It did not take long for the fascist regime to propose a campaign of mass ethnic cleaning. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday, Donald Trump suggested removing over two million Palestinians from Gaza and relocating them in Egypt and Jordan. His ostensible rationale might appear somewhat reasonable if you know nothing about the Middle East. Gaza is presently, as Trump put it, “a demolition site.” After more than a year of bombardment, the area is a complete ruin and unfit for human habitation. Therefore, it makes sense to talk about finding other places for its residents to live while the mess is cleaned up.

Probably the best place to start here is with the Arabic word ‘nakba.’ It is usually translated as “catastrophe.” However, when it is applied by Arabs to the Israel-Palestine conflict, it has a more specific meaning.

Nakba is an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” and refers to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine, its exiling of Palestinians and making them into refugees, its dispossession of Palestinian property, its destruction of Palestinian cities, towns, and villages, and its attempt to erase the existence of the Palestinian people from its homeland in 1948.

The word ‘nakba’ is also applied to the broader history after 1948 of Palestinian oppression and dispossession. But the main point is that the mass exile of Palestinians that accompanied the creation of Israel is the primary bone of contention that has prevented Arab acceptance of Israel as a state.

But the problem is deeper than that. In 1948, about 750,000 Palestinians were displaced and relocated, many of them to Gaza. But many others wound up in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Their descendants are also considered refugees, and many are registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Today, there are almost 2.5 million registered Palestinian refugees living in Jordan alone. This hasn’t always been a happy marriage. In 1970 and 1971, the Jordanian monarchy launched military campaigns to expel Yassir Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization from the country. The conflict is known as Black September. You can look it up. Needless to say, Jordan has no appetite for inviting another million or so refugees, including militants from Hamas.

Likewise, Egypt does not want to be burdened with a million or so refugees, including militants from Hamas. They’ve been struggling with a radicalized insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula for more than a decade, and the Sinai is the part of Egypt that borders Gaza. There’s a reason Egypt did not open its doors to Gazans who have sought safety since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.

But even if Jordan and Egypt did not have a history of unrest to worry about, and even if they were well-equipped to house and feed a million or more refugees, they have other reasons not to support the removal of all Gazans from Gaza.

As desperate Palestinians in sealed-off Gaza try to find refuge under Israel’s relentless bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack, some ask why neighboring Egypt and Jordan don’t take them in.

The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal…

…Their refusal is rooted in fear that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into their countries and nullify Palestinian demands for statehood.

If Trump understood any of this history, he’d probably be at least a little more diplomatic about how he makes this request.

“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people [in Gaza], and we just clean out that whole thing,” Mr. Trump said of Gaza on Saturday. “I don’t know. Something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now.”

Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he had spoken to King Abdullah II of Jordan, saying, “I said to him, ‘I’d love for you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess.’” He said that he would also like Egypt to take in more Palestinians and that he would speak to the country’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

It’s highly doubtful that this is an accurate representation of the response Trump received from King Abdullah II.

Jordan and Egypt reiterated their rejection of the resettlement of Palestinians on Sunday, after US President Donald Trump’s call to “clean out” the Gaza Strip.

“Our principles are clear, and Jordan’s steadfast position to uphold the Palestinians’ presence on their land remains unchanged and will never change,” Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told a joint press conference in Amman with Sigrid Kaag, UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza.

Jordan’s rejection of resettlement “is steadfast and essential for achieving the stability and peace we all seek,” he said.

“The solution to the Palestinian issue lies in Palestine; Jordan is for Jordanians, and Palestine is for Palestinians,” Safadi added.

The 1948 Nakba is far too ingrained in the consciousness of the Arab world for any Arab leader to volunteer to participate in a second one.

But the fascist regime doesn’t care one iota about that. And its leader is too stupid to even understand how insensitive it is to even ask. What Trump does know is that the far right government in Israel would love to denude Gaza of Gazans and resettle it as Israeli turf. They have rational national security reasons not to want to live next to two million Gazans on a hard-to-defend border, but it’s still ethnic cleansing and a clear effort to squash aspirations for any future Palestinian state.

These things will continue until the fascist regime is defeated.