The Arab League held a summit in Cairo on March 4 with the sole intention of considering a comprehensive plan for Gaza’s future, masterminded by Egypt.
Costed at some $53 billion, it focuses in a 112-page document on emergency relief, rebuilding shattered infrastructure, and long-term economic development. The conference endorsed the plan, as far as it went. The later stages will require more detailed consideration.
It was on February 4 that US President Donald Trump announced his proposal to turn the Gaza Strip into a US-run “Riviera of the Middle East,” having first evacuated the population to any nearby Arab states willing to accept a total of some two million people.
The Arab world, as well as much of the rest of the globe, greeted the idea with a mixture of astonishment and ridicule. Some commentators, claiming to know Trump’s methods, maintained that he had deliberately used shock tactics to goad the Arab world into playing a more active role in considering Gaza’s future and how to achieve it.
If this was indeed the method in Trump’s madness, it produced results. A couple of weeks later, on February 17, news media worldwide reported that Egypt was preparing an alternative to Trump’s proposal in which evacuating the territory and relocating the Gazan population would play no part.
The Egyptian plan for Gaza's future
The Egyptian proposal called for establishing “secure areas” within Gaza, where Palestinians can live temporarily while Egyptian and international construction firms reconstitute the Strip’s infrastructure. More than two dozen Egyptian and international firms would take part, and the reconstruction would provide tens of thousands of jobs for Gaza’s population.
Winding up the summit on March 4, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi welcomed “the consensus among the Arab countries to support the reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip, which allows the Palestinian people to stay on their land without displacement.”
In a social media post after the conference, Sisi said he looked forward to working with Trump, other Arab nations, and the international community “to adopt a plan that aims for a comprehensive and just settlement of the Palestinian issue, ends the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, guarantees the security and stability of the peoples of the region, and establishes the Palestinian state.”
The Egyptian plan outlines a three-phase process taking five years, starting with a six-month “early recovery period” involving the establishment of “safe zones.” Some 1.5 million displaced Gazans would be moved into 200,000 prefabricated housing units and 60,000 repaired homes. This stage is estimated to cost some $3b.
The second phase, lasting two years and costing $20b., would see housing and utilities rebuilt. During the third phase, which would take another two years, an airport, two seaports, and an industrial zone would be built at a cost of $30b.
As for the Strip’s governance, a key aspect of this plan is the establishment of a temporary Governance Assistance Mission from which Hamas would be excluded. This interim body would oversee humanitarian aid and initiate reconstruction efforts until a reformed Palestinian Authority can assume control. Despite this exclusion, Hamas has publicly welcomed the Egyptian plan as signaling strong Arab alignment with the Palestinian cause.
Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the summit’s final communiqué calls on the UN Security Council to deploy an international peacekeeping force in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. In addition, the communiqué said Egypt will host an international conference in cooperation with the UN to agree on Gaza’s reconstruction.
Funding will probably require investment from oil-rich Gulf governments, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. A trust fund, overseen by the World Bank, will be established to handle pledges and donor-provided funds.
A final stage, still open for Arab discussion and refinement, would start the process of creating a sovereign Palestinian state. Establishing interconnectivity between the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip would be an early priority. In tackling this conundrum, the planners need look no further than Trump’s own comprehensive plan, “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People,” issued on January 28, 2020.
The result of years of intensive diplomatic effort by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the plan envisaged the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank, excluding the settlements, plus a Gaza greatly expanded by a swath of Israeli territory south of the Strip. All Palestinian occupied territories would be made contiguous by way of a network of highways and a road tunnel linking the West Bank to Gaza. The published plan contained maps illustrating how all enclaves of a sovereign Palestine could be interconnected.
Trump’s plan was no sooner unveiled than it was vehemently rejected by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the PA, and other voices in the Arab world, though not universally. Significantly, both Saudi Arabia and Egypt seemed prepared to give the plan a fair hearing.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry stated: “Egypt recognizes the importance of considering the US administration’s initiative from the perspective of the importance of achieving the resolution of the Palestinian issue, thus restoring to the Palestinian people their full legitimate rights.”
Egypt’s new plan for Gaza’s future, while carrying the wholehearted approval of the Arab League, has not fared so well in US and Israeli circles. The AP news agency reported that White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes has dismissed the Egyptian proposal as unworkable.
“The current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable,” said Hughes on March 4, “and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance. President Trump stands by his vision to rebuild Gaza free from Hamas. We look forward to further talks to bring peace and prosperity to the region.”
A spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Oren Marmorstein, posted on X that the Egyptian plan “fails to address the realities of the situation.” The plan, he said, remains “rooted in outdated perspectives.”
Nevertheless Egypt’s plan garnered backing from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who attended the Arab summit. “I welcome and strongly endorse the Arab-led initiative to mobilize support for Gaza’s reconstruction,” he said. “The UN stands ready to cooperate fully in this endeavor.”
Initial knee-jerk reactions by US and Israeli spokesmen to the Arab-endorsed plan may yet be modified, especially as the White House announced on March 5 that, with Israel’s prior knowledge, the US was engaged in direct talks with Hamas about the ceasefire. The door is open for discussion and negotiation.
The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.