WhatsappEgypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has snubbed Trump, announcing that he refused to visit the US President as long as he keeps his Gaza plan on the table since it requires relocating all of the Gaza Strip residents.
In addition to refusing to visit Trump, el-Sisi has released his own plan in response to Trump’s. The following was published on X by Open Source Intelligence and purports to be Egypt’s counter proposal:
If this is at all true, then this plan is dead on arrival as it will leave Hamas in power - restarting the same old cycle, which President Trump has insisted be broken.
Despite Egypt’s and Jordan’s insistence that they will not take any Gazans, the fact is President Trump does not like when people show him up the way Egypt’s president has. Does that mean, Trump can simply force the Gazans into Egypt? Anything is possible and this is why the Egyptian President misstepped in his current dealings with Trump.
The White House has already issued a response to Jordan’s plea to wait until the Arab world can formulate their own plan based on the Egyptian one.
White House spokesperson: “The President asked me to tell you that King Abdullah of Jordan prefers that the Gazans stay in their place while Arab nations gather to present a peace proposal to the president for the Middle East. We remain committed to our ally Israel, and President Trump is committed to his grand idea and has no intention of wavering from that….”
Considering the swift response to Jordan, Trump will reject the Egyptian counterproposal. Will Egypt back down or will something else happen? With the IDF building up troops on the Gaza border and threatening to return to all out war if not by this Sunday then certainly well before the end of Phase 1, the IDF can simply blow a hole in the Egyptian-Gazan border wall sending the populace streaming into Egypt. Perhaps this is the real reason Egypt has placed its tanks there. They know that absent a real post war plan - only the Sinai remains a viable option for immediate relocation.
To be honest, el-Sisi is stuck. He cannot kiss Trump’s ring and stay the strong man of his country, yet by going against Trump 2.0 he risks a head on collision with a president who wants to end Arab intransigence once and for all. Is this why his army is amassing in the Sinai, which essentially is violation of the 1978 Camp David Accords that led to peace with Israel?
In the coming days, Gaza stands as the trigger that may ultimately lead to a redrawing of regional borders yet again. However, with Trump in power any territory that Israel conquers may remain in its hands indefinitely.
