How Trump’s fever dream over Gaza could be a nightmare for the West

The US president’s threats to cut aid to Jordan and Egypt risk further war – and may offer China and Russia easy gains, warns world affairs editor Sam Kiley

Donald Trump’s latest outburst on Gaza demanding that Hamas release all hostages held there by Saturday or there will be “hell to pay” is as mad as the threats to cut aid to Egypt and Jordan are dangerous – and will only empower America’s enemies.

The US president doesn’t have any capacity – that Israel doesn’t already possess – to make Hamas “pay” for not releasing the remaining hostages. His threats sit against the backdrop of a ceasefire deal that, for now, is barely holding.

If the ceasefire breaks down entirely, then Israel may continue to bombard the enclave. Trump has already given Benjamin Netanyahu carte blanche to do so – and has lifted Biden’s previous restrictions on supplying 2,000lb bombs.

It’s conceivable that Trump is threatening the unthinkable – that Gaza’s 2.3 million people will face attack not just by Israel but by the US (which, technically, could attack the Gaza Strip’s population with cruise missiles, bunker-busting bombs and even naval guns from the Mediterranean).

This would test the limits of the US constitution – it would be seen as an act of war, launched without congressional approval. His assault on the rest of the federal government, including the CIA and the Department of Defence, suggests that he doesn’t care to preserve the constitution he’s sworn to protect.

But even if he doesn’t wage war on Gaza, he is nevertheless still on the way to blowing up the Middle East and handing America’s power of influence and patronage to its rivals.

He is now threatening to cut aid to Egypt and Jordan unless they take in some 1.8 million people to live in “beautiful homes” that these desert nations are expected to build with imaginary “billions” from the US.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who is meeting with Trump in Washington, now faces the impossible challenge of explaining that this fever dream would end in chaos and war – and would be a considerable risk to the king himself. It should not fall to Abdullah to have to explain the dangers of the kingdom participating in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

His father, King Hussein, endured at least a dozen assassination attempts and insurrections during his 46 years on the throne. His father in turn, Abdullah I, was killed by a Palestinian inside the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Explaining the obvious dangers should come from Britain, which has deep ties to Jordan. These include personal relationships with the royal courts – plus enduring and intense political links. Jordan is a key player, perhaps the key player, for Britain in military and intelligence operations across the region.

Special forces and other covert operators use Jordan as a base for fighting Isis in Syria and for spying on Iranian militia in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Jordanian intelligence, shared with the US and the UK (and sometimes Israel) has been used to foil terror plots around the globe – and all the while, the kingdom has managed to keep political Islam at bay.

Jordan is already home to about 2.2 million people of Palestinian descent, most of whom have Jordanian citizenship. It is also hosting around 1.5 million Syrian refugees. Its total population is around 11.1 million.

Even if Trump offered Jordan “billions” to build “New Gaza” in the desert, Abdullah wouldn’t take it. He would – and will – refuse because to do so would be immoral. It would also be the end of the Hashemite Kingdom.

Modern Jordan has made peace with its huge Palestinian population, which once fought Israel from the east bank of the Jordan River. It also made peace with Israel in 1995. That deal was underwritten with financial and military aid. The US currently gives Jordan $1.72bn for this per year.

Jordan has no oil. It has very little water. It’s mostly desert. Abdullah relies on US – and other foreign aid – to underpin his economy to ensure stability, peace with Israel and to keep Isis and al-Qaeda ideology out of mainstream discussions.

A former special forces commander, who trained at Sandhurst, the monarch is popular. But he’s not invulnerable. It should not fall to him to spell this out and risk leaving Trump wailing with rage on the Oval Office floor.

Egypt has more heft in Washington. Its president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, killed his way to power and toppled a Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013. His appalling human rights record has been overlooked because Egypt also has a peace treaty with Israel.

In the West especially, accommodating Middle Eastern secular dictatorships is seen as preferable to the more incendiary Islamic doctrine of the Brotherhood.

Egypt can’t – and won’t – import a million Palestinians. It cannot afford to do so, politically. Those Palestinians, Cairo will reason, would bring with them the violent political Islam of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to combine as a toxic broth with the non-violent Muslim Brotherhood.

Trump has shown this year that when he says he’ll do something, he is not bluffing. He may, conceivably, be doubling down on his plan to cleanse Gaza of its indigenous people so that some other, milder, form of mass displacement seems more palatable.

But he appears to be deadly serious about adding Canada as another American state, invading or buying Greenland – and throttling Ukraine – too, which means he may cut aid to Jordan and Egypt. Both countries have already loudly rejected Trump’s Gaza redevelopment plan.

Egypt will have no qualms about looking elsewhere for military and financial help. Sisi needs only to pick up the phone and Beijing will be whipping out its chequebook and snapping up strategic control of the Suez Canal, Mediterranean ports and the Nile. These are assets, by the way, that Russia – which has lost its Syrian footprint – might equally like to get access to... and at a bargain price of a couple of billion.

Jordan is less likely to spin off into a Sino-Russian orbit. But the UK and Europe cannot afford to let Trump’s fantasies wreck the islands of stability that remain in the Middle East.

Trump’s America no longer represents the best interests of “the West” – that role must be taken up by London and Brussels.