere. Is there a reality in that truth now? Probably. But, you know, Egypt's Sinai Desert is not a great place to live by any means. And, you know, Palestinians who are kind of second, third, fourth generation in Jordan, you know, they're given citizenship now, but it's a tough life.

As I've said, there is a dedication for Gazans not to leave because they've, you know, they've seen through history, they've seen through the Nakba or the catastrophe, as they call it in Arabic, what it means to leave, even if it's

kind of sold to them as a temporary move. I mean, they understand through history and through the promises that have been made that essentially that there is no guarantee that that will happen. So I think that there will be a huge reluctance for any of them to leave for any amount of time. I mean, maybe you could convince a small portion of them that they could have a better life somewhere else. But I don't think that speaks to the majority of Garzons. Do you think there's any possibility, Josie, that when Mr. Trump mooted this, he didn't somehow mean what we've all read into it, that

Maybe there's a chance that he thinks rebuilding Gaza would be easier if there was nobody there and that it's also the quickest way for Gazans to have a habitable home there again.

I think that would be Benjamin Netanyahu's worst nightmare. I mean, some say that he had an end goal of making Gaza essentially unlivable, which it is. I mean, 90% of people are displaced within Gaza. Many of them don't have a roof over their head. They're living in tents. The reconstruction of Gaza, once it begins, and we have no idea when it will begin, under conservative estimates, will take years, if not decades, to do. I mean, we're looking at how slowly it's happening in places like Mosul and Iraq and Syria and

I mean, what you've seen from these images over the last week since the truce have been a kind of a very resilient, dedicated people. So the north has now been reopened as of a day or two ago. And you see these these images of people returning to essentially rubble and that they're there to say we're here to stay and we're eking out a life of.

in the midst of this kind of unlivable situation. I mean, Netanyahu, I don't think would ever allow a situation where kind of Gaza was built back better as you were. I mean, he may have, you know, the most modest of his intentions might be to take the kind of waterfront area of Gaza and repopulate it with Israeli settlers. But I think if you have a U.S.,

administration uh there's very sympathetic to Netanyahu and that's his stated goal I mean I don't think I can't imagine that we're going to see a kind of brighter cleaner better built Gaza in the future

Just finally, Josie, in your piece, you mentioned Saudi Arabia. They are a big U.S. trading partner and have always said they won't normalize relations with Israel without a two-state solution. Might they have the power to make Donald Trump think again on this?

I think, look, Saudi doesn't seem to have ever been closer to the US than it has now. They've signed the Abraham Accords, which kind of normalizes their relationship with Israel. They stated that they're going to make $600 billion in investment and with US defense contracts in the next few years. So, I mean, this is a very serious partnership that is going to take a lot to shake. And they are kind of

you know, historically being the kind of the Sunni powerhouse that supported the Palestinian cause, but we've seen that waning over the last couple of years. You have a kind of a second option, I guess. I mean, if there isn't

a deal to be done with Egypt and Jordan and there will be a hell of a lot of pushback for this. And also, I mean, if you look at it in a kind of hard-nosed way, I mean, America doesn't want to kind of hugely weakened main allies in the region, I mean, which is what it would do to both countries who have been relatively stable for a long time now. I mean, the idea that this could completely destabilize them is not beyond imagination. So essentially what could end up

happening is that some Gazans are allowed to stay, a percentage of the two million, who just live in essentially abject poverty until there can be a deal done for reconstruction, which would inevitably involve countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Okay, Josie Enso, The Times and The Sunday Times' US correspondent. Thank you very much for joining us. And thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. See you tomorrow.

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