Egyptian-Arab League Plan for Gaza : Built on Quicksand

Pres. Trump may have reluctantly abandoned his ethnic cleansing “plan” to redevelop Gaza, the Arab states are developing their own alternative. Though more detailed and realistic than the US president’s, it makes a series of questionable assumptions that raise doubts about its efficacy:

…Sources involved in the process tell The National that the proposal includes the creation of safe zones within the territory during a five-year rebuilding period.

The initial stages would focus on restoring essential services and temporary housing. Drafted by experts, the plan stipulates that caravans, tents and essential services would be made available inside the safe zone…

Rakha Hassan, a former Egyptian deputy foreign minister…said several large Egyptian property developers had submitted several proposals to the government on Gaza’s reconstruction…The Egyptian government also planned to host an international conference to raise money for rebuilding.

The construction, to be bid out to Egyptian builders, raises questions given the corruption rife in such projects in Egypt.  Tens or hundreds of millions will likely be siphoned into the pockets of officials, from the Egyptians to those supervising construction inside the enclave.  It would be much more transparent if the construction was done by European developers and supervised by European officials.

Further, this plan can only happen if the ceasefire contiues and proceeds to its second stage.  It’s an open question whether Bibi Netanyahu will do so.  Given his domestic political considerations, he is more likely to revert to armed conflict.  However, as I wrote yesterday, Trump may pressure him to continue the ceasefire in order to exchange all of the hostages.

Egyptian government officials have been discussing and fine-tuning the Gaza reconstruction plan with international donors, including the EU, as well as representatives of construction companies and Gulf nations that have stated their initial readiness to contribute funds.

Experts estimate the reconstruction will cost $53-billion.  Egypt is proposing a donor conference attended by European and Gulf States, who would be its financial guarantors. But they are concerned their funds would go up in the smoke of the next Israeli attack:

Cairo is calling for the creation of an independent agency to oversee reconstruction, as well as an international fund to be financed by the European Union, the United Nations and, above all, the Gulf States. The latter, however, fear that their reconstruction efforts could be wiped out by new cycles of violence.

There are three major problems with this proposal. First, previous such meetings at which donors made similar pledges raised only half of the required amount.  Many parties reneged on their pledges.

Two post-war international conferences on Gaza’s reconstruction, in March 2009 in Sharm El-Sheikh and in October 2014 in Cairo, have both failed to produce sustained economic recovery beyond the partial reconstruction of the damage caused by the wars.

…Post-war attempts to give Gaza much-needed breathing space all fell short. Post-war reconstruction and economic recovery remain an incomplete process, with only half of the $3.5 billion of the pledges made at the 2014 Cairo donor conference on rebuilding Gaza delivered. The Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism—a short-term UN-brokered agreement between Israel and the PA reached in September 2014 to allow for the entry of restricted building materials and other “dual-use items” from Israel—was ineffective and gave Israel near-total control over Gaza’s reconstruction.

Second, as the above passage indicates, any prospective donor knows that Israel will destroy virtually everything they fund inside Gaza during the next war (which will surely happen).  Why waste billions when you know they’ll be blasted by Israeli missiles?

The third obstacle is Israel. As this article points out: any reconstruction project would ultimately be controlled by Israel.  Note, the proposal doesn’t refer to Israel. It is the 2,000 pound elephant in the room.  Without addressing Israel and ensuring it cannot interfere, you might as well be whistling in the wind.  In the past, it has refused to permit vast quantities of the materials necessary to rebuild.  Even if most of it enters from the Egyptian Rafah crossing, Israel can act by fiat to frustrate plans. There is no party with the power to prevent this.  The Arabs cannot (though Saudi Arabia might be able to barter recognition for Israeli non-interference. Certainly, the Trump administration will not; and they are the only part which has the leverage to do so.

Israel has won a trifecta in Gaza : committed genocide, destroyed the entire enclave with $55-billion in reconstruction, and gotten the Arab world to clean up its mess. It’s wrought lesser, but still significant damage during the five wars it’s fought there in the past 15 years.  It did the same in 1948 when it rid itself of most of its indigenous Palestinian inhabitants and dumped them on its frontline Arab neighbors.  Israel feels little of the pain, but enjoys all of the gain.

For Egypt, the redevelopment project is a golden opportunity to line the pockets of senior officials, to secure massive amounts of funding from its Gulf benefactors, and avoid a potentially disastrous outcome: millions of radicalized Gazans expelled from their homes in Gaza to Egypt.  There they would undermine the ruling regime as the PLO did during Black September, when launched a failed attempt to overthrow King Hussein.  The resulting bloodbath led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians and Jordanians.

The proposed future governance process for Gaza deserves skepticism:

The Egyptian plan envisages the creation of an independent Palestinian agency to co-ordinate and oversee the reconstruction. The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority will have to issue a decree creating the agency but will not be entitled to interfere or influence its work, the sources said.  Members of the agency will be technocrats who enjoy the support of all Palestinian factions.

Separately, Egypt is in the process of selecting a 15-man Palestinian committee to oversee the day-to-day affairs of post-war Gaza, including a limited say in the reconstruction effort, said the sources. The proposed committee will not include representatives of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority and will be aided by local clan chiefs and mayors.

In the longer term, neither the PA nor Hamas will be willing to relinquish political control over this process.  They each have too much to lose if they remain on the sidelines.  They will both be waiting in the wings for the proposed model to collapse.

Why would Gazans accept an Egyptian plan imposed on them, regardless of who serves on the committee?  Nor can we discount the prospect of Mohammed Dahlan, the Butcher of Gaza, returing from exile in UAE to take control.  Dahlan would certainly fit the condition of someone not currently affiliated with either the PA or Hamas (though his past allegiance was to Fatah).

In the past, Israel has recruited the same clan chiefs to serve as a political counter to Hamas.  The latter quickly eliminated such individuals and ended the Israeli plan.  It’s difficult to see why the Egyptian proposal would have a different outcome.  Clan chiefs are not elected. They may serve their clans. But they don’t serve Gaza as a whole.  This will not be a democratic outcome. Rather, it will be strongman rule, mirroring the same model as Arab regional autocracies.  This is unlikely to succeed in Gaza.

The final stage of the process would be a political resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict with a two-state solution.  This is dead on arrival.  Israel will never agree to it.  Even if an Israeli government agreed to such a proposal, it would be trouned in the polls.  It will never happen.  Anyone, including these Arab states, who believes it will or can, is engaged in self-delusion.  The disilusionment with this failure breeds anger and frustration among Palestinians, who know better than anyone what Israel will do.