Trump faces a showdown with Jordan over the Gaza project

Donald Trump is expected to face intense resistance from Jordan’s King Abdullah in the White House today. At the first meeting since the US President proposed to move to Jordan.

A key US ally, Jordan has stepped on a tightrope walk between military and diplomatic ties, and general support for Palestinians at home.

Already tested by the Gaza War, these fault lines are being pushed to a breakpoint by Trump’s plan for peace in Gaza.

He expanded his demands to move Gazan to Jordan and Egypt, telling Fox’s news anchor he would not have the right to go home.

On Monday, he said that if he doesn’t take Palestinian refugees, he might withhold aid from Jordan and Egypt.

Some of the most fierce opponents of moving Gazan to Jordan are Gazans who have moved here before.

Approximately 45,000 people live in Gaza camps, located near Jerash, a town north of Jordan.

Corrugated iron sheets hang from the doorways of small shops, with children rattling with donkeys between the market stalls.

All the families here trace their roots to Gaza: Jabaria, Rafa, Beithanon. Most people were looking for temporary shelters after the 1967 Arab-Israel War. Generations later, they are still here.

“Donald Trump is a haughty narcissist,” 60-year-old Maha Azazi tells me. “He has a medieval mindset, a merchant mindset.”

Maher left Jabaria as a toddler. Some of his family are still there and are now picking up tile bles in their home for the bodies of 18 missing relatives.

Despite the devastation there, Azazi says Gazan learned the lessons of today’s generations.

Those who once saw it leave as a temporary bid for shelter now believe it will help Israeli far-right nationalists take Palestine lands.

“We at Gazan have experienced this before,” says Yousef, born in the camp. “At the time they said it was temporary and we would go back home. The right to go back is a red line.”

“When our ancestors left, they now had no weapons to fight like Hamas had,” another man tells me. “Now, the younger generation is fully aware of what happened with our ancestors, and it will never happen again. There is resistance now.”

Palestinians aren’t the only ones who are evacuating to Jordan. This is a small capacity of stability surrounded by many conflicts in the Middle East.

The Iraqis arrived here and fled the war in the early 2000s. Ten years later, the Syrians also came and urged the king of Jordan to warn that their country was at the “boiling point.”

Many native Jordanians have condemned a wave of refugees for high unemployment and poverty at home. A food bank by a mosque in Central Amman said it would give 1,000 meals a day.

We met Imad Abdallah and his friend Hassan as we were waiting for work outside the mosque.

“The situation in Jordan was once great, but when there was a war in Iraq, when the situation got worse, when there was a war in Syria, it got worse, now there is a war in Gaza, that’s It’s getting worse,” Hassan said. “The war that takes place near us is a country where we are helping people and bringing people there.”

Imad was dull and worried about feeding the four children.

“The foreigners will come and do our job,” he told me. “Now I’ve been four months without work. I don’t have any money or food. I’ll die if the Gazaans come.”

However, Jordan is also under pressure from its major military allies. Trump is already supporting us with more than $1.5 billion worth of annually. And much of this is supported by the growing conflict between the new US president and their own political leaders.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Jawad Anani, close to the Jordanian government, says King Abdullah’s message to King Donald Trump will be revealed at the White House on Tuesday. And the West Bank as a criminal act.

He said that even if Gazan wanted to relocate temporarily and voluntarily as part of the broader Middle East plan, he would not have been there.

“I’m not confident,” he said. “As long as Netanyahu is involved, he and his government are not confident in the promise someone will make. Period.”

Trump’s determination to promote his vision for Gaza could ultimately drive key US allies into key choices.

Thousands of people protested Trump’s proposal here last Friday.

Jordan has a US military base, with millions of refugees, whose security cooperation is of great importance to Israel and worries about smuggling routes into the occupied West Bank.

The risk to Jordan’s stability also implies the risks of allies. When stability is a Jordanian superpower, the threat of anxiety is its greatest weapon and best defense.

Additional Reports: Mohamed Madi, BBC News