Once again he floats a plan that the entire world says is impossible, only to find that steps are being taken in the “impossible” direction.
President Trump hosted King Abdullah of Jordan today at the White House.
The planned discussion topic centered on the situation in Gaza, and of course, President Trump’s plan to do something amazingly different than has ever been tried or conceived of in the past.
Except, some of his plan does include what has been attempted in the past — it’s just that no one has ever been able to pull it off.
I’m talking about the immediate neighbors of Israel taking in the so-called Palestinian refugees, which most of the world would be far more prone to continue using for geopolitical arguments than actually doing something to help them.
But even as the Jordanian King arrived at the White House, something in his face told me the proud King wasn’t going to get to hold his line perfectly — and he already knew it.
Check out this video of his arrival at the White House, and watch his face.
Don’t get me wrong — I really like King Abdullah. He is an incredible man who has maintained a stable nation in the midst of a chaotic place since he ascended the throne.
But he doesn’t like giving in, particularly on an issue that will be seen across the Arab world as a weakened position for having acquiesced to President Trump’s demands, even a little.
But that is exactly what he did.
Every single time they say he can’t get something done… he gets it done.
And he is very much on track to getting the necessary pieces of the puzzle in place — namely, Arab nations to take in Palestinians — in order to negotiate a rebuilding of Gaza in a way that takes all the wind out of the sails of the most strife-causing factions among them.
🚨 Breaking: King of Jordan 🇯🇴 folded. He will help implement Trump's plan for relocating Palestinians from Gaza.
Egypt 🇪🇬 will fold next.
pic.twitter.com/aYcFvCgWCs— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) February 11, 2025
President Trump literally has Jordan and Egypt actively engaging with him on his plan — including the most volatile aspect and historically the most touchy subject — bringing Palestinians into their borders.
The most hardline players in the region see that as an absolutely catastrophic option, because it threatens to remove one of their most emotionally charged arguments.
If the Palestinian people are suddenly in a relatively safe, secure, and stabile set of circumstances — how can you rationalize a terror campaign against Israel for the Palestinian cause?
You can’t — at least, not nearly as easily as when they are actively engaged in hostilities with Israeli authorities on dual-claimed land.
So, Trump threatens to turn Gaza into a resort and casino.
Lindsey Graham and Mark Kelly lose their minds.
24 hours later and Egypt and Jordan are falling all over themselves to rebuild it.
And that’s how it’s done, kids.
— ChairmanOohMowMow (@ooh_mow) February 7, 2025
In point of fact, there may be more to it than simply threatening to turn Gaza into a resort.
Jordan and Egypt both take a lot (A TON) of aid from the United States.
They are the recipients of so much aid that if it suddenly stopped, so would their nation; and their respective rulers would lose the ability to maintain power.
Guess who has all the cards? President Trump, and he knows it.
And he’s playing them in all the right ways.
Listen to this clip, and imagine the implications of what King Abdullah is saying; sitting in the White House, three weeks into President Trump’s term.
President Trump shared this clip to his own Truth Social account:
I said President Trump is holding all the cards, and playing them all in the right way.
One of the ways he’s playing things correctly is by allowing the players room to maneuver, while avoiding the optics of looking like they have no choice in the decisions they are making.
He’s giving them room to agree with him — even while applying the correct pressure to tilt the scales so that they ultimately do.
The subject of withholding U.S. aid did come up, albeit indirectly.
President Trump immediately couched that scenario — but the possibility had already been spoken, and the threat was in the air, according to an NBC news story:
Asked if he would consider withholding U.S. aid, Trump suggested he had moved on from the idea, telling reporters, “I do think we’re above that.”
“We contribute a lot of money to Jordan and to Egypt, by the way, a lot to both, but I don’t have to threaten that,” Trump said, seeming to walk back the suggestion that he was open to it.
A reliable U.S. partner, Abdullah now finds himself weighing a tentative path forward after America’s Arab partners, including Jordan and Egypt, rejected Trump’s proposal last week. On the eve of his meeting with Trump, the U.S. president threatened to cut off aid to Jordan, an annual sum of more than $1 billion. American foreign aid is currently paused as part of a sweeping halt by the Trump administration.
Many on the left in U.S. political circles are still attempting to paint President Trump’s plan as a non-starter, drawing attention to the fact that King Abdullah isn’t willing to allow the sum total of the Palestinians into Jordan.
But a more realistic view is that what was once considered almost sacrilegious to even suggest, President Trump suggested it.
But not only did he suggest it, but he has the King of Jordan taking an active role in bringing Palestinians into Jordan, and working in cohort with Egypt and the United States on the Gaza issue as a shared problem — not just a political arguing point.
The King of Jordan no longer outright rejects Trump's Gaza plan.
Instead he calls for Egypt and Jordan to enter negotiations with the US to find an agreement.
This is a MASSIVE breakthrough from last week when they threatened war over this.
Is this The Art of the Deal? pic.twitter.com/CzSpl710Gc
— 𝗡𝗶𝗼𝗵 𝗕𝗲𝗿𝗴 ♛ ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) February 11, 2025
That is a truly amazing turn of events, particularly just three weeks into his Presidency.
There is still plenty of work to do, and far more Palestinians than just 2,000 to deal with logistically.
But even the naysayers are having little effect in curtailing President Trump from moving forward with the vision he has set out for Gaza and the Middle East, as this ABC news report shows:
Abdullah has also engaged in a flurry of calls and meetings with the U.N. and other countries that have historically supported the creation of a Palestinian homeland — a possible effort to present a united front aimed at pushing back against Trump’s designs for Gaza.
But the opposition appears to have done little to deter Trump. In a clip from his weekend interview with Fox News released on Monday, Trump said that under his scheme, Palestinians removed from Gaza would not have the right to return to the land after reconstruction was completed.
“No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing, much better,” he said. “I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.”
The president has also brushed off opposition from Jordan and Egypt to taking in large numbers of Palestinians, suggesting he would pressure their governments to get on board.
Trump is also dispatching his top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to the Middle East at the end of this week.
Rubio is slated to visit Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. He also met with the Egypt’s foreign minister at the State Department on Monday.
I don’t think President Trump is going to solve all the problems of the Middle East.
Full stop.
Frankly, I don’t believe anyone will ever pull that off. And the first time someone seems to, it will likely be the Antichrist. (I don’t plan on being here during that, but that’s a sermon for a different time and place.)
But I truly do not expect any leader, short of the return of Jesus Christ Himself, to set the Middle East “right”, so to speak.
But there’s no Biblical injunction that says you shouldn’t try. Moreover, we’re told to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem”, and I’ve never known the Bible to push something prayerfully that God didn’t likewise expect us to put our hands and feet — and minds — into the mix working towards those ends, as well.
Who knows but that President Trump may be about to solve ONE of the most stubborn problems plaguing the Middle East?
That sounds like an impossible longshot.
But then again, we are talking about President Trump here.
Impossible longshots is what he does best. And I, for one, will certainly not be betting against him.
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