Neighbours Egypt and Jordan Privately Oppose Palestinian Statehood

Part 3 of the ‘Quiet Abandonment’ series on the Arab world’s retreat from the Palestinian cause.

When Egypt began bulldozing homes and digging trenches along its Gaza border in 2014, creating a kilometer-wide buffer zone that displaced thousands of Palestinians, the world barely noticed. When Jordan quietly renewed its security coordination with Israel throughout the Gaza war while Palestinian protesters were arrested in Amman's streets, regional media gave it minimal coverage. The two Arab nations that border Palestinian territories and house the largest Palestinian refugee populations have become the most pragmatic about Palestinian statehood: they do not support it. Not because they are indifferent to Palestinian suffering, but because they view statehood as a threat to their own stability. They prefer the status quo.

Egypt’s Wall: Containment Over Solidarity

Egypt’s public stance toward Gaza has long been one of performative outrage, but its policies tell another story, one of defensive pragmatism. In 2014, Egypt began demolishing over 3,200 homes in Rafah along its Gaza border and displacing thousands of residents to create a “buffer zone” at least one kilometer wide. According to Human Rights Watch, the campaign aimed to eliminate the Hamas-controlled tunnel economy and prevent Islamist fighters from moving between Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

This was no isolated episode. In subsequent years, Egypt pumped seawater and even sewage into the tunnels, collapsing them and rendering the surrounding land infertile. The New York Times reported that this controversial tactic was part of an intensified military effort to shut down Hamas’s logistical infrastructure and protect Sinai from further radicalization.

Egypt’s position hardened further after October 7, 2023. Even as it hosted peace summits and condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, it was reinforcing its own barrier. CNN confirmed that Egyptian bulldozers cleared an even wider swath of land along the border, while President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi warned that

. . .an exodus from Gaza was intended to “eliminate the Palestinian cause … the most important cause of our region.”

Egypt’s message was clear: Gaza’s collapse would not be absorbed. Its problems would remain on the Gaza side of the fence.

Jordan’s Balancing Act: Loyalty, Fear, and Survival

If Egypt’s Gaza policy is one of military containment, Jordan’s approach to the West Bank is a careful political calculus. Jordan’s monarch routinely voices support for Palestinian statehood. King Abdullah II has condemned Israeli operations in Gaza in dramatic terms and Jordan Times reports that

Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh said on Sunday that the displacement of Palestinians is a "red line" for Jordan, and constitutes a fundamental violation of the peace treaty.

But domestically, the Jordanian regime takes great pains to prevent Palestinian political mobilization. The 1970 Black September Palestinian uprising against King Hussein is a lesson the monarchy will not forget.

Palestinians, making up over half of Jordan’s population, represent a potential source of volatility. While some, particularly Gazans, live in long-term refugee status, most are Jordanian citizens; in 1988, Jordan begun to revoke citizenship of those who fled the “West Bank” in 1967 and still maintain ties with residents of the Palestinian Authority. With Palestinians on both sides of the Jordan River seeing themselves as the same “people,” any destabilization or radicalization in the former Jordanian occupied territories on the “West Bank” would lead to chaos spreading across the river. This could embolden cries calling for Jordan to be recognized as “the Palestinian state.”

During the Gaza war, then, the Jordanian regime has been walking a tightrope. On one hand, it has allowed large public rallies to signal solidarity with Palestinians. On the other, it quietly repressed activity that aligned too closely with Hamas or Islamist groups. Amnesty International reported that Jordanian authorities have been arresting pro-Hamas activists, limiting protests, prohibiting the display of the Palestinian flag, and policing social media posts.

At the same time, Jordan quietly continues its longstanding security coordination with Israel, a relationship that allows Amman to monitor threats in the “West Bank” without having to intervene.

When Solidarity Meets Sovereignty

Egypt and Jordan have paid the price for decades of proximity to Palestinian political movements: armed uprisings, ideological infiltration, waves of refugees, and diplomatic entanglements. Today, more than being concerned with pan-Arab solidarity or anti-Zionist ideology, both states are focused on their own survival.

In that context, Palestinian sovereignty is no longer seen as a solution but as a risk; Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley (and Gaza?) may no longer be viewed as evil. Yet, rather than Israeli sovereignty, both governments likely prefer a managed Palestinian autonomy under Israeli security control, quietly coordinated through Washington. Publicly, then, they can continue to support “two states.” Privately, they support the status quo, as long as it stays quiet.

This is not hypocrisy. It is the logic of states that have learned the hard way what instability costs. The last thing Cairo or Amman wants is Gaza-style chaos in their streets.

Unlike the Gulf states, whose 'quiet abandonment' of the Palestinian cause is largely driven by economic diversification and proactive strategic alliances, Egypt and Jordan's pragmatic approach is primarily defensive, rooted in their immediate security concerns and internal stability. This explains why both states continue to coordinate with the IDF behind the scenes, why they resist absorbing Gazan refugees, and why their condemnations against Israel ring increasingly hollow.

It is why they are also careful not to endanger the (cold) peace accords they signed with Israel decades ago that, while not offering the same degree of economic benefits the Gulf states gained through the (warmer) Abraham Accords, are essential for their survival.

And it is not only Arab states that have stopped fearing Israeli control. In Hader, a Druze village near the Golan Heights in southern Syria, residents under threat from jihadist militias openly expressed a preference for annexation to Israel after the fall of Assad.

In one of the videos circulated at the time, a speaker declared:

If we have to choose, we will choose the lesser evil… to be annexed to the [Israeli] Golan.

That plea, once unthinkable, now reveals a deeper truth: the Middle East is no longer organized around resisting Israel. It is organized around escaping collapse. This shift underscores the profound impact of the Syrian conflict and the broader regional instability on local and minority populations, forcing them to reevaluate their alliances and futures in unprecedented ways.

Egypt and Jordan have learned, in practice if not in doctrine, to stop pushing for Palestinian statehood. What they worry about now is what everyone worries about: security, legitimacy, prosperity, and staying in power.

This strategy comes with risks. As long as their populations remain tied to a narrative of grievance, this quiet pragmatism may eventually give way to significant backlash. Long-term, these policies could exacerbate regional instability. Unless Egypt and Jordan, as well as the Gulf states described in Article 2 in this series, find a way to reorient their populations toward accepting the Jewish state and to the reality that there will be no Palestinian state either replacing it or alongside it, regional stability will remain fragile.

NEXT: The USA and Europe don’t want a Palestinian state either.

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