Rebuilding Gaza: The Arab Plan V. Trump’s Displacement

CrossFireArabia
Opinion
March 13, 2025

By Michael Jansen

The Muslim world has added its considerable weight to the plan adopted by the Arab summit for the reconstruction of Gaza while Palestinians remain in the strip. A meeting last week in Jeddah at foreign minister level of the 57-member Organisation for Islamic Cooperation extended full support to the detailed plan drawn up by Egypt. Therefore, both the Arab world and worldwide Muslim Umma have rejected the proposal of Donald Trump to expel 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza and transform the devastated coastal trip into a “Middle Eastern Riviera.”

The 91-page $53 billion Egyptian plan itself is a major accomplishment as it was drawn up in less than 30 days. Its framework was presented last month to a mini-summit in Saudi Arabia of the Gulf countries, Egypt and Jordan, and approved on by Arab foreign ministers ahead of the maxi-summit.

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During the first six-month $3 billion stage of the plan Hamas would cease administering Gaza and a committee of Palestinian technocrats overseen by the Palestinian Authority would clear rubble from the main north-south Salaheddin highway. Palestinian residents would shift to seven relatively clear sites where 200,000 temporary housing units would be built to shelter 1.2 million. Additionally, 60,000 damaged buildings would be repaired to house thousands. Egypt and Jordan would train a Palestinian police force to enable a reformed Palestinian Authority to take over Gaza’s governance from Hamas. Nothing was said about disarming Hamas’ military wing which could be a contentious issue.

The second $20 billion two-year reconstruction stage would focus on permanent housing and rehabilitation of agricultural land, electricity, water, sewage and telecom-munications. The third 2.5-year stage costing $30 billion would continue with housing and build an industrial zone, a fishing port, a commercial seaport, and an international airport. Funding would be raised from donors in the Gulf, Europe, the US and international financial institutions. Disbursement and investment would be internationally supervised.

It is hardly surprising that the US and Israel should reject the Arab/Muslim plan. US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes issued a statement which said, “The current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable, 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.” Trump, however, did not propose a Gaza free from Hamas but a Gaza free from Palestinians. This is neither acceptable nor legal under international law.

Despite, Hughes dismissal, Washington appears to be divided. Trump’s regional envoy Steve Witkoff said, “There’s a lot of compelling features” in Egypt’s plan for postwar Gaza, and observed that there was “a path” for Hamas to leave Gaza.

The Israeli foreign ministry said the Egyptian plan “fails to address the realities of the situation.” For the ministry these “realities” were created by the October 7th, 2023, raid on southern Israel by Hamas which killed 1,200. Naturally, the ministry reiterated Israel’s support for Trump’s plan as “an opportunity for the Gazans to have free choice based on their free will.” By this, the ministry meant bombed and starved Palestinians would freely choose to leave Gaza although Gazans have said they have chosen to stay in the strip despite dire conditions.

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Gazans are determined to resist a second Nakba, their catastrophic 1948 expulsion from their cities, towns and villages. This left them homeless, landless and stateless and the world has done nothing to remedy their situation over the past 77-years although the “path” to a Palestinian state has been charted since 1988 when the Palestinian National Council issued the Palestinian Declaration of Independence and a call for a mini-state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, 22 per cent of the Palestinian homeland.

While 30 per cent of Gazans are indigenous, 70 per cent were driven into the Gaza strip from nearby areas. Many still live in UN refugee camps. More than 30,000 took part in the Great March of Return by protesting along the border between Gaza and Israel. The demonstrations began on March 30, 2018, and continued until December 27, 2019. The mainly peaceful protesters demanded the right to go home in areas conquered by Israel in 1948 and an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Israeli snipers opened fire at protesters, killing 266 youngsters and injuring almost 30,000 others, Gaza’s health ministry reported. Many of the injured received crippling wounds in the legs.

These demonstrations should have been proof positive that Gazans are not going anywhere else. For them, Gaza is their home, their present and their future. The Arab plan is designed to provide a decent life for native Gazans and refugees alike in a scrap of territory which amounts to one per cent of their occupied Palestinian homeland.

The writer is a columnist in The Jordan Times.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Opinion

US-Iran: Who Will Blink First!

Dr Khairi Janbek
April 24, 2026

One would say that our main inheritance from the Covid period is the term, new normal, which has been since used, conveniently, in any circumstance we found baffling to our senses.

So one wonders if the stand in Hormuz will not be our current new normal, which will mean putting up with the economic consequences of the blockage and trying at the same time to find different routes for trade. Here, one is talking economics and trade simply because the loss of life and destruction doesn’t more matter in comparison to budgets and the flow of goods.

In fact each time anyone finds an intelligent reason for this ongoing conflict, the rediculous actions of the protagonists proves the impossibility of saying an informed or otherwise opinion. For all intents and purposes, all what can be reasonably said, is that for now, the war is supposed to be inconclusive despite the threats flying around, because essentially no one wants a regime change in Iran because no one can predict the consequences.

Therefore, back to economics again, the strategy seems, who will blink first and accept the conditions of the other to return to Islamabad. Iran with its enormous financial and economic problems which fears a new uprising in the streets once the stalemate with the US becomes the norm, or the USA with the mid term elections looming, rising inflation and higher energy prices, as well as volatility in stocks and shares prices in Wall Street.

When it comes to the situation in Lebanon, clearly the link with Iran is in fact Hizbullah; which is by its own admission the Party of Veliyati -Fatih in Lebanon, under the current circumstances, with the Israeli invasion of the south of Lebanon, for the first time in the history of Lebanon, not a sect, religious community, or power group, but in fact the official state representatives are talking about direct negotiations with Israel for peace, and in fact negotiating directly with each other in Washington.

For the Lebanese state, the situation now is legitimacy over the whole geography of the country, and limiting the possession of arms only in the hands of the Lebanese army and security. However, here also we face the scenario of whether the egg comes first, which is for Hizbullah Israeli withdrawal first, or the chicken, for the Lebanese government to negotiate the withdrawal of Israel.

Leaving the devil out of the details, would it mean ultimately, that a diplomatic agreement between Lebanon and Israel makes Hizbullah the enemy of both Israel and the Lebanese state together?, and what would the Lebanese state do as a next step, if Hizbullah decides to keep its weapons?

Then of course, there is the festering wound of Gaza and the West Bank which hardly warrant any news considering the scale of what is going on in the Gulf and in Lebanon. For Gaza, the vision fluctuates between lost peace, Israeli occupation withdrawn yellow lines, and Hamas with its show of force, amidst refugees, squalor, destruction and whether aid can go in or not, while on the other hand AI generated images of its rise beach resorts which no one is likely, from now on, be able to think about even if they can afford and realize them.

Future? What can one say save for bleak.

As for the West Bank, one has to apologise for saying that the Arabs, before anyone else, are reconciled with idea that the PNA is no longer there, apart from of course, moneymaking, here and there, and that what is termed as Palestinian territory will become a Bantustan in the sea of expanded Israel. Thus where do we go from here, well, there are people with paid salaries to think about!

Janbek is a Jordanian columnist based in Paris

Opinion

Trump: Tunes, Ceasefire and Hormuz

Saleem Ayoub Quna
April 23, 2026

Saleem Ayoub Quna

The latest ceasefire by Trump reminded me of an aspiring young violinist, who every time she started playing her own written piece, the tunes of her instrument would go havoc!

Last move, the declaration of a ceasefire with no deadline, by President Donald Trump on the Hormuz virtual chessboard with Iran, did not lack the usual element of surprise. Still, it was a relief for some, annoying for others and revealing for a third group!

While at it in the White House, the Pakistani host intermediaries in the other side of the hemisphere, were stood up for the arrival of the negotiation teams, who seemingly were hindered by other conflicting schedules, while pilots of the jet fighters, in the air bases and on board destroyers, and the launchers of missiles, drones and anti–missile batteries, were all getting itchy over the delay of orders from their commanders, which left TV anchors and other commentators, boringly speculating and redundant!

After the two rounds of exchanging intensive missile and rocket attacks, between Iran and the US-Israeli axis, in less than a year, using the open skies over the Middle East from the Mediterranean to the Gulf area, as a last resort to make each party’s views clearer to the other, President Trump, the man who happens to hold most of the important cards in his hands, seems today, to have come to the conclusion, that neither his message, nor his tools, or even his sheer luck have helped making his message loud and clear enough to his opponents and to the rest of world!

Luck in this context can be associated with the totality of internal, regional and world unanticipated reactions to this complicated conflict, in terms of rising oil and gas prices for the average consumer, whether in Europe, North America or in Eastern Asia. It is highly suspected that these instruments in the hands of Trump, started producing tunes that were not written or desired by Trump himself, and if they did, it was just a kind of dissonance!

It is also very probable that Trump’s tactics as a deal maker, continuously changing his tone and vocabulary, made his listeners lose track of his true original storyline, if there was one! But more seriously, weighing and counting the odds that have befell Trump in the aftermath of the breakout of the war, some of which were

of his own making, and other developments that came out as natural by-products of the original move!

Following is a rundown of those unexpected unpleasant by-products, or side-effects, some of which might turn into chronicle headaches*, of the whole initiative which Trump had closely coordinated with his persistent ally, Netanyahu, the first in June 2025, when the two of them orchestrated the “Midnight Hammer” surprise operation against sensitive Iranian targets, and the second round “Epic Fury” on Feb28 this year, while negotiators were in session:

1. Rise of oil and gas price in world markets

2. Drop of share prices in stock markets

3. Fracture with NATO*

4. Decline in Republican Party ratings ahead of the midterms congressional elections in November

5. Resurgence of Trump’s friendship with Epstein’s scandals.

6. Firing key US generals in the midst of crisis, culminated by ousting Navy Secretary, John Phelan.

7. Emulating Jesus Christ in a replica image!

8. Personal row with Pope Leo who stands as the most respectful living figure in the Western civilization.*

9. Lebanon and Hezbollah’s connection.*

10. The Strait of Hormuz new strategic entanglement*

None of the above problems or symptoms of problems, except for point 5 and 9, existed before Trump made up his mind to go into war against Iran last year. Even back in 2018 during his first term, Trump shocked the world by tearing up the Iran-nuclear deal approved by Obama’s Administration after being endorsed by the rest of the Western powers. No one expected that Trump would go this far in his second term, except the Prime Minister of Israel!

All things considered, the whole world, minus Israel, was shocked by the magnitude of the bombings to finish Iran’s potentials to own its own nuclear knowhow and capabilities. All of which leaves me wondering if this latest ambiguous ceasefire, and the way it was presented and its timing, will prove to be a real turning point in the ongoing strife in the Middle East, or just another boring maneuvering tactic by Trump!

As for the fate of young aspiring violinist, it was said that after she had discovered that her violin was not authentic but a replica, she decided to become a soprano!

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Rebuilding Gaza: The Arab Plan V. Trump’s Displacement

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