A $53bn (£41.4 billion) reconstruction plan to rival President Donald Trump’s idea for the US to “take over Gaza” and move out more than two million Palestinians has been approved by Arab leaders at an emergency summit in the Egyptian capital Cairo.
“The Egypt plan is now an Arab plan,” announced the secretary general of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit at the end of this hour-long gathering.
Without referring specifically to President Trump’s ideas, he underlined that “the Arab stance is to reject any displacement, whether it is voluntary or forced”.
Egypt had produced a detailed blueprint, with a 91-page glossy document including images of leafy neighbourhoods and grand public buildings, to counter a US scheme labelled as a “Middle East Riviera” which shocked the Arab world and beyond.
Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi also called for a parallel plan alongside the physical reconstruction to move towards what is known as the two state solution – a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Arab states widely see this, and many others, as the only lasting solution to this perpetual conflict. Still, it is firmly ruled out by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies.
This new plan proposes that Gaza would be run, temporarily, by a “Gaza management committee under the umbrella of the Palestinian government” comprised of qualified technocrats.
It glosses over the issue of what role, if any, Hamas, will play. There is a vague reference to the “obstacle” of militant groups and said this issue would be resolved if the causes of the conflict with Israel were removed.
Some Arab states are known to be calling for the complete dismantling of Hamas; others believe those decisions should be left up to the Palestinians. Hamas is said to have accepted it will not play a role in running Gaza but has made it clear that disarming is a red line.
This new Arab plan to rebuild Gaza would unfold in three phases, including an initial period of about six months, called the early recovery stage, to start clearing the massive amounts of rubble as well as unexploded ordinance. Two subsequent stages would last several years.
During this time, displaced Palestinians, said to number 1.5 million, would be housed in temporary containers. Photographs in the glossy brochure present them as well-built and designed housing units set in pretty landscaped areas.
Cairo’s proposal is said to have drawn on a wide range of expertise, from World Bank professionals on sustainability, to Dubai developers on hotels.
There are also lessons learned from other ravaged cities which rose from the ruins including Hiroshima, Beirut, and Berlin. And the proposed designs are also influenced by Egypt’s own experience in developing its “New Cairo”, its grand megaproject which has seen a new administrative capital rising from the desert – at great expense.
The American President has said he won’t “force” his ideas on anyone but still insists his plan is the one “that works”.
Now it is up to the Arab states and their allies to prove that their plan is the only plan.
