On Saturday, Feb. 1, U.S. President Trump spoke with Egyptian President Abdul Fatah el-Sisi, urging him and Jordan’s King Abdullah II to accept at least 1.5 million Palestinian survivors of the war in Gaza. Critics have attacked the proposal as tantamount to forced displacement and ethnic cleansing — Donald Trump, in his own words, suggested he should “clean out that whole thing.” Others have argued that Gaza today is uninhabitable and that it cannot accommodate much human life without extensive reconstruction, effectively echoing Trump’s description of Gaza as “a demolition site.”

Egypt and Jordan, which already host millions of displaced Palestinians, have both pushed back hard against President Trump’s pitch to relocate remaining survivors out of Gaza.

Watch the video above as Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten reviews this debate, endorses President Trump’s plan, and urges Egypt, Jordan and other Arab neighbors to reconsider their positions.

The following is an excerpt from the above video:

First, as Trump notes, large portions of Gaza are shelled out and uninhabitable. Trump’s Middle East envoy predicts it will take 10 to 15 years to rebuild, five years alone just to remove the debris.

Second, if you’re going to resettle a population, it’s most humane and reasonable to keep people close by and among those sharing their language and culture. Jordan, it bears noting, is Arab Palestine. It’s also most consistent with international law, which, as scholar Eugene Konrovitch asserts, requires neighboring Egypt minimally to receive Palestinian Arab refugees and secure their safe settlement there or elsewhere.