As Jordan’s King Abdullah meets Trump, can he resist US pressure on Gaza?
Jordan’s King Abdullah II is set to meet with United States President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, amid the latter’s repeated insistence that the monarch accept Palestinians he would like to expel from Gaza so the US can take control of the enclave.
The idea came up in Trump’s comments – made alongside a smiling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week – that Palestinians should be “removed” from the devastated Gaza Strip. Trump has emphasised that, to his mind, the Palestinians would not return, making his ideas ethnic cleansing.
Jordan rejects the idea.
Trump’s comments were condemned not only by Jordan but also Egypt, which Trump also said should “take” Palestinians from Gaza, as well as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
However, Trump said US financial support for Jordan and Egypt would force their hand.
“If they don’t agree, I would conceivably withhold aid,” Trump said on Monday, the day before meeting King Abdullah.
A red line
US financial backing for Jordan is important – the country was the fourth-highest recipient of US foreign aid in 2023, with $1.72bn. But accepting the uprooting of millions of Palestinians from Gaza would be a political non-starter for Amman, according to analysts.
“Accepting another wave of Palestinians into the country remains a red line,” Dima Toukan, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera. “The king will not budge on this matter.”
King Abdullah, a longtime US ally, has been under pressure internationally and domestically since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.
Jordan’s position as a key regional ally to the US and a trade partner with Israel has angered its overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian population, which also includes at least 2 million Palestinian refugees and Jordanians of Palestinian origin.
Any acceptance of Trump’s ideas, which have been likened to the Nakba in which 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed by Zionist gangs to declare the state of Israel in 1948, would be a recipe for domestic unrest and challenge the monarchy’s legitimacy.
Protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 61,700 Palestinians, have taken place in Amman for much of the last 16 months.
While they have calmed since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Jordanians took to the streets again on Friday to protest against the idea of Trump displacing Palestinians from Gaza into Jordan.
“Jordanians were clear with their messages during protests on Friday,” Toukan said.
Anger can quickly lead to instability: An attack in September by a Jordanian killed three Israeli border guards.
“My sense is that the king is conveying a very urgent message that Trump’s disastrous ‘plan’ is effectively going to destroy Jordan,” Sean Yom, an associate professor of political science at Temple University, said.
