Unfortunately, the Arab leaderships are still caught in their own illusion that the world will return to the pre-October 7 reality, but it won’t.
Endorsed by Arab rulers at a summit held in Cairo, Egypt’s 112-page draft proposal for the future of the Gaza Strip was quickly rejected by Israel and the United States. Meanwhile, Hamas has welcomed the plan. This comes despite the proposal actually being more favorable to Israel than to them.
Although it took longer than expected to draft, the Egyptian plan is certainly a serious counter-proposal to US President Donald Trump’s outlandish rhetoric about ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip and turning it into a billionaires’ playground. Striking a balance between Palestinian and Israeli interests, it reads as a document in line with former Arab initiatives which uphold the “two-State solution” as the desired long-term outcome.
Where the proposal shines is its insistence on the Palestinian people not only leading their own transitional phase government, but also that they be the ones to preside over reconstruction.
As always, the devil can often be found in the details, yet, premising reconstruction and future governance on the principle of Palestinian self-determination is a positive. However, in order to make the reconstruction phase possible, there must first be an agreement on exactly who will be allowed to lead the transitional governing coalition that will be formed in the Gaza Strip.
While pledges to build specific amounts of housing units, an airport, and a seaport, are all features of Cairo’s proposal and would in theory be great, there were all these things before, much of which was also included in the Oslo Agreements. The gaping wipe hole in this proposal has little to do with Gaza and everything to do with Israel.
To begin with, there is an onus put on Israel for destroying the Gaza Strip, whether that be a strategy for legally or financially holding Tel Aviv to account.
The reality is that if the Israelis are never going to be held accountable and everyone else will simply just pay to reconstruct the occupied territory – which they are technically responsible for under international law – then Israel could in theory wait for Gaza to be reconstructed and then just destroy it again for fun.
The most serious issue that presents itself is what mechanisms are to be put in place to restrain the Israeli occupation army.
If it is not forced into restraint, what will prevent it from carrying out random acts of violence against civilians, as they are currently committing on a daily basis inside southern Lebanon, despite the ceasefire. Furthermore, what guarantees are there to be put in place that force Israel to allow sufficient reconstruction materials to enter the Gaza Strip?
In 2014, Israel agreed to allow reconstruction materials into the besieged coastal enclave, yet never followed up on its pledge, in fact, Gaza was never fully reconstructed between the 2014 war and October 7, 2023. In addition to this, we need only go back to the January 19 ceasefire/prisoner-exchange deal to secure all the relevant evidence to prove that Israel will not respect its side of the ceasefire deal in any respect.
On all accounts, from murdering Palestinian hostages, refusing to release hostages on a whim, blocking aid and essential items into Gaza as agreed, to murdering civilians with airstrikes and sniper fire, Israel violated the ceasefire.
It not only violated the ceasefire every single day since its implementation, but Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, openly vowed from day one that he was not going to uphold the deal he signed and would cancel it come the second phase of the agreement.
If there are no provisions to hold Israel accountable or to prevent it from attacking and thwarting reconstruction, the Egyptian plan would be no more than an exercise in self-vanity on behalf of the Arab rulers.
The other major issue here is whether Palestinians who are professionals in their fields will be excluded from the future Gaza administration based solely upon party affiliations or work within the fold of the previous Hamas-led administration.
The Israel standard of “re-educating Gaza”, “de-radicalizing Gaza” and “destroying Hamas”, appears to be in line with the disastrous US nation building policy of “de-Baathification” that was set forth in Baghdad.
As we have learnt from history, disqualifying the most competent professionals from working in their field simply based on past affiliations, can prove disastrous, often leading to administrations formed of unqualified and incompetent opportunists.
If Tel Aviv is going to insist that the competent internally elected officials cannot govern based upon a claim that they were associated with Hamas, there cannot be any governing force that will work in Gaza.
Although it is certainly a serious proposal and something that even Hamas has openly welcomed, despite it clearly spelling the end of their rule in Gaza, it rests upon two faulty assumptions: The first is that Israel is a rational actor that will respect an agreement and the second is that we still live in a two-State solution era.
Israel was never interested in actually giving concessions to the Palestinian people, yet back in the 1990s and early 2000s, you could argue it had some national mission of kind and maintained society cohesion amongst its Jewish population.
In this era, especially after the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, but even before that with the rise of Netanyahu’s extremist coalition, Israel no longer exists as the State it once was.
It is clear that the Israelis are now seeking territorial expansion, “total victory” in a regional war that aims to redraw borders and crush the Islamic Republic of Iran along with anyone else who gets in their way, while redefining what their Zionist mission truly constitutes.
There is no way that Israel, unless it is dealt a decisive military defeat, will ever agree to concessions with the Palestinian people or any surrounding nation for that matter. Unfortunately, the Arab leaderships are still caught in their own illusion that the world will return to the pre-October 7 reality, but it won’t. Israel sees the “seven front war” that Netanyahu recently described as an “existential” battle for national survival.
Even if a short-term proposal for ending the war in Gaza and reconstruction of the territory would be endorsed by Tel Aviv and Washington, the Arab rulers have to throw their weight behind a defensive strategy that holds Israel to account if they violate it. In order to ensure the Israelis don’t try to collapse the plan, there must be a joint Arab program that will impose military, economic, political and legal costs on the occupier.
Failure of the Arab leaderships to actually stand up in this moment and to finally throw their weight around could result in the toppling of many of these regimes in the foreseeable future. While they may suffer as a result of the US and Israeli actions that will be taken against them, it could be the only way to save themselves from being toppled.
We are no longer in the era of the two-State solution being thrown around as a phrase to make everyone happy, Israel doesn’t even want to hear about it any more, and neither does the US government. Instead, they want to know one thing, are you with us as our slaves or are you against us?
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
