Here is a have a look at what’s motivating Egypt’s and Jordan’s stances. A historical past of Displacement has been a significant theme of Palestinian historical past.
As determined Palestinians in sealed-off Gaza strive to discover refuge beneath Israel’s relentless bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’ brutal October 7 assault, some ask why neighbouring Egypt and Jordan don’t take them in.
The two international locations, which flank Israel on reverse sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal.
Jordan already has a big Palestinian inhabitants. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi made his hardest remarks but on Wednesday, saying the present struggle was not simply aimed toward combating Hamas, which guidelines the Gaza Strip, “but also an attempt to push the civilian inhabitants to … migrate to Egypt.” He warned this might wreck peace within the area.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II gave the same message a day earlier, saying, “No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.” Their refusal is rooted in worry that Israel needs to pressure a everlasting expulsion of Palestinians into their international locations and nullify Palestinian calls for for statehood.
El-Sissi additionally mentioned a mass exodus would threat bringing militants into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, from the place they may launch assaults on Israel, endangering the 2 international locations’ 40-year-old peace treaty.
Here is a have a look at what’s motivating Egypt’s and Jordan’s stances. A historical past of Displacement has been a significant theme of Palestinian historical past.
In the 1948 struggle round Israel’s creation, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians have been expelled or fled from what’s now Israel. Palestinians refer to the occasion because the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe.”
In the 1967 Mideast struggle, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 300,000 extra Palestinians fled, principally into Jordan. The refugees and their descendants now quantity almost 6 million, most dwelling in camps and communities within the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
The diaspora has unfold additional, with many refugees constructing lives in Gulf Arab international locations or the West. After the combating stopped within the 1948 struggle, Israel refused to enable refugees to return to their houses. Since then, Israel has rejected Palestinian calls for for a return of refugees as a part of a peace deal, arguing that it could threaten the nation’s Jewish majority.
Egypt fears historical past will repeat itself and a big Palestinian refugee inhabitants from Gaza will find yourself staying for good. No assure of return that’s partly as a result of there’s no clear state of affairs for the way this struggle will finish.
Israel says it intends to destroy Hamas for its bloody rampage in its southern cities. But it has given no indication of what would possibly occur afterwards and who would govern Gaza. That has raised issues that it’s going to reoccupy the territory for a interval, fueling additional battle.
The Israeli army mentioned Palestinians who adopted its order to flee northern Gaza to the strip’s southern half could be allowed again to their houses after the struggle ends. Egypt will not be reassured. El-Sissi mentioned combating might final for years if Israel argues it hasn’t sufficiently crushed militants.
He proposed that Israel home Palestinians in its Negev Desert, which neighbours the Gaza Strip till it ends its army operations. “Israel’s lack of clarity regarding its intentions in Gaza and the evacuation of the population is in itself problematic,” mentioned Riccardo Fabiani, Crisis Group International’s North Africa Project Director. “This confusion fuels fears in the neighbourhood.”
Egypt has pushed for Israel to enable humanitarian help into Gaza, and Israel mentioned on Wednesday that it could, although it did not say when. According to the United Nations, Egypt, which is coping with a spiralling financial disaster, already hosts some 9 million refugees and migrants, together with roughly 300,000 Sudanese who arrived this yr after fleeing their nation’s struggle.
But Arab international locations and many Palestinians additionally suspect Israel would possibly use this chance to pressure everlasting demographic adjustments to wreck Palestinian calls for for statehood in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which was additionally captured by Israel in 1967.
El-Sissi repeated warnings Wednesday that an exodus from Gaza was supposed to “eliminate the Palestinian cause … the most important cause of our region.” He argued that if a demilitarized Palestinian state had been created way back in negotiations, there wouldn’t be struggle now.“
All historical precedent points to the fact that when Palestinians are forced to leave Palestinian territory, they are not allowed to return back,” mentioned H.A. Hellyer, a senior affiliate fellow on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Egypt doesn’t want to be complicit in ethnic cleansing in Gaza.” Arab international locations’ fears have solely been stoked by the rise beneath Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of hard-right events that speak in constructive phrases about eradicating Palestinians. Since the Hamas assault, the rhetoric has turn into much less restrained, with some right-wing politicians and media commentators calling for the army to raze Gaza and drive out its inhabitants.
One lawmaker mentioned Israel ought to perform a “new Nakba” on Gaza. worries over Hamas on the identical time, Egypt says a mass exodus from Gaza would carry Hamas or different Palestinian militants onto its soil. That is likely to be destabilizing in Sinai, the place Egypt’s army fought for years towards Islamic militants and at one level accused Hamas of backing them.
Egypt has backed Israel’s blockade of Gaza since Hamas took over the territory in 2007, tightly controlling the entry of supplies and the passage of civilians again and forth. It additionally destroyed the community of tunnels beneath the border that Hamas and different Palestinians used to smuggle items into Gaza.
With the Sinai insurgency largely put down, “Cairo does not want to have a new security problem on its hands in this problematic region,” Fabiani mentioned. El-Sissi warned of an much more destabilizing state of affairs: the wrecking of Egypt and Israel’s 1979 peace deal. He mentioned that with the presence of Palestinian militants, Sinai “would become a base for attacks on Israel. Israel would have the right to defend itself … and would strike Egyptian territory.”
“The peace which we have achieved would vanish from our hands,” he mentioned, “all for the sake of the thought of eliminating the Palestinian trigger.”
