By Zeke Miller, Chris Megerian and Will Weissert | Related Press
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump hosted Jordan’s King Abdullah II on the White Home on Tuesday and renewed his insistence that Gaza may by some means be emptied of all residents, managed by the U.S. and redeveloped as a vacationer space.
It’s an audacious, however extremely unlikely, scheme to dramatically remake the Center East and would require Jordan and different Arab nations to simply accept extra Gazans — one thing Abdullah reiterated after their assembly that he opposes.
The pair met within the Oval Workplace with Secretary of State Marco Rubio additionally available. The president instructed he wouldn’t withhold U.S. help to Jordan or Egypt in the event that they don’t conform to dramatically improve the variety of folks from Gaza they absorb.
“I don’t have to threaten that. I do believe we’re above that,” Trump mentioned. That contradicted the Republican president’s earlier suggestion that holding again help from Washington was a risk.
Abdullah was requested repeatedly about Trump’s plan to filter Gaza and overhaul it as a resort on the Mediterranean Sea. He didn’t make substantive feedback on it and didn’t decide to the concept that his nation may settle for massive numbers of Gazans.
He did say, nonetheless, that Jordan could be prepared “right away” to take as many as 2,000 kids in Gaza who’re affected by most cancers or in any other case sick.
“I finally see somebody that can take us across the finish line to bring stability, peace and prosperity to all of us in the region,” the king mentioned of Trump in his assertion on the prime of the assembly.
Abdullah left the White Home after about two hours and headed to Capitol Hill to satisfy with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. He posted on social media that in his assembly with Trump, “I reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”
“This is the unified Arab position. Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all,” Abdullah wrote.
That was regardless of Trump utilizing his look with Abdullah to repeat recommendations that the U.S. may come to regulate Gaza. Trump additionally mentioned Tuesday that it wouldn’t require committing American funds however that the U.S. overseeing the war-torn area could be doable, “Under the U.S. authority,” with out elaborating what that really was.
“We’re not going to buy anything. We’re going to have it,” Trump mentioned of U.S. management in Gaza. He instructed that the redeveloped space may have new resorts, workplace buildings and homes, “and we’ll make it exciting.”
“I can tell you about real estate. They’re going to be in love with it,” Trump, who constructed a New York actual property empire that catapulted him to fame, mentioned of Gaza’s residents, whereas additionally insisting that he personally wouldn’t be concerned in growth.
Trump has beforehand instructed that Gaza’s residents might be displaced briefly or completely, an concept that leaders across the Arab world have sharply rebuked.
Moreover, Trump renewed his recommendations {that a} tenuous ceasefire between Hamas and Israel might be canceled if Hamas doesn’t launch the entire remaining hostages it’s holding by noon on Saturday. Trump first made that suggestion on Monday, although he insisted then that the last word choice lies with Israel.
“I don’t think they’re going to make the deadline, personally,” Trump mentioned Tuesday of Hamas. “They want to play tough guy. We’ll see how tough they are.”
The king’s go to got here at a dangerous second for the continuing ceasefire in Gaza. Hamas is accusing Israel of violating the truce and says it should delay future releases of hostages captured in its Oct. 7, 2023, assault.
In an announcement, Hamas known as Trump’s Tuesday feedback “racist” and “a call for ethnic cleansing.” It additionally accused the president of in search of to “liquidate the Palestinian cause and deny the national rights of the Palestinian people.”
Trump has repeatedly proposed the U.S. take management of Gaza and switch it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” with Palestinians within the war-torn territory pushed into neighboring nations with no proper of return.
Trump’s Tuesday feedback contradicted his Monday recommendations that, if essential, he would withhold U.S. funding from Jordan and Egypt — longtime U.S. allies and among the many prime recipients of its overseas help — as a way of persuading them to simply accept extra Palestinians from Gaza.
Jordan is dwelling to greater than 2 million Palestinians. Jordan’s overseas minister, Ayman Safadi, mentioned final week that his nation’s opposition to Trump’s thought about displacing Gaza’s residents was “firm and unwavering.”
Apart from considerations about jeopardizing the long-held targets of a two-state resolution to the Israel-Palestinian battle, Egypt and Jordan have privately raised safety considerations about welcoming massive numbers of extra refugees into their international locations even briefly.
Trump introduced his concepts for resettling Palestinians from Gaza and taking possession of the territory for the U.S. throughout a press convention final week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The president initially didn’t rule out deploying U.S. troops to assist safe Gaza however on the similar time insisted no U.S. funds would go to pay for the reconstruction of the territory, elevating elementary questions concerning the nature of his plan.
After Trump’s preliminary feedback, Rubio and White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that Trump solely needed Palestinians relocated from Gaza “temporarily” and sought an “interim” interval to permit for particles elimination, the disposal of unexploded ordnance and reconstruction.
