News report by Abdullah Al-Marshad and Islam Abdulfattah KUWAIT, Feb 18 (KUNA) -- The Arab world has been stepping up serious diplomatic efforts to reconfirm the Palestinian issue as a central Arab cause and to develop a plan for the future of Gaza, based on reconstruction with no displacement of Palestinians.
Arab leaders are set to come together in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, within a few days' time to weigh an Egyptian blueprint pertinent to Gaza reconstruction efforts, which was revealed by Jordanian King Abdullah II while meeting recently with US President Donald Trump in Washington.
The Egyptian plan will be an alternative to Trump's unexpected and controversial suggestion allowing the US to take over Gaza and make it a "Middle East Riviera" and transfer Gazans to Egypt and Jordan.
The imminent Arab summit is expected to come up with a uniform Arab response to Trump's Gaza plan while Cairo plans to host another emergency Arab summit following the Riyadh gathering, aiming at crystalizing a strong position on the Palestinian cause.
As part of Arab solidarity with the Palestinian people, Jordanian cities have been the scene of popular and official rallies in protest against the forced displacement of Palestinians from the Palestinian enclave and a sign of support for Jordanian opposition to the US suggestion.
Speaking to KUNA, President of the Jordanian Senate Faisal Al-Fayez said that his country, due to its geopolitical location and regional happenings, is facing political, security and social challenges owing to Israeli occupation expansions, blasting the occupation for trying to find a solution to the Palestinian cause at Jordan's expense.
He added that Jordan, led by King Abdullah, would never give up its national constants, restating strong objection to the forced displacement of Palestinians from their territory.
He quoted the Jordanian king as underlining while meeting with the US president that the interests of Jordan and its people are top priority and that the kingdom would not accept the transfer of Gazans.
The king also stressed that his country, in spite of pressure, would not abjure its national constants and that a solution to the Palestinian issue must be based on relevant international resolutions and the two-state solution.
For his part, Speaker of the Jordanian House of Representatives Ahmad Al-Safadi, speaking to KUNA, said the Jordanian parliament's unwavering stance regarding the Palestinian issue reflects the conscience and sentiments of the Jordanian people.
He defied that the brutal war on the Gaza Strip and the destruction in the enclave would not be allowed to force the population of Gaza out of their territory under an easily refuted and illegal pretext based on an alternative to a Palestinian State.
Jordanian Ad-Dustour Chief Editor Faisal Al-Shboul said that Jordan has a single constant official and unofficial position that opposes the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land.
Also speaking to KUNA, he restated the absolute opposition of Jordan and Egypt to the Gaza transfer plan as reflecting the same stance of all Arab countries that are seeking hard to keep Palestinians on their land and build an independent Palestinian state.
However, the Jordanian journalist called on all Palestinian groups to get united against the Israeli occupation, regarding inter-Palestinian unity, along with Arab backing, as vey essential in this conflict.
For his part, Al-Ghad Chief Editor Makram Al-Tarawneh emphasized that the idea of transferring Palestinian is not new but unacceptable, regarding Jordanian objection to transfer schemes one of the kingdom's well-established constants.
Al-Tarawneh added that the recent displacement threats required appropriate Arab moves, mainly an Egyptian Gaza reconstruction blueprint that is unanimously backed by Arab and Muslim countries.
In Egypt, the recent controversial suggestion made by US President Donald Trump to transfer the people of the Gaza Strip to Egypt and Jordan has triggered off wide-scale and vehement Egyptian opposition.
To everyone's surprise, Trump had urged Cairo and Amman to take in more Palestinians from the Palestinian territory, saying, "I would like Egypt to take people. You're talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing." Addressing Jordanian King Abdullah II, Trump said, "I would love for you to take on more (Palestinians), 'cause I am looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it's a mess. It's a real mess." Considering the Palestinian cause its main concern, Egypt has wasted no time voicing staunch rejection of the US president's suggestion and restating its unwavering support for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
Cairo's stance was reaffirmed by President Abdelafattah Al-Sisi by underlining that the displacement of Palestinians from their territory reflected utter oppression that his country would never accept. Meanwhile, thousands of Egyptians flowed en masse to the Rafah border crossing located between Egypt and Gaza in a show of clear-cut and unequivocal popular baking for the Palestinian people and emphatic denunciation of Gaza displacement calls.
In addition, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has stepped up contacts with Arab countries, mainly Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, in order to reiterate the relentless Arab stance based on any plan to force Palestinians out of the coastal enclave.
Commenting on this, Former Assistant Foreign Minister Ambassador Mohammad Hejazi told KUNA that Trump's plan had sparked much perplexity at both regional and international levels, and even shocked Washington's international partners.
He added that Egypt, from the very beginning of the devastating war waged by Israeli occupying forces on Gaza, was well aware of a scheme designed to displace Palestinians out of their land willingly or willingly.
He made clear that Trump's remarks during the press conference with Israeli occupation's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had further complicated the already volatile situation as both sides were set to launch the second phase of the ceasefire agreement and, thence, the third phase, leading up to Gaza reconstruction and hopefully the implementation of the two-state solution.
He stressed that the Egyptian president is expected to meet during his planned visit to Washington with many US Congressmen, relevant committees and media to sound the alarm about the ramifications of the recent transfer suggestion, which he said would destabilize the entire region, and to reaffirm support for the two-state solution.
Hejazi cautioned that Egypt deems this matter a red line that cannot be crossed otherwise it would act in the due course only to defend its national security and protect the Palestinian people.
For his part, former Assistant Foreign Minister Ambassador Hussein Haridi said in a similar statement to KUNA that Cairo's rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinians outside their lands is "decisive and candid".
However, he maintained, contacts have not been interrupted between Cairo and Washington through diplomatic channels on this issue, particularly following Trump's controversial recent statements.
On the upcoming visit of the Egyptian president to the US, Haridi said that no official date has been announced by both sides for the visit.
He added that should the president visit Washington in the coming period, bilateral talks between the two sides will focus on the situation in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian cause in general.
But, he pointed out that relations of common and strategic interests between Egypt and the US would unquestionably be taken into consideration.
The Israeli occupation's 15-month aggression on Gaza has displaced almost all its 2.3 million residents, some of them multiple times, killed more than 47,000 people, and destroyed much of th