Leading Arab nations issued a joint statement on Feb. 1 forcefully rejecting President Donald Trump’s call to relocate millions of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries. “Just clean out that whole thing,” Trump had stated, saying he would “get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing [for Gaza’s population of 2.3 million] in a different location where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change.”
After a Feb. 1 meeting in Cairo of top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the Palestinian Authority, and Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit, a joint statement was issued saying that they “firmly rejected... the displacement of Palestinians through direct expulsion or coerced migration,” warning that such plans “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples.” They added that they hope to work with Trump to “achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, based on the two-state solution” between Israel and Palestine.
