By Islam Farag, from Cairo / Egypt
A few days ago, an emergency Arab summit held in Cairo approved an Egyptian plan that envisions the reconstruction and administration of the Gaza Strip, which was destroyed by Israel in a war that lasted more than 15 months against the defenseless Palestinian people in the strip, amidst the international community’s inability to stop that annihilation.
Egyptian initiative
The Egyptian plan came as an alternative proposal to the proposals of US President Donald Trump to permanently displace the 2.3 million residents of Gaza, with the aim of seizing that miserable spot in the world and transforming it into a global tourist and commercial area without the land’s owners, according to his vision that disregards any legal or human rights of this people.
Those Trump’s proposals received only rejection from the peoples and leaders of the Arab region, while international officials and legal experts described them as a crime of ethnic cleansing.
The US President’s justifications in his proposal were that the Strip had turned into a large demolition site, unfit for habitation and impossible to rebuild without displacing its residents. However, these justifications are refuted by the fact that major cities have suffered severe destruction during various wars and were rebuilt with their inhabitants present. Berlin and Dresden were rebuilt after World War II, and Stalingrad after 1942, and no one at that time spoke of displacing their residents for the purpose of reconstruction.
Observers in the Arab world saw the US President’s proposal from only two perspectives. First, that he is a real estate developer who saw in the Strip only a prime location suitable for American and international investments that would not bear fruit without ending the headache caused by the resistance of the land’s owners and their insistence on demanding their right to a stable and independent state.
As for the second perspective, the American proposal is nothing more than an opportunity that allows the Israeli occupation state to expand at the expense of the Palestinian lands under the cover of reconstruction, investment, and ensuring the end of any resistance presence. This means, in short, that Washington is helping and supporting Israel to obtain through politics and diplomacy what it failed to win through war.
After Trump announced his proposals for the future of the Strip, Egypt’s rejection of them was the loudest, considering that these ideas and perceptions end any talk of a two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Ending any horizon for this solution means nothing but the collapse of the Arab regional system and the spread of chaos that could overthrow any hope for stability in the region.
Egypt took the initiative to present an alternative plan to these proposals, ensuring the reconstruction of the Strip without displacing its population. In order for this plan to gain more support and strength, it began coordinating with the Palestinian Authority, the Gulf States, the largest potential funders of any reconstruction process, and the relevant international parties, with the aim of arriving at the best vision that would gain consensus. It also sought to obtain the approval of the member states of the Arab League for its plan during the emergency summit, so that it would become the Arab plan.
Plan details
The Egyptian plan consists of 112 pages, including detailed maps of how to comprehensively reconstruct the strip with housing projects, gardens, community centers, a commercial port, a technology center, and beachfront hotels.
The plan takes 5 years to implement, divided chronologically into two phases, preceded by a preliminary stage called “early recovery” which lasts 6 months and costs 3 billion dollars, during which debris is removed and temporary housing is installed for the displaced persons in 7 locations accommodating about 1.5 million people, in addition to the restoration of 60,000 partially destroyed units to accommodate 360,000 individuals upon completion of the restoration process.
The first phase takes two years and costs 20 billion dollars, aiming to build 200,000 housing units, while the second phase takes two and a half years and costs 30 billion dollars, aiming to build another 200,000 housing units and establish an airport in the strip. The total cost of the reconstructing process according to the plan is 53 billion dollars.
The plan proposes that funding be through the establishment of a trust fund that receives financial pledges from all countries and donor financing institutions, with the fund subject to international supervision to ensure transparency.
Regarding the administration of the strip, the plan proposes the formation of a temporary committee of Palestinian administrators, technocrats, and non-factional members, operating under the umbrella of the Palestinian government. This committee will undertake management and relief supervision tasks for 6 months, while Egypt and Jordan will train Palestinian security personnel to assume security duties in the next phase.
The plan also calls for the launch of a peace process based on a two-state solution, and demands that, in parallel with the reconstruction process, transitional governance arrangements be reached, and an international resolution be issued to deploy international peacekeeping forces until this solution is reached.
Questions without answers
Despite the Arab League’s adoption of the plan and its unanimous approval, the image that emerged from this agreement was confusing in form, while the details raised more questions than answers.
In terms of form, the absence of a large number of Arab leaders from attending the emergency summit was noticeable and raised questions. Although these leaders sent representatives to deputize for them, their absence from such an important event marred the strong image of consensus and agreement that Cairo wished to project to the American side, which was pressing for the implementation of its plans to displace Gazans.
As for the substance, many observers considered the plan incomplete and lacking clear answers on many aspects of implementation.
According to some, the plan does not address crucial issues such as who will finance the reconstruction of Gaza, nor does it specify any precise details on how the strip will be governed, or how a powerful armed group like Hamas will be removed.
The plan does not also address the issue of what actions can be taken if Hamas refuses to disarm. The movement has repeatedly stated that its weapons are a red line, and no one can approach them, while Israel considers the dismantling of the resistance’s weapons a prerequisite for starting negotiations for the second phase, upon which the Arab plan will be based.
Despite Hamas’s acceptance of the plan, the American and Israeli rejection of it, and of the Arab summit’s outcomes in general, raises significant questions about the possibility of its implementation on the ground.
As soon as the plan was announced, Israel declared its rejection, considering that it did not address the reality of the situation in the devastated Palestinian sector, and affirmed that the movement cannot remain there.
The proposed Arab plan, although it excludes Hamas from managing the strip, clearly disregards the disarmament of Hamas and the rest of the factions and the dismantling of their military structures.
Furthermore, the talk of the Palestinian Authority’s supervision of the temporary committee that is supposed to manage the strip, according to the plan, contradicts Tel Aviv’s assurances over the past months of its refusal to hand over the rule of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority.
The White House also announced its rejection of the Egyptian plan, stating that it does not address the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. National Security Council Spokesman Brian Hughes said that the current plan does not address the reality that strip is currently uninhabitable, and residents cannot live among the rubble and unexploded ordnance.
President Trump himself has said he remains committed to his vision of rebuilding a Hamas-free Gaza and has made clear that Washington looks forward to further talks on the issue.
Intentional ambiguity
According to an informed source, the ambiguity surrounding some points of the plan was intentional in order to satisfy all parties, until a detailed agreement could be reached on aspects that might be controversial and obstruct the approval of the plan.
“The main goal was to present a coherent plan that would seem like a convincing alternative for international parties to accept abandoning the displacement scenario adopted by the Americans”, the source said.
From Cairo’s point of view, according to the source, the issue of forcibly or voluntarily displacing Gazans is completely unacceptable, because it represents a threat to Egyptian national security.
In fact, Tel Aviv is trying to circumvent the Egyptian rejection of displacement by proposing the free choice of Palestinian citizens to leave their lands. It is trying to create catastrophic humanitarian conditions that will force them to leave by stopping the entry of aid to the Strip, obstructing any reconstruction process, and cutting off electricity and water to Gaza.
Therefore, the Israeli rejection of the Arab plan was clear in the statement of its Foreign Ministry, which confirmed its support for President Trump’s plan, which, according to it, provides an opportunity for the residents of Gaza to freely choose to leave the Strip.
While Tel Aviv is trying to impose a fait accompli by buying time, the informed source believes that Cairo is aware of this and is trying to link the reconstruction process to a parallel process to formulate arrangements for transitional governance that lead to a two-state solution, thus depriving the Hebrew state of the opportunity to ending the Palestinian issue.
The interim committee for the administration of the Gaza Strip and the transitional governance arrangements together represent a gradual effort to create another internationally acceptable reality that strikes at the Israeli claims that there is no entity representing the Palestinians that is a basic partner in the peace process, and also blocks its efforts to establish separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Missing mechanisms
However, despite the validity of the arguments presented by the source that clarify the ruling vision for the reconstruction plan to come out in this manner, questions remain about the mechanisms by which Cairo and the Arab League can convince the Americans of the plan, and about the alternatives that can be put forward if they insist on rejecting it.
Without the approval and support of the US administration for the plan, and in light of Israeli intransigence towards it, it cannot be implemented under any circumstances. For those who do not know, Tel Aviv has controlled the movement of entry into the Strip since 2007 after Hamas took control there, under the pretext of preventing the smuggling of weapons to the movement.
The Arab reconstruction plan requires the existence of an administrative body that the Hebrew state accepts to deal with to make this path a success.
But the right-wing government currently ruling Israel is putting a spoke in the wheel, insisting that it will not accept any plan for the Strip without disarming Hamas, which is a real obstacle to moving forward on any path, because even if the movement has accepted to step aside regarding administration, it has repeatedly declared its absolute refusal to discuss this issue as a red line.
Despite Hamas’s awareness of the weakness of the cards it holds and the weakness of its supporters in the region, such as Iran and Hezbollah, it will maneuver behind the scenes to the maximum extent to keep its weapons, especially in light of the difficulty of forcing it to do so.
According to the source, there will come a moment of choice when the movement has to choose who will have to leave the Strip: Hamas or the people of Gaza.
“Dismantling the movement’s weapons may not be an Israeli and American demand only, but may be a basic demand of the Arab funders of the plan. Without its implementation, the reconstruction plan may not see the light of day,” the source added.