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Saudi Arabia Spearheads Arab Scramble for Alternative to Trump’s Gaza Plan

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends the 45th Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Kuwait city, Kuwait, Dec. 1, 2024. Photo: Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS

Saudi Arabia is spearheading urgent Arab efforts to develop a plan for Gaza’s future as a counter to US President Donald Trump’s ambition for a Middle East Riviera cleared of its Palestinian inhabitants, 10 sources said.

Draft ideas will be discussed at a meeting in Riyadh this month of countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. Proposals may involve a Gulf-led reconstruction fund and a deal to sideline Hamas, five of the people said.

Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies were aghast at Trump’s plan to “clean out” Palestinians from Gaza and resettle most of them in Jordan and Egypt, an idea immediately rejected by Cairo and Amman and seen in most of the region as deeply destabilizing.

The dismay in Saudi Arabia was aggravated, sources said, because the plan would nix the kingdom’s demand for a clear path to Palestinian statehood as a condition to normalize ties with Israel — something that would also pave the way for an ambitious military pact between Riyadh and Washington, shoring up the kingdom’s defenses against Iran.

Reuters spoke to 15 sources in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere to build a picture of the hurried efforts by Arab states to pull together existing proposals into a new plan they can sell to the US president— even potentially calling it a “Trump plan” to win his approval.

All the sources declined to be identified because the issue involves international or domestic sensitivities and they were not authorized to speak in public.

One Arab government source said at least four proposals had already been drafted for Gaza’s future, but an Egyptian proposal was now emerging as central to the Arab push for an alternative to Trump’s idea.

THE EGYPTIAN PROPOSAL

The latest Egyptian proposal involves forming a national Palestinian committee to govern Gaza without Hamas involvement, international participation in reconstruction without displacing Palestinians abroad, and movement towards a two-state solution, three Egyptian security sources said.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Palestinian representatives will review and discuss the plan in Riyadh before it is presented at a scheduled Arab summit on February 27, the Arab government source said.

The role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, widely known as MbS, is shaping up to be key.

“We are telling the Americans we have a plan that works. Our meeting with MbS is going to be critical. He is taking the lead,” said a Jordanian official.

The crown prince had a warm relationship with the first Trump administration and is increasingly central to Arab ties with the United States during the new Trump era.

Long a major regional partner for the United States, the crown prince is expanding Saudi Arabia’s relationship through business and global power politics.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is holding a conference in Miami this month that Reuters revealed Trump is expected to attend. Riyadh is also expected to host his coming talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to end the Ukraine war.

The White House did not respond to several requests for comment on this story.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking on Thursday, referred to the coming Arab meeting, saying: “Right now the only plan— they don’t like it— but the only plan is the Trump plan. So, if they’ve got a better plan, now’s the time to present it.”

Spokespeople for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and Israel did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

BUFFER ZONE

Clear plans for Gaza’s post-war future have already proven hard to develop as they require positions on contentious debates regarding the territory’s internal governance, security management, funding, and reconstruction.

Israel has already rejected any role for Hamas or the Palestinian Authority in governing Gaza, or ensuring security there. Arab countries and the United States have also said they do not want to put troops on the ground to do that.

Gulf states, which have historically paid for reconstruction in Gaza, have said they do not want to do so this time without guarantees that Israel will not again destroy what they build.

Jordan’s King Abdullah emphasized to Trump on Monday at their meeting in the White House that he was working with Saudi Arabia and Egypt on a Gaza plan that would work, a Jordanian official said.

Abdullah said in televised comments after the meeting that the countries would review an Egyptian plan and “we will be in Saudi Arabia to discuss how we can work with the president and the United States.”

Reuters could not immediately reach Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi for comment. After Abdullah’s meeting with Trump, Safadi said: “We are now working on crystallizing the Arab plan.”

Initial proposals shared by the three Egyptian security sources relating to reconstruction and financing appear advanced.

A buffer zone and physical barrier would be erected to stop tunnels being built across Gaza’s border with Egypt. As soon as rubble is removed, 20 areas would be established as temporary living zones. Around 50 Egyptian and other foreign companies would be brought in to carry out the work.

Financing would involve international and Gulf money, said a regional source with knowledge of the matter. A potential fund could be named the Trump Fund for Reconstruction, the Arab government official said.

However, the most difficult issues around Gaza’s governance and internal security remain to be decided, the official said.

Forcing Hamas out of any role in Gaza would be critical, said the Arab official and the three Egyptian sources.

Hamas has previously said it is willing to cede government in Gaza to a national committee, but it would want a role in choosing its members and would not accept the deployment of any ground forces without its consent.

The three Egyptian sources said that while nothing in the plan was very new, they believed it was good enough to change Trump’s mind and that it could be imposed on Hamas and the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas.

‘NOT PLEASED’

Saudi annoyance over Gaza had already been building before Trump’s announcement.

The kingdom had repeatedly said normalization with Israel was conditional on a path to creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.

That stance hardened as Saudi public anger grew at the destruction in Gaza. In November, the crown prince publicly accused Israel of genocide during an Islamic summit and doubled down on the need for a two-state solution.

Frustration was running high in the kingdom over the ongoing war, two regional intelligence sources said.

Washington appeared ready to push past Riyadh’s demand for two states. The day before his Gaza announcement, Trump was asked whether a normalization deal could go ahead without a two-state solution. He said: “Saudi Arabia is going to be very helpful.”

Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had held meetings in Riyadh in late January. Two senior diplomats said Witkoff laid out a three-month timeline for the normalisation process.

But Saudi frustration quickly turned into surprise and then anger when Trump announced his Gaza idea. “He is not pleased,” a source close to the Saudi royal court said of Prince Mohammed’s reaction.

The level of anger was quickly evident in state media broadcasts — which analysts say are often a measure of official Saudi viewpoints— with television news reports personally excoriating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“They are outraged,” said Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi analyst familiar with official thinking, describing the mood among senior Saudi officials. “This is outrageous. More than frustration, this is on another level.”

Many experts say Trump may be using an old bargaining ploy from his diplomatic playbook, setting out an extreme position as an opening gambit for negotiations. During his first term, he often issued what were widely seen as over-the-top foreign policy pronouncements, many of which never came to fruition.

Still, it has complicated the normalization talks.

Former Saudi intelligence head Prince Turki al-Faisal, who holds no current role in the government, said in a CNN interview last week that if Trump visited Riyadh, “I’m sure he will get an earful from the leadership here.”

Asked if he could see any prospect of normalization talks advancing with Israel, he said: “Not at all.”

The post Saudi Arabia Spearheads Arab Scramble for Alternative to Trump’s Gaza Plan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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New York City Jews Targeted for Most Hate Crimes in March, NYPD Stats Show

Orthodox Jewish man waiting for the train in the New York City subway. Photo: Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect.

Jews in New York City were victims of more hate crimes in March than any other group even as crime across the Five Boroughs fell to “historic” lows, according to statistics issued by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on Thursday.

39 hate crimes targeted Jews last month, the Algemeiner reviewed data shows, outstripping the combined total of all other groups combined — 28 — and constituting 58 percent of all hate crimes reported to authorities. So far, there have born 85 antisemitic hate crimes in New York City through the first three months of 2025, with the month of February seeing a 100 percent increase in them over the previous year and March seeing no improvement at all.

The data continues a trend that has persisted for several years and concurred with a rise in antisemitic incidents across the US.

Jews represented a disproportionate share of hate crimes perpetrated in New York City in 2024 as well. Of the 641 total hate crimes tallied by the NYPD that year, Jews were victims of 345, which, in addition to being a 7 percent increase over the previous year, amounted to 54 percent of all hate crimes in the city.

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, antisemitic hate crimes have posed a major threat to the quality of life of New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community, which was the target in many of the incidents. In just eight days between the end of October and the beginning of November, three Hasidim, including children, were brutally assaulted in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. In one instance, an Orthodox man was accosted by two assailants, one masked, who “chased and beat him” after he refused to surrender his cellphone in compliance with what appeared to have been an attempted robbery.

In another incident, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood. Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn. Days after the week-long antisemitic hate crime spree, three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the Crown Heights neighborhood.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post New York City Jews Targeted for Most Hate Crimes in March, NYPD Stats Show first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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NYC ‘Dyke March’ Bans Zionists From Participating in Annual Demonstration

(Source: Reuters)

(Source: Reuters)

NYC Dyke March, a public demonstration held by members of the lesbian community in New York City, has banned self-proclaimed “Zionists” from its annual event, citing a desire to stand against the so-called “genocide” occuring in Gaza. 

The group revealed in a statement that their decision to ban Israel supporters from their ranks came after multiple members dropped out of the organization due to differences in “political beliefs and values.” After engaging in discussions with frustrated members, the NYC Dyke March committee agreed to adopt “an explicitly anti-Zionist position.” The organization claims that it will “strengthen our commitment” to fighting against Israel and advocating on behalf of Palestinians. 

Last year, the NYC Dyke March previously came under scrutiny after organizers settled on “genocide” as the theme of its 2024 event. In a statement, decrying “ethnic cleansing, violence, and dehumanization,” the organization compared the ongoing war in Gaza, to the mass slaughters occurring in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Sudan. 

The organization plans on recycling the same theme for this year’s march, titling it “Dykes Against Genocide.” The group released a statement clarifying that Jews are allowed to attend and condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters as a “senseless loss of life.” After an apparent uproar from its members, the organization deleted the post and wrote that the group “unapologetically stands in support of Palestinian liberation.” In addition, the group affirmed that “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism and any language we put out which is not clearly opposed to a Zionist, imperialist agenda is harmful to us all.”

In the 17 months following the Hamas-led massacre of roughly 1200 people throughout Israel, the NYC Dyke March has produced numerous statements lambasting Israel and declaring “solidarity” with Palestinians amid their so-called “ongoing genocide.” The organization also accused Israel of engaging in supposed “pinkwashing” and “manipulative use of Jewish and queer identities,” with the aim of justifying its war efforts in Gaza. 

Israel offers an expansive set of rights for members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transngender (LGBT) community, including recognition of same-sex marriages. Every year in June, Tel Aviv holds one of the largest LGBT Pride celebrations in the world. Meanwhile, members of the LGBT community are routinely imprisoned or murdered in other parts of the Middle East, including the Palestinian territories. 

The NYC Dyke March’s announcement was met with widespread condemnation. 

“You cannot exclude the majority of Jews and call yourself inclusive,” said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in a post on X/Twitter, adding that the group “essentially equates Zionism with racism” in their announcement. 

The post NYC ‘Dyke March’ Bans Zionists From Participating in Annual Demonstration first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Trump Administration Planning $510 Million Cut to Brown University Budget, Report Says

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with journalists onboard Air Force One en route to Miami, Florida, U.S., April 3, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura

The Trump administration reportedly plans to terminate $510 million worth of federal contracts and grants awarded to Brown University, according to media reports.

Brown University’s failure to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its embrace of the diversity, equity, and, inclusion (DEI) movement — perceived by many across the political spectrum as an assault on merit-based upward mobility and causing incidents of anti-White and anti-Asian discrimination — prompted the alleged pending action by the federal government, according to the right-leaning outlet The Daily Caller.

The announcement comes as Brown scrambles to cover a $46 million budget shortfall and other universities across the country have faced similar funding cuts.

Brown University officials, however, denied that the university had received any directives from the Trump Administration.

“We have no information to substantiate these rumors,” Brown University provost Francis Doyle issued a statement. “We are closely monitoring notifications related to grants, but have nothing more we can share as of now.”

Meanwhile, Brown’s Jewish community rushed to the university’s defense, issuing a joint statement with the Brown Corporation which said that the campus is “peaceful and supportive campus for its Jewish community.”

The letter, signed by members of the local Hillel International chapter and Chabad on College Hill, continued: “Brown University is a place where Jewish life not only exists but thrives. While there is more work to be done, Brown, through the dedicated efforts of its administration, leadership, and resilient spirit of its Jewish community, continues to uphold the principles of inclusion, tolerance, and intellectual freedom that have been central to its identity since 1764.”

Brown Divest Coalition — an anti-Zionist group which recently saw its campaign for the university to adopt the boycott, divest, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel defeated by the Brown Corporation — weighed in too, denouncing the reported cut as “a means of suppressing all forms of popular dissent to the renewed violence of the US war machine abroad.” US Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) also criticized the move, accusing the administration “of a broader pattern of behavior…that will negatively impact communities across the country and lead to layoffs, restrict research, and more.”

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the Trump administration is following through on its threats to inflict potentially catastrophic financial injuries on colleges and universities deemed as soft on antisemitism or excessively “woke.” The past six weeks has seen the policy imposed on elite universities including Harvard and Columbia, rattling a higher education establishment that has for better and worse operated for decades with little interference from the federal government even as it polarized the public and contributed to a growing sense that elites are contemptuous of Americans who live outside of their cultural enclaves.

In March, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Later, the Trump administration disclosed its reviewing $9 billion worth of federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard University, jeopardizing a substantial source of the school’s income over its alleged failure to quell antisemitic and pro-Hamas activity on campus following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.”

Additionally,  60 universities are being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over their handling of campus antisemitism, a project that will serve as an early test of the administration’s ability to perform the essential functions of the agency after downsizing its workforce to increase its efficiency.

One of those universities, Northwestern University, on Monday touted its progress in addressing campus antisemitism, noting that it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Trump Administration Planning $510 Million Cut to Brown University Budget, Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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