“Trump will change his mind only when he realises that Arab states will be more useful to him than Israel,” Ambassador Moataz Ahmadin told The New Arab.
President Donald Trump greets Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi as he arrives outside the West Wing at the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, 3 April 2017. [Getty]
US rejection of an Egyptian plan for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip without displacing its people adds yet a new obstacle on the road of implementing it.
The plan, unveiled by Egypt and endorsed by Arab states at an emergency Arab summit in Cairo on Tuesday, rolls out specific steps for rebuilding the war-ravaged Palestinian territory in five years.
It includes an early recovery phase that will extend over six months, during which hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents will be given temporary shelters and necessities until around 50 million tonnes of debris are removed from different parts of the coastal enclave.
This early recovery phase is expected to cost $3 billion, as per the Egyptian plan.
The second phase of the plan will extend over two years and will include the construction of around 200,000 flats at the cost of $20 billion, whereas the third phase will last for two and a half years and will cost $30 billion. The third phase of the plan will include the construction of an additional 200,000 flats.
Added to around 30,000 homes that have not been totally destroyed during Israel’s 15-month genocidal war on Gaza, the aforementioned 400,000 flats will accommodate population increase in Gaza until 2030 when the population reaches 3 million, according to Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.
The Gaza reconstruction plan also includes—among other things—the construction of a seaport, a fishing port and an international airport, the Egyptian foreign minister said, following the emergency Arab summit in Egypt on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, the plan has failed to win approval from President Trump or Israel.
US National Security Council Spokesman Brian Hughes said a few hours after the end of the summit in Egypt that the US president had rejected the plan, because it does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordinance.
This rejection, analysts in Cairo said, was expected, highlighting the need for Arab states to apply diplomatic pressure and use the cards in their hands to convince the US president to change his mind.
“The whole thing depends on the pressure Arab states will apply in the coming period,” Ambassador Moataz Ahmadin, Egypt’s former representative at the United Nations, told The New Arab.
“Equally important is also coordination between Arab countries and other major partners, especially Europe,” he added.
He called for Arab countries to use the cards they have in their hands, including the economic cards.
President Trump, Ambassador Ahmadin said, wants to attract $1 trillion in investments, especially from Saudi Arabia.
“This is an important card in the hands of Arab states,” he said. “Trump will change his mind only when he realises that Arab states will be more useful to him than Israel.”
Financing commitment
President Trump’s rejection of the plan adds to the problems facing it.
Despite what seems to be universal Arab approval of the Egyptian blueprint for the reconstruction of Gaza and rejection of the displacement of the Palestinians of Gaza, the extent to which Arab states will be committed to implementing the plan remains to be unclear.
The emergency Arab summit in Egypt was held amid marginal rifts over preparations for its agenda, especially with Algeria and Tunisia objecting to the lack of prior coordination with them on this agenda. This was why the leaders of the two North African states did not attend the summit, but delegated their foreign ministers to attend on their behalf.
Except for the emirs of Qatar and Bahrain, Gulf Cooperation Council member states’ leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed, did not show up, but sent senior officials from their countries to Egypt instead.
Whether these absences are a reflection of non-financial commitment to the implementation of the plan remains to be seen in the coming period.
This lack of clarity over financial commitment on the part of oil-rich Gulf states also compounds ambiguity over whether Europe, which is now busy mulling ways to fend for itself with the US planning to wash its hands off the war in Ukraine and common defence arrangements with the continent, will contribute any funds.
Egypt is expected to host a conference on Gaza’s reconstruction next month in its bid to raise the required funds for the rebuilding of the Palestinian territory.
Answering a question by reporters about how the $53 billion required for Gaza’s reconstruction would be raised for the reconstruction process to start, Foreign Minister Abdelatty said the fact that this reconstruction process would be implemented over five years would give sufficient time for states that want to contribute funds to do this.
Hamas’ spectre
The Egyptian plan also addresses the issue of Gaza’s rule by proposing a committee of independent Palestinian technocrats who will run administrative and security affairs in the territory, along with the distribution of humanitarian and relief aid.
This committee of technocrats will manage Gaza’s affairs for a period of six months until the Palestinian Authority, which runs the occupied West Bank, extends its control to Gaza, as per the Egyptian plan.
Egypt will, meanwhile, offer training to hundreds of Palestinian security men who can return to Gaza take over security in it.
Nonetheless, this raises questions about whether the Gaza-ruling Hamas will accept to be marginalised or lay down its arms.
In the past weeks, since the current ceasefire began in Gaza in mid-January, Hamas was keen to show that it is still there and that it would continue to be there after the war.
The group seems to have succeeded in compensating the human losses it sustained during the war, amid reports that it had drawn in thousands of new recruits.
Hamas senior official Sami Abu Zuhri said on Tuesday that his group would not accept to lay down its arms.
“The weapon of the resistance is a red line, and it is not negotiable,” Abu Zuhri said.
This confirmation is the latest in a series of others by other Hamas officials, all indicating that the day after in Gaza would be about nothing but Hamas.
However, some Hamas officials were open to giving up the group’s grip on administrative and civilian affairs in Gaza, throwing light on how Hamas perceives its role in Gaza’s future.
Hamas may be planning to outsource Gaza‘s civilian governance in ways that allow it to keep its arms like Hezbollah does in Lebanon, a scenario that is unacceptable to both Israel and the US which said once and again that they would not allow the group to be present in Gaza.
On Tuesday, Hughes said President Trump stands by his vision to rebuild Gaza free from Hamas.
This turns the Palestinian group into a major impediment on the road to rebuilding Gaza and implementing the Egyptian plan, analysts said.
“Hamas will not allow the deployment of any security troops from outside Gaza,” Palestinian analyst Mazen al-Najjar told TNA.
“The group is even hostile to the deployment of non-Hamas Palestinian security men who receive training in other countries,” he added.
