By Hassan Nafaa
Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University, examines, in his article published in Al-Mayadeen Arabic website, whether the recent Cairo summit achieved its goals of addressing the Palestinian crisis and countering US-Israeli plans for Gaza.
When Israel responded to the Al-Aqsa Flood operation by launching a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, the official Arab system remained silent, despite the unprecedented losses suffered by the Palestinian people.
An exceptional Arab summit, titled the “Palestine Summit,” was held in Cairo last Tuesday. Its primary purpose was to discuss a “plan to rebuild Gaza without displacing its population,” which Egypt had prepared in response to an American plan aimed at “seizing Gaza and displacing its population.” This American plan was announced by Donald Trump during a press conference at the White House several weeks ago, during Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States.
Since the Egyptian plan had already been proposed, discussed, and approved at a “consultative mini-summit” held in Riyadh on February 21, which included only the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, Egypt, and Jordan, it was expected to be easily approved by the expanded Arab summit.
But does this mean that the Arab world now has an alternative plan that is feasible on the ground, or that the American-Israeli plan, which aimed to displace Palestinians and potentially annex the West Bank, has failed and been shelved?
In reality, the actions of the official Arab system over the past fifteen months do not allow for such a hasty conclusion.
Empty Rhetoric
When Israel responded to the Al-Aqsa Flood operation by launching a genocidal war on Gaza, alongside escalating military operations against Palestinian camps in the West Bank, the official Arab system remained silent, despite the unprecedented human and material losses suffered by the Palestinian people.
In Gaza, the destruction was indescribable, affecting homes, schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, and churches. The human losses amounted to nearly a quarter of a million people, including dead, wounded, and missing, most of whom were women and children—a staggering figure, representing almost 10% of Gaza’s total population.
In the West Bank, a significant number of residential neighborhoods in refugee camps were destroyed, with some areas seeing up to 90% of homes demolished. Streets were bulldozed, infrastructure was removed, and thousands of residents were displaced.
Throughout this period, the official Arab system limited itself to issuing statements of condemnation that were neither substantial nor effective. It took no practical action to express anger or protest against Israel’s violations, such as calling on Arab states with diplomatic ties to Israel to sever those ties and withdraw their ambassadors from Tel Aviv.
It also failed to pursue Israel in international courts, leaving South Africa to struggle alone in this regard without offering any support. Moreover, it did not dare to exert any pressure to prevent Israel from using starvation as a weapon to subjugate the Palestinian people or to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, as aid convoys piled up at the Rafah crossing. While Egypt and Qatar played a useful role in brokering a three-phase ceasefire agreement, the Arab system’s weakness became evident again when Israel violated the agreement and refused to enter negotiations for the second phase.
However, fairness requires acknowledging that Egypt and Jordan played a pivotal role in the current round by immediately recognizing that Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza aimed to empty it of its population and force Palestinians into displacement in Sinai, and that the military escalation in the West Bank aimed to push as many residents as possible into forced displacement to Jordan. They promptly declared their outright rejection of these Israeli plans.
Yet, fairness also requires acknowledging that the official Arab system only began to act after Trump formally adopted these plans and announced his project to seize Gaza and turn it into a “Riviera,” while supporting Israeli plans to annex the West Bank. This explains Saudi Arabia’s haste in calling for a consultative summit in Riyadh and Egypt’s haste in calling for an expanded exceptional summit in Cairo.
Trump’s Plan
It is worth noting that Trump’s plan for reconstruction and displacement had two dimensions: one technical and the other political.
In its technical dimension, Trump’s plan was based on assumptions that Gaza had been completely destroyed and had become uninhabitable, and that its reconstruction would take a long time, ranging from 8 to 15 years, during which it would be difficult to leave the population without shelter or services, especially given Gaza’s small size and densely populated areas that have endured continuous wars.
Hence, the difficulty of rebuilding Gaza without displacing its population and resettling them in spacious areas where they could live in peace and security.
Since Egypt decided to refute this technical dimension, it had to respond with a detailed and comprehensive architectural plan, confirming through it the inaccuracy of the assumptions on which Trump’s plan was based and proving with practical evidence that rebuilding Gaza was possible without displacing its population. This is what Egypt did by preparing a comprehensive plan to rebuild Gaza without the need to displace its population, within a period not exceeding five years.
In its political dimension, it became entirely clear that Trump had decided to adopt the plan of the extreme Israeli right, which rejects the two-state solution and seeks to annex the West Bank and reoccupy Gaza.
The evidence for this is his demand that Egypt and Jordan allocate areas to house displaced Palestinians and his clear indication that these displaced individuals would not be allowed to return to their homeland after the reconstruction process was completed.
Since the above dimension is the most important and the real goal behind the plan announced by Trump in consultation with Netanyahu, it required a collective Arab response that not only rejects the American-Israeli plan for displacement and annexation but also presents an alternative Arab vision for how to prepare regional and international conditions for rebuilding Gaza in a way that leads to lasting peace in the region. This is the task that the final statement of the Cairo summit attempted to accomplish.
Actionable Plan?
The final statement of the exceptional summit held in Cairo last Tuesday included 23 clauses that allow for the extraction of a unified Arab vision on how to achieve peace and stability in the region. The most important elements can be summarized as follows:
- Complete rejection of the displacement of Palestinians from any part of their homeland or the annexation of any part of their lands, emphasizing that this would not help stabilize the region but would instead pour more oil on the fire.
- Full implementation of the second and third phases of the ceasefire agreement signed between Israel and Hamas, and an immediate demand to stop Israel’s escalation in the West Bank.
- Full support for the international conference to be hosted by Cairo to discuss ways for recovery and reconstruction in Gaza.
- Approval of the formation of a committee of technical competencies to manage Gaza under the umbrella of the Palestinian government during a transitional period of six months, emphasizing that security is solely a Palestinian responsibility.
- A call to the UN Security Council to deploy international peacekeeping forces in the West Bank and Gaza, within the context of “enhancing the political horizon for the realization of the Palestinian state.”
- Welcoming efforts to reform the Palestinian Authority.
- Full support for efforts to achieve the two-state solution and active participation in the international conference to settle the Palestinian issue, implementing the two-state solution under the leadership of Saudi Arabia and France, scheduled for June.
However, translating this vision into an actionable plan requires more than words of condemnation, welcome, and warning—terms that no longer have any effect on an enemy that understands only the language of force.
Without underestimating the importance of a unified Arab stance rejecting the American-backed Israeli plans aimed at displacing Palestinians and annexing their lands, the official Arab system must answer the following questions: What if Israel and the United States insist on implementing the plans that the Arabs reject and that threaten their existence? Will it continue with the same approach, or does it have other alternatives that could help it achieve its goals more effectively?
I do not want to hastily conclude that the Cairo summit did not meet expectations, as the official Arab system will face a harsh test in the coming days.
If Steve Wittkof, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, who is expected to arrive in the region by the end of this week, fails to pressure Israel into negotiations to implement the second phase of an agreement that the United States signed and guaranteed, especially if Netanyahu is allowed to resume fighting, the official Arab system will have to conclude for itself that the contemporary world respects only the strong and that it is no longer strong enough to be treated with the respect it deserves.
(Al-Mayadeen Arabic website – Translated and prepared by the Palestine Chronicle)
