Gza has presented so many problems to the Arab leaders that they do not know where to begin. The special meeting in Cairo, hosted by Egypt and attended by the Kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have seemingly failed to come up with a solution, though the so-called Égyptian Plan’ seems to be gaining some traction. The immediate challenge to the assembled states was to come up with a Gaza reconstruction plan that would be a viable alternative to the proposal by US President Donald Trump, who wants the Gazan population shifted to Jordan and Egypt, and Gaza to be handed over to the USA for development. The problem faced by the summiteers is threefold. First, who will pay? Second, who runs Gaza in the meantime (and thus can ‘wet his beak’ in the award of construction contracts)? It cannot have escaped attention that Egypt and Jordan are the first two Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel.
These issues need to be settled by March 4, when the Arab League meets in Cairo to discuss the issue. The Egyptian proposal suggests fund to which Arab states and the USA would contribute. No one seems to be suggesting that Israel should pay anything, even though it was the one responsible for all of the destruction. Trump too seems to be pulling back on his earlier proposal, though he expressed no contrition, only regret, as if the Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs were letting slip a wonderful opportunity. He is refusing to accept even now that his proposal was a child’s nightmare, being imposed on not just Gazans, traumatized beyond belief, but also on the host peoples. If the USA, presumably on behalf of Israel, was to pay the countries anything, it would go to their governments.
There seems to be a refusal to acknowledge the true problem is the presence of Israel, the usurpation of Palestinian land for a settler colony giving a place to East European Jews, traumatized by the Russian pogroms and then the Nazi Holocaust, and allowing the USA an outpost in the Middle East. The recent year’s agony in Gaza has merely shown that there will be no peace in the region unless the terrible crime of the Nakba of 1948 is [aid for.
