Trump Holds Trump Card on Jordan Egypt Relocations
We all dodged a bullet along with President Trump with his re-election. And with the miracle we all witnessed, he brings “street creds” to the most religious “hood” on earth. Trump’s new Administration is ten times his first term’s, he is more brilliant and pragmatic than ever on the Middle East, and we now have a real opportunity to improve the world for everyone.
Trump’s January 25th statement on relocating 1.5 million Gazans to Egypt and Jordan may be the smartest chess move in this entire 75-year conflict. While both Egypt’s and Jordan’s Embassies issued statements within hours opposing relocation of Palestinians, if Trump plays his trump card, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon, may not have a choice.
The proper context is that 490 million Arabs in the Middle East consider themselves one “Arab nation”, within which 89% belonged to an ideology that does not accept Israel’s existence [Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) poll of 16 Arab countries Dec 2023-Jan 2024]. The Palestinian ideology is a subgroup of this, and the Palestinian people, its product. Arab culture views Israel’s peace deals with Egypt, Jordan, and the Abraham Accords, as “Hodaybiya” deals – just temporary until Israel is weakened. Part of the reason those peace deals were possible at all is because 92% of Arabs believe the Palestinians carry on the struggle in their stead. Even Egypt and Jordan threatened to join the attack against Israel after October 7th if Israel opened the Rafah border.
This isn’t true peace. On one hand, Egypt blocks Palestinians from leaving Gaza to continue the conflict, contrary to its obligations to accept refugees seeking asylum as a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. On the other hand, it allows dozens of tunnels to Gaza to resupply Hamas contrary to Camp David, which is why Hamas and Egypt sing in unison their shared demand of Israeli withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor as a condition of this hostage release. Mahmoud el-Sisi, the son of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was reportedly involved in cross-border smuggling personally. The surrounding Arab states helped cause this conflict, and we’re past the point of “try harder next time.”
So why is Palestinian relocation such a key issue?
The Middle East problem best explained
Here is the most constructive explanation ever of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, as simple as A, B, C:
A. The conflict exists because the Palestinians’ intent to act in their own best interests cannot override the collective Palestinian “cause” ideology.
B. But, that Palestinian “cause” is actually two ideologies:
⁃ First, ideology one, to end living under occupation and have prosperity, and,
⁃ Second, ideology two, to conquer Israel.
C. The problem of the entire Middle East conflict, that the world either doesn’t care about or doesn’t understand, but maybe Trump does, is the two ideologies are intertwined. The intertwined ideological problem means we cannot feed the first, without feeding the second.
The correct perspective is not as a problem of individuals’ nor leaders’ nor nations’ interests, but ideologies behaving tribally. For example; the Hamas ideology fighting the Fatah ideology for control of the Gaza ideology, empowered by the broader Arab nation ideology. Since there is only one ideology in Gaza, money, resources, statehood, more rights, even if well-intended to help the first cause, will inherently, necessarily, and unavoidably help the second, thus empowering the second.
If there were created a hypothetical Palestinian “state” in the West Bank or Gaza, let alone East Jerusalem, it would feed both ideologies, and the only possible result of more freedom for Palestinians is bringing in more soldiers and weapons, and thus more conflict. The ideology in conflict will always be stronger than goals of individuals, because the ideology is a collective, subconscious, contagious neurochemical phenomena emotionally (not rationally) embedded with a narrative that gives meaning to their suffering.
Of course, two “enemies” sharing a capital is utter nonsense, and there are already 22 other Arab capitals. If France, or the UK, or Russia, or China don’t agree, they should give their own Muslim populations each an independent state within their borders, and make East Paris, East London, East Moscow, and East Beijing those states’ new capitals, and see how that works out. Most nations are actually Israel’s allies morally, yet oppose her for the sheer temporary convenience of not having to think ahead.
This intertwined ideological problem runs down the center of the heart of every Palestinian, and thus only a metaphysical solution will work. There’s actually an entire universe of solutions, and that solution set is every action that helps individual Palestinians in the first cause ideology, while necessarily and certainly weakening the second cause ideology.
As an analogy, the United States Constitution doesn’t make Democrat and Republican politicians promise to be nice to each other. Rather, it divides power between three “co-equal” branches of government, so one group’s natural human desire for power is balanced by another group’s desire for power. It’s a power-balancing solution based on the human nature of the players involved, and it only works if the parties respect its structural rules more than their need to win.
But with no democracy nor diversity of ideology anywhere across the Arab world, nobody can explain how the Palestinians would miraculously be the first multi-party Arab democracy. And if not, the Palestinians would have nowhere else to direct the Arab world’s natural human tendency to polarize and seek conquest, except at Israel. This ideological dynamic is primary and causal and will dominate over any peace deal, international peacekeeping force, and education system.
The relevant moral paradox and solution
All wars occur because humanity stumbles over moral questions we fail to properly answer in time. We polarize across divides over these unanswered questions, and break down the systems that maintain peace, until war is the only option left. The solution to all wars is to properly identify and answer these pivotal moral questions underlying humanity’s conflicts, something the United Nations is increasingly incapable of.
When you understand what the Jewish people represent, you know why every alternate view of human morality that rises always targets the Jewish people first through anti-Semitism, like a canary in a coal mine. Humanity hasn’t been able to solve the Middle East conflict because we haven’t found and properly answered the underlying moral questions posed to humanity through the war against Israel. It is a war fought, until the questions are answered. That nexus of global moral paradoxes is broader than the scope of this writing, but one key issue is addressable now.
The world paradoxically supports helping and relocating refugees from every other conflict zone in the world gleefully, except the Palestinians. Israel is not keeping Palestinians in an “open-air prison” (although it’s not really), Israel is only keeping them from conquering Israel. It’s the rest of the world’s morally-backwards embargo on accepting Palestinian refugees keeping Palestinians suffering in Gaza. You know it’s a key issue, because nobody is allowed to even talk about it. Trump might say it’s the biggest scam in the world. And oh yes, he’s talking about it.
The kryptonite of Arab conquest ideologies
Individuals don’t decide to go to war, nor do terrorists, nor do leaders of nations. Ideologies do. The kryptonite-like weakness of Arab ideologies seeking conflict with Israel is they can’t wage war when they have a diversity of ideology. Sunni and Shiite have been at war for 1400 years because of a difference of religious interpretation. In the Arab world, dissenters are often beheaded. There isn’t even an ancient Arabic language word for “compromise”, because one side simply killed the other to end disputes. No Arab country has a democracy, because the Arab collective psyche cannot withstand a diversity of ideological viewpoint. Similarly, though they aren’t Arab, the U.S. recently left Afghanistan, and already the Taliban and Pakistan are approaching war amongst themselves. Even Fatah and Hamas cannot operate in the same sphere like Gaza without killing one another first, before they can kill Jews. And therein hide solutions – to the suffering they cause us, and themselves.
The answer is, of course, in the Torah. Maimonides taught the lesson of the “three walls”. Ancient Israel, whenever at war, was always required to give its enemy an escape route. This is not merely to fight fewer enemy soldiers, but so that the enemy’s ideology would be divided between fighting and leaving. Likewise, the Torah teaches, in Numbers 10:35: “And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said: Rise up Lord and let your enemies be scattered and let them that hate you flee before you.” It doesn’t say kill your enemies here, but “scatter”, meaning divide; separate, meaning ideologically.
If the Palestinians are carrying on an ideological struggle on behalf of the Arab nation, and only way Palestinians can moderate is to have diversity of viewpoint, how do we achieve that? If we can’t have a Palestinian democracy nor multi-ideology system, the only way left to create diversity of viewpoint is to allow Palestinians to vote with their feet. The only diversity of ideology possible may be to allow a physical, legal, and diplomatic pathway for those Palestinians who wish to leave Gaza, Judea, or Samaria, to voluntarily emigrate out of “Palestine”, temporarily or long term, in search of a better life.
That refugee blockade keeping Palestinians from emigrating to other Arab countries or the rest of the world is this generation’s Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain.
This is not about kicking the Palestinians out by any forcible expulsion. Rather, it is to neutralize the conflict ideology polarized against Israel by allowing a diversity of ideology in Gaza. Let the people who want to leave debate the people who want to stay. Ironically, it can work regardless whether Palestinians actually leave or for how long, as long as they have the option to. As it’s really about Palestinian choice, pushing this position is the ideological “fulcrum” point that separates well-intended liberals from ideological Islamists. Maybe when Archimedes said “give me a fixed point (or fulcrum) to stand on and I will move the world”, that also applies to a universal moral position.
Allowing Palestinians a path to emigrate from Gaza, voluntarily, temporarily, or long term, is the moral rule for every other people and every other conflict zone on earth. Anyone who actually wanted to improve Palestinian lives would support them having freedom and housing on the Mediterranean coast in the Sinai, or Jordan which already is a Palestinian state, or beautiful coastal southern Lebanon. Even if the Palestinian “cause” was for statehood, there has never been a sovereign Arab state in the Palestinian territories, and there’s no reason why it can’t be in the Sinai or southern Lebanon. It would be Palestinians’ first opportunity to act in their own interests, and a necessary precursor to statehood, if one were ever possible at all.
The first element of any real solution to the conflict is not about lines on a map, nor words on a signed piece of paper. It is, that any Palestinian who wishes to leave, is allowed to emigrate and has a physical, legal, and diplomatic pathway to do so. Then, you’ve set up a two-way dynamic system. The worse and more ideological the Palestinian “leadership” governs, and the more conflict they cause, the more they deplete their own ideological population base, in a self-regulating system. In a word, accountability. That reciprocating loss of power from continuing conflict may be the only thing that can moderate a conquest ideology. With the freedom to move to Palestinian enclaves in Jordan, Egypt, and even Southern Lebanon (or even a provisional state located in one of these nations) all options open, and without the conflict-feeding suffering forced upon Palestinians in the interim.
In short, an emigration pathway is a necessary prerequisite to any accountable Palestinian government.
But more importantly, emigration is one of the few ways to support the first ideology of helping Palestinians in many ways, while at the same time, it moves the second (conquest) ideology further from Jerusalem, weakening it. It splits the two intertwined ideologies right along their fulcrum. Those concerned about the “occupation,” or “open air prison,” or “genocide,” or Palestinians being stateless can be satisfied by Palestinian freedom and finding these things elsewhere. And as such, the goal of genuine interest in helping Palestinians is divided from the goal of conquest of Israel, on the ideological level, globally.
Why the Arabs resist resolution
If Palestinians who wish to leave voluntarily could do so, the hostages would be released tomorrow with no preconditions. Hamas would have to kill Palestinians to try to prevent them from leaving, and would destroy its own ideological support base in the process. That’s the end, not of Hamas soldiers or Hamas leaders, but Hamas the invisible, bulletproof, intangible ideology; not by a bomb, but by an emigration process.
Of course, after October 7th, the Arabs’ primary demand to the Biden Administration was to prevent any Palestinians from leaving Gaza. Remember the uproar over Rafah? The Arabs feared Israel would open Egypt’s border to the Sinai, which Egypt sealed immediately. Trump should be well prepared for Arabs to unite to resist any economic pressure, as we saw that even Abraham Accord signatory the UAE committed $35 billion dollars to bail out flailing Egypt economically so it wouldn’t have to negotiate with Israel on border policy. There may be nothing more backward than building up Egypt’s western Mediterranean coast with enough money to build a nation, just to avoid building in the Sinai, just to avoid helping Palestinians.
The Arabs will argue it’s genocide if the Palestinians stay, and ethnic cleansing and another “Naqba” if they leave. Logically they can’t have it both ways, but because their resistance is ideological, they will fight to preserve the moral paradox that feeds their ideology. The Arabs will oppose any Palestinian leaving, even to other countries, not for the Palestinians’ sake or out of the kindness of their hearts, but because diversity of ideology in the Palestinian subgroup directly threatens the broader Arab 480-million-strong supergroup ideology. A solution would mean the Arabs can no longer point to the Palestinian cause for all the societal, political, and economic dynamics they derive from that conflict.
Trump’s Trump Card
Trump is not limited to economic pressure on Egypt and Jordan…and Lebanon. We’ve seen the result of Israel returning land to them, and maybe that land is better as Palestinian land.
Trump brings to light the world’s inexplicably-backwards policies. The Arab position is untenable, to say what the Palestinians themselves want doesn’t matter, and they should be forced to stay there and suffer to continue the broader Arab “cause”. The self-contradictory Arab position that simultaneously both Palestinians do not want to leave, and shouldn’t be allowed to, can’t survive logic. The more Trump brings light to the real issue, the more Trump wins, Israel wins, and Palestinian choice wins. All that was missing was a President with the courage to say it. And maybe “free Palestine” should be “free the Palestinians”.
Trump ultimately wins because he has a more true story to tell. The reason the Arabs lost the “Naqba”, and lost the 6-Day War, and lost the Yom Kippur War, and why Palestinians suffer, and why Lebanon faces endless conflict, and why Haniyah and Sinwar and Nasrallah are all gone, is because the Arab anti-Israel ideology violates the language of their own Quran. The Quran, like the Bible and Torah, explicitly gives the land of Israel to the Jewish people, stating, “And [remember] when Moses said to his people: ‘O my people, call in remembrance the favour of God unto you, when he produced prophets among you, made you kings, and gave to you what He had not given to any other among the peoples. O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.‘” [Qur’an 5:20-21]
Arab states that refuse Palestinian refugees and force them to stay to continue the conflict against Israel not only harm Palestinians, but violate the Quran, which states unequivocally, “And thereafter We [Allah] said to the Children of Israel: ‘Dwell securely in the Promised Land” [Qur’an 17:104] Forcing them to stay in conflict with Israel is not allowing Israel to dwell securely. The Israeli Embassy in Singapore posted these words in 2024, but was pressured to immediately take it down. Why these words are not on every billboard in Israel I may never understand.
Ultimately, the Arab states refusing Palestinian refugees and continuing the conflict by that policy are violating the truth inside the holiest book inside every Arab house. And in the Middle East, there is always another group that is more Islamic, ready to overthrow any leadership that doesn’t follow the literal Quran.
Trump need only find and whisper the truth as the world is not allowed to…as he tends to. And that’s why he holds…the Trump card.