WATCH VIDEO: What exactly happened when Jordan’s King Abdullah met with Trump today in the Oval Office to discuss Gaza’s future?

WASHINGTON — Jordan’s King Abdullah II met with President Donald J. Trump at the White House today for two hours, offering to take in thousands of needy Palestinian children from Gaza but telling the new American leader he simply cannot take in one million or more Gazans.

Trump called the king’s gesture to accept suffering children a “fantastic” and “beautiful” first step that was “music to my ears.”

The king did not come with an air of defiance.

Rather, he called Trump a “man of peace” and said he wants to work with the new administration to find the best outcome for everyone involved in the crisis.

He asked Trump to open up consultations with other regional leaders — including the Egyptians, Saudis, Emiratis, and others — before making any final decisions on how to proceed in Gaza.

At the same time, the king insisted that his “foremost commitment is to Jordan, to its stability and to the wellbeing of Jordanians” and added that “Jordan’s steadfast position [is] against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank” which he fears would lead to a social explosion in Jordan.

The king emphasized the importance of working with Trump towards “de-escalation in the West Bank” and “preventing a deterioration of the situation there that could have far-reaching implications for the entire region.”

Achieving a “just peace on the basis of the two-state solution” is the way to “ensure regional stability,” he said, but this “requires U.S. leadership.”

Trump liked the king and listened carefully to him.

But he remained insistent that Jordan accept upwards of one million Gazans while Egypt — and/or other Arab countries — take another million.

Trump says he wants to build “the Riviera of the Middle East” in Gaza but that first its two million residents much be transferred to new and better homes somewhere else in the region.

Publicly, Trump is hinting that Jordan could lose American economic aid if it refuses to help resettle the people of Gaza.

I have often described His Majesty as “a man sitting on a volcano, surrounded by a forest fire, fearing an earthquake.”

To be sure, I have tremendous respect for His Majesty.

He is a man of wisdom, a man of moderation and peace, and the longest serving leader in the Arab/Muslim world.

But let’s face it.

The king presides over a small country without natural resources, without oil or natural gas, and a population, that is mostly Palestinian (upwards of 50% to 70%), and which despises Israel and deeply resents the losses of people and land and dignity that they sustained during the wars of 1948, 1967, and 1973.

Most Jordanians today are furious at Israel for the war in Gaza that was sparked on October 7, 2023.

Indeed, many want the king to rip up Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel and stop buying natural gas and water from the Jewish state next door.

Now, Trump is vowing to secure, clear and rebuild the Gaza Strip into something not just livable but beautiful.

Good, Jordanians would be happy for that.

But Trump is also saying that all two million Palestinians who currently live in Gaza must leave — resettled in Jordan or Egypt or some other Arab or Muslim country — with no right to return.

Jordanians are enraged by this notion.

The kingdom has already welcomed and absorbed millions of refugees from Iraq and Syria, in addition to millions of Palestinians.

They have absolutely no interest in or capacity for more, they say.

That’s the context in which King Abdullah met with Trump today at the White House.

On the one hand, the king urgently needs American help and cannot afford the risk that Trump might cut off the $1.3 billion a year that Washington provides.

On the other hand the king fears a massive explosion of civil unrest if he were to accept Trump’s premise that Jordan should welcome a million or more Gazans and resettle them forever.

Yet that’s what Trump’s asking the king to do.

“There’s nothing to buy — will have Gaza,” Trump said to His Majesty as they sat together, speaking to the press corps, in the Oval Office.

“It’s a war-torn area,” Trump noted. “We’re going to take it. We’re going to hold it. We’re going to cherish it.”

“I think the point is, how do we make this work in a way that is good for everybody,” King Abdullah said. “Obviously we have to look at the best interests of the United States, of the people in the region, especially to my people of Jordan.”

“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 noted during their conversation.

“The proposal is catastrophic,” Oraib Rantawi, the director-general of the Amman-based Al Quds Center for Political Studies, told the Wall Street Journal.

“We cannot accept gambling with the country’s security, national identity, and very existence.”

“Right now, the only one who’s stood up and said I’m willing to help [the Palestinians of Gaza] is Donald Trump,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a radio interview yesterday.

“All these other leaders, they’re going to have to step up. If they’ve got a better idea, then now is the time. Now is the time for the other governments and other powers in the region, some of these very rich countries, to basically say, OK, we’ll do it.”

Back in Jordan, “solidarity rallies” took place around the country in which people expressed their gratitude for the King’s “rejection of forced displacement, resettlement and the concept of an alternative homeland,” reported the Jordan Times.

“The participants underlined Jordan’s historic and unwavering stance on Arab causes, in particular Palestine and Jerusalem,” the Times noted.

Those participating in the rallies also “reaffirmed the kingdom’s firm commitment to protecting the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights, especially the right to establish an independent state of their own with Jerusalem as its capital.”

This article originally was posted here and is reposted with permission.