Arab Americans for Trump chair blasts president’s ‘wild’ call to relocate Gazans
Bishara Bahbah says Palestinians need not leave Gaza for reconstruction to take place, suggests relocation idea was by aides who are far more hawkish than the president
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
The chairman of a group that lobbied Arab and Muslim Americans to vote for Donald Trump in the recent election came out strongly on Sunday against the US president’s call for Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians from war-torn Gaza.
“We categorically reject the president’s suggestion that the Palestinians in Gaza be moved — apparently forcefully — to either Egypt or Jordan,” Arab Americans for Trump chairman Bishara Bahbah told The Times of Israel.
“What the Palestinians need right now is a continuation of the ceasefire, more aid, a reconstruction plan and for the Palestinian Authority to take over the Gaza Strip,” he said.
“We don’t need wildish claims or statements relating to the fate of the Palestinians. The only resolution to the Israel-Palestine question is a two-state solution. Period,” added Bahbah, who did not provide his organization’s size but insisted that it played a central role in electing Trump and represents a majority of the views of the 3.8 million Arab Americans.
After this story was published, Sam Yono, an Iraqi-American community activist asserted to The Times of Israel that Bahbah “only represents himself, not the Arab-Americans who worked with the Trump campaign in Michigan.”
Asked for his thoughts on Trump’s comments regarding Gaza, Yono acknowledged that he wasn’t particularly familiar with the issue but that he trusted the president’s judgement.
Trump did win a plurality of the Arab and Muslim vote in Michigan, flipping a swing state that former US president Joe Biden won in 2020.
While Trump told reporters Saturday the relocation of Palestinians that he currently envisions could be temporary, Bahbah doesn’t buy that would be the case. “There is nothing that is temporary.”
“This is not what we voted for as Arab Americans for Trump,” he said, adding that his group still greatly appreciates Trump’s effort in securing the long-elusive Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.
“He promised us an end to the wars, a lasting peace in the Middle East, which is satisfactory to all parties,” Bahbah continued. “This might be satisfactory to [far-right Israeli lawmakers Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich, but it’s not satisfactory to the Palestinians and the Arabs.”
Asked how the idea Trump raised may have come about, he speculated that Trump saw pictures of Gaza’s devastation and determined that it needed to be “swept from end to end.”
However, Bahbah argued the reconstruction process could be done gradually and that Palestinians need not be forced to leave the Strip for it to take place.
He claimed that Trump’s advisers are far “more hawkish” than the president and are counseling him accordingly.
“They’re absolutely hawkish to the point where they’ve told me not to talk to them about a two-state solution and to come up with any other alternative. But there is none,” Bahbah asserted.
He declined to name the aforementioned aides, but his group put out a separate statement saying many of Trump’s Arab and Muslim appointees are “old timers who played little role in his reelection or who are little aware of the communities’ priorities and concerns.”
“The president has said to me that he supports a two-state solution. He has also said that he doesn’t care whether it’s one state or two states, but apparently, some of these advisors are getting to him and putting ideas in his mind,” he maintained.
The Arab Americans for Trump chair speculated that pushback from Egypt, Jordan, the PA and the international community will lead to the shelving of Trump’s proposal.
Both Jordan and the PA quickly denounced the proposal.
“But if he doubles down, the Arab world has money to make up for US aid,” Bahbah added, referring to the massive amounts of aid that Washington provides to Egypt and Jordan that could well be used as leverage to coax them into taking in Palestinians.
Trump said Saturday that he’d like to see Jordan, Egypt and other Arab nations increase the number of Palestinian refugees they are accepting from the Gaza Strip — potentially moving out enough of the population to “just clean out” the war-torn area and create a virtual clean slate.
The proposal has to date been a red line for Arab states, particularly Jordan and Egypt, which have viewed the mass migration of Palestinians to their countries as a potential existential threat. They have pointed to Israel’s refusal to publicly commit to allowing any Palestinians who leave the Strip to later return, and don’t want to be seen as complicit in an exile of Palestinians.
The fear of being unable to return has also deterred many Palestinians from leaving. Over 100,000 Gazans did succeed in entering Egypt, though they were forced to pay exorbitant to do so and have largely not received any assistance upon arrival, as Cairo refuses to recognize them as refugees.
The Biden administration also initially considered the idea of temporarily relocating some of the population early on in the war, as it sought to move Palestinians out of harm’s way, but so adamant were Jordan and Egypt in their refusal that it quickly shelved the notion.
But Trump, known for often snubbing traditional foreign policy norms, sought to bring back the idea of mass Palestinian migration to neighboring countries on Saturday as his new administration tries to sustain the nascent ceasefire in Gaza and plan for the Strip’s reconstruction, while over two million people remain in a territory overwhelmingly destroyed by the past 15 months of war.
During a 20-minute question-and-answer session with reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump described Gaza as a “demolition site” after the Israel-Hamas war. He said he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about the issue and expected to talk to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Sunday.
The White House readout on the call with the Jordanian monarch was light on details, saying the pair “discussed the importance of regional peace, security, and stability.”
Trump filled in some of the details on Air Force One, saying he had told Abdullah, “I’d love you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess, it’s a real mess. I’d like him to take people.”
When asked if this was a temporary or long-term suggestion, Trump said: “Could be either.”
“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. You know, over the centuries it’s had many, many conflicts, that site. And I don’t know, something has to happen,” Trump said.
In October, during his presidential campaign, the former real estate developer said that war-torn Gaza could be “better than Monaco” if it were “rebuilt the right way.”
“It’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything is demolished and people are dying there,” Trump said in his Saturday comments. “So I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
