Trump's Gaza Resettlement Plan Involves Coercion Against Jordan and Egypt: Implications and extent of the U.S. leverage.

Trump pushing for extremely unjust policies requires a reliance on coercion and hard power.

• Last week we discussed how in future posts we would outline the precise mechanics of Trump's radical and unjust plan to permanently resettle Palestinians and build his Riviera in Gaza.

• Well, things are now falling in place, starting to fall in place, as Trump has indicated in his Fox News interview that those Palestinians moved out of Gaza will not be resettled back after the reconstruction. So the plan is really as brutal and as unjust as it sounds.

• A basic brutish land grab where residents who have an actual right to sovereignty are being kicked out of their lands permanently.

• Now, the main question then becomes, how exactly could Trump accomplish this? Well, there are two obstacles to this plan, or rather there are two proximate obstacles, direct obstacles.

• One is Hamas, who will be fighting back, and two, millions of Palestinians who will either try to defy their forceful resettlement or cause some other kind of damage or interference with these plans.

• In other words, they will either refuse to move out and subject themselves to extreme violence or they will cause havoc anywhere they go.

• Now, the first order of things is of course to destroy Hamas.

• And over the weekend, we already saw how Netanyahu declared that peace can only happen if Hamas is eradicated fully.

• Now, that Hamas shouldn't be playing any political role in the future of Gaza is a reality that we support.

• And in fact, these cables have been saying for a long time that a proper Palestinian state cannot be possible with Hamas in its leadership.

• But, what Netanyahu is trying to accomplish here is not a Palestinian state where a moderate group can govern.

• No..He wants to simply eradicate the only fighting force left, two Palestinian people.

• And Hamas is the obstacle, and he promised to eradicate it, saying that Trump is aligned.

• Fast forward a few days, and at the beginning of this week, Trump said that if hostages are not returned by upcoming Saturday, Israel should refuse to abide by the deal, and warned that “all hell” would break out if they refuse to give back hostages.

• (side note: Hamas paused transfer of hostages or delayed their transfer, because they alleged Israeli violation of the peace deal terms, which in itself looked like a trap set by Netanyahu that Hamas fell into)

• Now, to an observer who now knows the endgame is different from last year's endgame (where the goal was to rebuild Gaza and find a way to establish a permanent mutual authority and a pathway to Palestinian state), seeing the new developments sure sounds like an excuse to eradicate Hamas, to restart military operations, and to destroy the remaining remnants of Hamas in Gaza.

• But what about the second part of the equation?

• Millions of Palestinians will have to go somewhere.

• Now, here is where Jordan and Egypt come in.

• Unfortunately, by the virtue of being neighbors of Israel, they are the closest countries where Palestinians can be displaced into.

• Now, needless to say, this is an existential crisis for both countries.

• The public opinion in both Egypt and in Jordan is vehemently opposed to this.

• They will see it not only as a betrayal of Palestinian cause, but it will also show that the respective regimes are weak in the face of external resistance, and that they cannot even stand up for core Arab interests.

• Under such conditions, these regimes will lose their already thin legitimacy.

• In addition, absorbing millions of refugees will come with extreme economic and social costs.

• These two are by no means rich countries.

• The livable areas in these countries are actually quite limited in both Egypt and Jordan.

• Jordan is already small, and in Egypt, everything is essentially coalesced around the Cairo area, where buildings are already fully occupied and it's very dense.

• The only realistic area for resettlement would be the Sinai Peninsula, which is already rife with possibilities for terrorism and re-emergence of terrorist activities.

• In any case, suffice it to say, both Egypt’s President El-Sisi and the King of Jordan will see this as an unacceptable move.

• They simply will see this as something that would put their regimes under extreme strain and risk of being toppled.

• So, what's Trump's answer to this?

• He threatened to cut aid to both Jordan and Egypt.

• It is time to unpack just how much leverage US enjoys over both countries via economic dependence - and whether this would be enough to make them swallow such an extreme political outcome rife with risks to their regime.

U.S. leverage over Egypt and Jordan: financial and military aid.