Mohammad Khajui – Researcher on Lebanese Issues

There are three main reasons for Arab countries’ opposition to Trump’s plan; the first reason is the concern of these governments about the effects of accepting this decision on their image. This is because this plan was presented immediately after the recent bloody war between the Israeli regime and Hamas, a war in which more than 45,000 people lost their lives, and the Israeli regime was accused of genocide in that region by international institutions. The fact that Arab countries, in the current circumstances, agree to a plan that involves the departure of the residents of this region means that these countries are part of a project of genocide and demographic change in that region, and this could damage the image of these regimes and governments, especially among Arab nations.

The second reason is that these countries are concerned about the negative consequences of implementing this plan on their national security, because experience has shown that the presence of Palestinian refugees in the countries of the region has had widespread consequences, and an example of this is Lebanon, where we have seen the political and security consequences. Undoubtedly, the presence of Palestinians was one of the effective factors in the 1975 civil war and caused the Israeli regime to attack Lebanon. The presence of Palestinians in Jordan also created political and security implications and these consequences continue. Therefore, the presence of this number of Palestinian population in those countries could cause changes in their demographic composition.

Given the affinity the Palestinians in the region have with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and the main opposition movement in these countries, including Egypt and Jordan, is the Muslim Brotherhood, these countries are concerned that the presence of such a large number of Palestinians in those lands will strengthen the opposition movements and even cause the fall of the ruling regimes.

The third reason is related to the effects this plan will have on the security situation of the entire region; the experience of the October 7th war provided a conclusion for the countries of the region that if the Palestinian issue is not resolved fairly, this issue, as a wound that has lasted for eight decades and is the oldest crisis in the region, could lead to a crisis that will affect the security of the entire region. As during the October 7th operation, the security consequences of this operation caused even international shipping routes to be affected in international waterways such as the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Therefore, since various forces in the region joined this war and it became a regional war, it created an experience that if the Palestinian issue is not resolved fairly, its consequences can affect the security of all countries in the region, regardless of their national security.

Therefore, unilateral plans such as the Trump plan, which does not include the rights of the Palestinians in any way and cannot solve the problem fundamentally, can cause the crisis to continue. Therefore, an incident similar to the October 7th operation can occur again.

As a result, it seems that the Arab countries have concluded that the Trump plan does not solve the problem and can lead to this crisis taking on more complex dimensions and its consequences affecting the countries of the entire region in the future. In this regard, the view that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have towards the regional order, namely that they are moving in a direction that will change the map of the countries of the region, has created serious concern among the Arab countries and has caused these countries to resist Trump’s plan. Also, given that resistance to America and its plans is not easy and will entail costs for the Arab countries, they will seek alternative plans as much as possible so that such radical plans are not implemented.