Five Arab nations reject Trump’s plan to remove Palestinians from Gaza, urge two-state solution
Five Arab foreign ministers and a senior Palestinian official sent a joint letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday, urging the Trump administration to back a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and rejecting recent suggestions by US President Donald Trump that residents of the Gaza Strip be resettled, either temporarily or permanently, elsewhere in the Middle East.
“Palestinians do not want to leave their land. We support their position unequivocally,” wrote the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, as well as Palestinian Authority presidential adviser Hussein al-Sheikh.
The US president set off a firestorm of criticism in the last two weeks as he repeatedly floated the suggestion that countries such as Jordan and Egypt take in displaced Palestinians while the enclave is rebuilt after 15 months of war between Israel and the Hamas terror group. When asked if this was a temporary or long-term suggestion, Trump said: “Could be either.”
Both Egypt and Jordan have rejected the idea. Trump spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi days after making the comments, but neither country’s read-out of the call mentioned the remarks. Trump has also invited Jordan’s King Abdullah II to the White House, amid the controversy.
The six Arab officials reportedly decided to send their letter, which was shared by Axios, during their meeting in Cairo on Saturday, and they referred to an “ongoing regional mobilization” to start the reconstruction of Gaza, to culminate in an international conference hosted by Egypt, in partnership with the UN. [Continue reading…]