In the first Diwan roundtable, Carnegie senior fellow Yezid Sayigh speaks with Joost Hiltermann, program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, and Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The participants address a topic that has gained prominence since the beginning of the Gaza war on October 7, namely whether Israel intends to use the ongoing conflict to forcibly transfer Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank to Egypt and Jordan, respectively, and whether such an outcome is even feasible, politically. In particular, what would the repercussions be for Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan? How might the United States react? The participants cover this and other related issues in their discussion, which was held on December 4.
Transcript of the Video
Yezid Sayigh [0:00]
It has become common in Israel since the 7th of October to advocate transferring large numbers of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials initially spoke of a temporary displacement to allow delivery of humanitarian assistance.
But government ministers, agencies, and parliamentarians have since produced plans for the permanent emptying of Gaza of all its inhabitants and their resettlement in Sinai or around the world. The rise of far-right nationalist parties in Israeli politics and government and the increasingly aggressive behavior of armed Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem was already fueling fear among Palestinians of a mass expulsion long before the 7th of October. Since then, calls have redoubled among Israelis for inflicting a so-called Nakba-2 on Palestinians: this is a reference to the mass exile of a majority of Palestinians during the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
But how likely are these fears—Palestinian fears and the fears of others around the world—of a mass expulsion? How likely are these to materialize, forcibly expelling hundreds or even tens of thousands of people, let alone the 5 million Palestinians living under Israeli occupation since 1967? [The expulsion] would involve a huge and difficult logistical undertaking that is far easier to talk about than to implement. This is partly why far-right Israeli ministers, such as Finance Minister [Bezalel] Smotrich and parliamentarians, have sugarcoated calls for expulsion, with references to voluntary transfer and international participation in resettlement.
More importantly, Egypt and Jordan, which would necessarily be the target host countries for any mass exodus and which both have peace treaties and formal diplomatic relations with Israel, they both perceive a massive threat in Israeli calls for a mass transfer, a threat to their socioeconomic [and] political stability and, therefore, to their national security. Unlike the situation in 1992, when Israeli forces dumped several hundred Hamas and Islamic Jihad cadres in an ungoverned no man’s land in southern Lebanon, expulsion from Gaza or the West Bank would be forcible not only for the Palestinians being removed, but also for the sovereign governments of Egypt and Jordan and for their armed forces along the borders. Without their prior consent, forcibly transferring significant numbers of Palestinians to their territory could be tantamount to an act of war. And finally, the United States administration has stated its explicit opposition to the displacement of the Palestinian population of Gaza, let alone its resettlement in Egypt or elsewhere—and would doubtless do the same were the focus to shift to the West Bank and Jordan
To discuss all this, I am joined by Joost Hiltermann, program director for the Middle East and North Africa program at the International Crisis Group, and by Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies (Middle East Program) at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. So, given the above background, I’ve got three questions for each of you. First, it might be worth understanding what, briefly, the arrival of a few hundred thousand Palestinians, let alone millions, would mean for each of Egypt and Jordan. Joost, why don’t I come to you first?
Joost Hiltermann [03:46]
Well, thank you Yezid. I think the impact would be different for each country, mainly because Egypt has something like strategic depth, if you want to call it that, in the shape of the Sinai Peninsula. In other words, if Palestinians in large masses were to be expelled to, or quote unquote, [were to] voluntarily move to Jordan, they couldn’t really stay in the Jordan Valley, but would immediately move throughout urban Jordan, especially because they have family in these places. And this, the impact, would be noticeable immediately and would, of course, apart from the economic impact, also potentially destabilize Jordan significantly.
Egypt would be a bit different because Egypt doesn’t have a prior Palestinian population of any significance. And the Sinai desert, I can’t say it’s empty–it obviously has its own local population—but there are lots of empty spaces. And so, if economically, Egypt could take care of these people, maybe with help from the outside, it could host people in tents for quite some time without that necessarily destabilizing Egypt economically or even politically. But it’s clear that Egypt doesn’t countenance such a scenario. [Egypt] doesn’t want it to happen at all because in the end, Egypt doesn’t want to be responsible for sort of accommodating the second Nakba and of course, neither does Jordan, so the resistance will be huge.
Yezid Sayigh [05:40]
Marwan.
Marwan Muasher [05:41]
So, in addition to what you said, Yezid, for Jordan the problem is much greater than Egypt. One, as Joost said, we don’t have strategic depth. Two, we already have a large number of refugees, Syrian refugees, Iraqi refugees, and the country’s resources, particularly in terms of water, for example, cannot take the already existing population in the country, let alone having to take a few hundred thousand Palestinians.
But the problem for Jordan is [also] much bigger than this. It is an identity issue. For Jordan, the addition of even a few thousand, 200,000 Palestinian refugees is going to place more pressure on the issue of “Who is a Jordanian,” which has already not been settled 70 years or more after Palestinians who came in 1948 [the year of the Nakba] were given Jordanian citizenship. It also is of concern to Jordan because of Jordan’s fear, longstanding fear, that the problem, the Palestinian problem, might be solved by Israel at Jordan’s expense, creating an alternative homeland for Palestinians and claiming that Jordan is Palestine. And so, for Jordan, it will do everything it can to prevent the admission of these Palestinian refugees into Jordan, not only because it cannot take more refugees, but because [in] doing so, Jordan feels [it] serves Israel’s purpose of emptying the Palestinian population, or Palestinian territories of their population, and trying to establish a homeland in Jordan.
Yezid Sayigh [07:39]
Thanks. So, given the sort of threats and challenges that mass transfer or expulsion of Palestinians into Egypt or Jordan would represent for those two countries, what options do their governments have to prevent forcible expulsion of any significant numbers of Palestinians to their territory? I mean, if preemptive diplomacy fails, at some point, and they find themselves confronted with this scenario, what can they actually do? Do they have feasible means for physically preventing entry? Is it realistic to envisage either the Egyptian government or the Jordanian government reinforcing their military deployment along the common border with Israel, or with the Palestinian occupied territories controlled by Israel, in the case of Gaza and the West Bank, as a means of deterring Israel from such action? And given the limits set by their own peace treaties with Israel, which limit military deployment along the borders, would they have the possibility of increasing their military presence to a credible level, let’s say, along the border, potentially exceeding the limit set due to the exceptional circumstances? You know, would they be, permitted within the constraints of these treaties and of diplomatic sort of norms? What can Egyptian and Jordanian diplomacy do in order to preempt this scenario altogether, or to contain it, should it materialize?
And I’ll just tack on there a reminder that the latest we’ve heard from Israeli sources is that they anticipate military operations in Gaza continuing for at least another year. And so, whatever we think the limits are today, we could see that [the] commitment to upholding the peace treaty could crumble, certainly among those Israelis who are pushing for a mass, so-called transfer. So again, what options do Egypt and Jordan actually have, whether diplomatically or in terms of signaling military deterrent or any other means? How can they try and preempt or block this scenario?
[Crosstalk] Marwan, please, go ahead, yes.
Marwan Muasher [10:04]
A couple of points first. One, the Jordan-Israel peace treaty has a clause that explicitly prevents each country from mass transfer of any, you know, population side into the other country. So basically, if Israel attempts to do this to Jordan, it would be violating the peace treaty. That’s the first point I want to make.
The second point is that mass transfer is not a far-out idea anymore as we used to think, you know, after 6.5 million Syrians left Syria, after 6 million Ukrainians left Ukraine, as a result of war conditions. We can no longer say that there are logistical problems that prevent people from leaving. And the third point I want to make is that Palestinians themselves, we need to understand, are not like the Palestinians of 1948. They understand fully that if they leave their land they will not go back. And we have so far seen a resilience on [the] part of the people of Gaza that is admirable. Despite all the challenges, despite all the deaths, no one is queuing [up] on the Egyptian border.
Having said that, suppose there are conditions that on the West Bank—and I admittedly say these are more difficult than those in Gaza and might take some time before they materialize—but suppose we are faced with a situation in which hundreds of thousands of people are on the border, first of all, of course, Jordan’s preferred discourse is preemptive diplomacy and Jordan has been very active in such diplomacy in the last few weeks. And today, in my view, the issue of mass transfer has been put on the radar screen of the international community, whereas it was not the case even a short while ago. So, I think Jordan, Egypt, and others have succeeded in at least pointing out the dangers, to the point that the U.S. administration itself has publicly declared its position against mass transfer.
But coming to the core point, suppose in the end that we have few hundred thousand Palestinians on the border, and remember, these [people] have relatives in Jordan, most of them have relatives in Jordan, I think that there is a widespread consensus in the country among East Bankers and Jordanians of Palestinian origin that the borders should remain closed. And that is a popular decision. It is not a position that is seen as being insensitive to Palestinian suffering, but rather a position that is seen as one that prevents Israel from attempting to empty Palestinian land of its inhabitants.
Yezid Sayigh [13:34]
Thanks, Marwan. Joost, what’s your take on this?
Joost Hiltermann [13:36]
So, there is the diplomatic side, as you mentioned Yezid, and to build on what Marwan has said: There is a worst-case scenario, and the worst-case scenario is that countries cannot actually prevent hundreds of thousands of desperate people streaming into their territory from the area where they are being fired at and being massacred. So, and I think that scenario is not about to happen in Jordan, obviously, but in the longer term that could transpire. In the case of Egypt, it could happen fairly soon actually, if Israel is allowed and does press on with its military campaign. And that presents Egypt with a dilemma because, on the one hand, it has widespread Arab [support], at least, but beyond that [international] support to not let Palestinians into Egypt, and it clearly doesn’t want that to happen. At the same time, to prevent masses of desperate people from entering Egypt by, for example, positioning soldiers and shooting at these desperate people would also not be acceptable to the international public, including in the Arab world.
So, what do you do in the end? You have to let them in and [you have] to take care of them. So that, to me, is the worst-case scenario and it is realistic. It is not the most likely scenario because we come to the diplomatic side of things. And we see that, so, first of all, the United States has drawn a line, but we don’t know how firm that line will be when push comes to shove, and we’ve seen that that Arab states have drawn the same line. So, for all of that, Israel is on notice not to attempt such a feat, but it doesn’t mean it won’t try because in the end it’s a cost-benefit analysis. And [Israel] may well decide that the peace treaty with Egypt is not worth it anymore, or even the peace treaty with Jordan, and why, because meanwhile it is forging peace treaties with the Arab Gulf states. And it’s actually leapfrogging over Jordan and Egypt with which it has a cold peace for decades. So, why not go to those states?
So, I think the burden is going to fall not only on the United States and European governments, but on the Gulf Arab governments to warn Israel that this is a red line, because obviously the impact of a mass influx of people into Egypt or Jordan would be great even in the Gulf because these states, Egypt and Jordan, cannot sustain such an influx economically or politically. And if they become destabilized, you will see a domino effect. And obviously, just like the Arab Gulf states were frightened by the popular uprising in 2011 in Egypt, they’re going to be frightened by anything else that is going to severely destabilize the Egyptian regime, because it will affect them.
Yezid Sayigh [16:58]
Well yes, Joost, you’ve brought us back to the broader regional and international political diplomatic context and that leads very nicely to my final set of questions, which has specifically to do with what the United States in particular, and with it potentially other external powers, might do to help head off this kind of scenario.
Now, after some initial hesitation on the issue, United States President Joe Biden has formally opposed any transfer of Palestinians from Gaza, or their resettlement elsewhere, and has insisted on their ability to return to their homes, including in northern Gaza, once combat is over. And presumably, President Biden would adopt a similar position, should a similar threat of expulsion or transfer, dislocation emerge regarding the West Bank and East Jerusalem into Jordan. But Joe Biden might not still be in office in a year’s time, and his possible successor, Donald Trump, might be less invested in the national security concerns of Egypt and Jordan, let alone in upholding international norms. And indeed, with the rise of right-wing populist leaders and parties across the West, can the ability of an international rules-based order—much-touted but already in tatters—how able is this supposed order to prevent a Nakba-2? Can we assume that anymore? How confident are you, either of you, that the international system still offers sufficient defense against the expulsionist agenda of the Israeli far-right?
Marwan Muasher [19:03]
I’m not confident at all. If President Trump wins the White House, all bets are off. I mean, we just have to rethink the whole conflict again. So, I’m not confident, Yezid. We have seen the international community accept 6.5 million Syrians; we have seen the international community accept 6 million Ukrainians as refugees. So naturally, we can expect the worst.
My own view, though, is that if President Trump—and I’m talking about the West Bank primarily here, not Egypt—if Trump wins the White House again, you know, we are nowhere near seeing a mass transfer of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan in one year’s time. This is something that might happen over time, but not immediately. Trump is going to probably, you know, suggest again his deal of the century, which is basically killing the two-state solution, killing any prospects of a negotiated settlement, and, you know, resulting in a new situation where we have to deal with the issue of rights and a one-state apartheid reality. That’s what we will have to deal with. We are already dealing with that with Biden, but, you know, President Biden in a second term might offer, might offer, a political process. It might not be a serious or a credible one in my view, but I think that if he wins the White House again, this administration is going to look for a political process out of the war on Gaza. If Trump comes, forget it. His view of a political process is Israel annexing 30 percent of the West Bank, and the rest is to be negotiated between Palestinians and Israelis. No Palestinian side is going to accept this or come to the negotiation statement.
So, the second point I want to make is one that I’ve made before. I do think that the Palestinians are serious about not leaving. And maybe the situation is different in Egypt, in Gaza, than in the West Bank, where in Gaza they are being, you know, already bombed to almost total destruction; in the West Bank, we do not see this happening in such a massive scale. What we are seeing in the West Bank is settler groups, aided by the Israeli army, going into Palestinian communities and ordering them out in an ethnic cleansing sort of way, but in a slow manner, not in a, so far, mass manner. So, the problem for Jordan, even if Trump wins, is going to be more protracted than is the case in Egypt, in my view.
Yezid Sayigh [22:24]
Joost, what’s your take on this?
Joost Hiltermann [22:27]
Basically, Marwan has said everything about this. I could just add that the plan of those in Israel who want to effect a transfer of Palestinians out of Palestine—and we know they exist, and they have been vocal for a long time and have become empowered more recently, so they’re there—what they probably envisioned was some kind of international context in which they could implement such a plan. And in the meantime, they would incrementally build towards it. And I think they were mostly looking at the West Bank because they want to incorporate the West Bank into Israel, annex it, and then deal with the local population one way or another—either try to encourage them to leave, or to subject them to an apartheid kind of rule. But if you have some kind of international conflict in the Middle East for whatever reason, or a broader one, you have World War III, whatever (if anyone were to survive World War III), but that would be the kind of international context in which you can implement such plans at the local level. And, so I think that was always the plan
But there was actually a second way as well, and we didn’t realize it until now, which is that in a way, Hamas has precipitated that question, put it in the forefront, because it gave the opportunity to Israel to retaliate in a massive way, apparently unrestrained by Western exhortations to stick to the rules of war until now. And so actually, Israel may accomplish in Gaza what it is hoping to do in the West Bank, and certainly wouldn’t mind doing it in Gaza—it’s made that clear—and so we’ll see if it will be able to get away with it.
But the other thing, the other aspect of it is that the international order, which would have to break down completely in order to make this possible, is actually breaking down when you talk about the rules-based order, Yezid, and that is eroding, and that also would make any resistance to such plans much weaker. And so, on the Israeli side, those again who want to implement such a plan could now speed it up. And you see that the settlers going around in the West Bank, who are fully supported by the Israeli state, are essentially pyromaniacs walking around with gas cans in order to make life miserable, even more than it already has been for 56 years of military occupation, for the local Palestinian population. And so, it is not strange to think that the people, even though they are set on staying on the land—you know, the concept of sumud [steadfastness] is built into the Palestinian DNA—but that sooner or later, young people, especially who want to develop themselves, will try to leave, at least for their studies as they have in the past, and will not be able to come back, because Israel will block them more systematically. So, all that is to say that these plans exist, they have long existed, and I think the opportunity for implementing them is coming closer and closer, and incrementally we’re seeing more and more efforts in this direction.
Yezid Sayigh [26:10]
Well, I want to add one sort of final quick question/thought, then drawing on what both of you have been saying. I mean, for the time being and despite the erosion of the international rules-based order, it looks like the limits, the restraints on options for the mass expulsion of Palestinians will continue for the foreseeable future to prevent Israeli state authorities from officially adopting this kind of plan, whatever far-right parties or armed settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem try to do. Now, we have a situation where the international community seems unable to put its shoulder to producing a two-state solution, and that was I think the gist clearly of what Marwan said. At the same time, if Egypt and Jordan are able to preempt the entry of large numbers of Palestinians from the occupied territories into their territories, then we’re left with a situation where Palestinians still have no meaningful autonomy and control over their own lives within the West Bank and East Jerusalem, whereas [with] the Palestinians in Gaza—if Israel continues to destroy Hamas and its ability to govern Gaza—we end up with a large number of people in Gaza who in effect have no government of any kind. So, in each context we have, in addition to a lot of misery, a situation that is basically being brought to the boil endlessly, but with no exit, with no valve through which all this pressure can be relieved. Where do you see that going? I mean, you’ve both hinted at where you see things going. You’ve both referred to the kind of far-right ultranationalist agendas in Israel, to the increased violence. But we sort of tend to think about that in the here and now - over the last few months, over the last year we’ve seen it rise. If you project forwards, what’s this going to look like in a year’s time, let’s say once presumably the Israeli military operation in Gaza is actually over? What’s this going to look like?
Joost Hiltermann [28:31]
[Cross talk] it depends. Go ahead, Marwan.
Yezid Sayigh [28:33]
No, why don’t we … Joost, let’s come to you this time.
Joost Hiltermann [28:37]
Okay, sorry. Well, we sort of all, we, first of all, don’t know how the military operation in Gaza will end. So, will it end tomorrow because the United States says enough is enough? We’ve seen in a statement by Lloyd Austin already that Israel may be headed toward a strategic failure by proceeding to attack civilians in Gaza. And sooner or later, I think, President Biden may have to give in to the pressure of his own senior aids, who seem to have a better sense of the risks that Israel is exposing itself to in its military operation at the moment, than he [Biden] is.
So, things could change. But also, Biden could win reelection. It’s really too far out to predict these things. But, and I agree with Marwan that he [President Biden] in a second term may be willing and able to work toward some kind of resuscitation of the peace process. I’m very skeptical about the possibility of a two-state solution at this point, if we mean, without the construction of a viable Palestinian state. But in any case, the effort itself could be important. But keep in mind also that for now, there are 7 million Palestinians in the land between the river and the sea, mostly in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. You don’t just get rid of 7 million people. You know, it just doesn’t work. And even if in the current fighting in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians leave, let’s say, that still leaves 6 million people, that’s still a huge number. And so, I think the notion that Palestinians have, which I referred to earlier, of steadfastness, of wanting to stay on the land at almost any price, is going to make the difference for quite some time, but it will not be without major suffering, that’s clear.
Yezid Sayigh [30:53]
Thanks, and Marwan, last word.
Marwan Muasher [30:56]
I think, Yezid, if I’m to project sort of one year ahead, I would say it is safe to assume that we’re not going to have this Israeli government. It is safe to assume that we will have a different Israeli government, which is not going to be more flexible on the peace process, but it will at least not include the far-right elements that we have today. I mean, Smotrich, according to the polls, might not even make the threshold to go into the next Knesset, which means it will at least rob Israel of the excuse to affect a mass transfer, at least in the short term, if we have a different Israeli government. That’s the first point I want to make.
I think the most likely scenario is, as you said, even if Biden wins and a peace process is started, it is probably going to be along the lines of the old peace processes—open-ended, no endgame in sight, no definition of the endgame, etc. We all know where that went in the past. My prediction is that we are going to see continued violence, continued armed resistance in the West Bank, not just in Gaza. We forget that, of course, armed resistance in the West Bank started almost a year before Gaza, before October 7th, you know, with what I call a third Intifada, in which you have young people, leaderless, who have no hope for a political settlement, who are taking arms in their own hands and shooting. And I think we’re going to stay in this period for quite some time, until the demographic factor kicks in, in an obvious manner. And as you said, we have seven, seven point something [million] Palestinians today, and it is clear that in ten- or twenty-years’ time they are going to become a clear, clear majority. They already are a slight majority today, but I’m afraid that we are not going to be looking at a political settlement anytime soon.
Yezid Sayigh [33:20]
Well, I want to thank both of you, Marwan Muasher, Joost Hiltermann, for your reflections on this crucial topic. I’m Yezid Sayigh, senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, and thank you for taking part in this panel.
