Egyptian Assistant Foreign Minister Mohamed Hegazy on Wednesday unveiled his country’s proposal for rebuilding Gaza – and, implicitly, Egypt’s counter to President Donald Trump’s plan to take over the territory and rebuild it as “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
“Egypt aims to implement an early recovery plan to meet the humanitarian needs of the Strip, including food, water, sanitation, and healthcare for the population,” said Hegazy, who is also Egypt’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
“The plan also seeks to revitalize the local economy, helping Gaza recover from this devastating aggression and restore minimum livable conditions before transitioning to a full reconstruction phase,” he said, unhelpfully maintaining the fiction that Israel’s response to the horrifying Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, was an act of “aggression.”
The rather hazy “plan” rolled out by Hegazy was essentially a pledge to rebuild Gaza without relocating the Palestinians – or threatening the Hamas terrorist organization’s grip on power. President Trump, on the other hand, has proposed moving the Palestinians somewhere else during reconstruction and he is somewhat elusive on when they would be allowed to return.
Relocating the Palestinians is a major sticking point with Egypt and Jordan, the Arab nations that border Gaza. From an ideological standpoint, the Egyptians and Jordanians insist that the Palestinians have a sacred right to every parcel of land they occupy that is not located in Egypt or Jordan. From a practical standpoint, the last thing either of them wants is more Palestinians.
President Trump met with Jordanian King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday and the Jordanian king was surprisingly diffident about the idea of relocating the Palestinians, given how fiercely his government and media have previously denounced the idea. Abdullah effectively punted the issue to Cairo by saying he would make no firm comments on Trump’s plan until he hears what the Egyptians have to say.
Reports this week indicated that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi would refuse to meet with Trump if the American president insisted on pressing his Gaza takeover plan. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said during a trip to Washington this week that Egypt would respond with its own plan to “ensure Palestinians remain on their land.”
Assistant Foreign Minister Hegazy duly unveiled that plan in his interview with Ahram Online on Wednesday, demanding international support for Egypt’s alternative to the Trump plan.
“This is crucial to saving the people of Gaza from catastrophe and paving the way for the success of the early recovery phase, followed by reconstruction. The international community mustn’t fail them again on a humanitarian level, as it may have failed them politically,” Hegazy said.
“We are responsible for our region and its fate, especially in light of the turbulent international conditions,” he said, urging Arab and Islamic unity. He advised Middle Eastern powers to work together to quickly resolve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza so they could deal with other pressing issues, including the brutal civil war in Sudan, anarchy in Libya, and the continuing worldwide disruptions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Some observers suspect Egypt’s call for Arab nations to step in and rebuild Gaza is what Trump really wanted all along. The president continues to insist he is serious about ending the terrorist menace of groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad once and for all by taking control of the territory and turning it into a treasure that will be valued by its inhabitants, rather than a permanent violence-riddled slum where humanitarian aid quickly disappears into terrorist pockets.
Al-Arabiya TV reported that Egypt’s reconstruction plan includes massive construction of safe housing units within 18 months, “safe zones” for Gaza residents to occupy temporarily, and no less than 24 multinational corporations participating in debris cleanup and rebuilding. The Egyptians are reportedly ready to initiate their plan as early as next week, after an emergency summit in Cairo.
“Cairo confirmed that several European countries have expressed their willingness to participate in Gaza’s reconstruction efforts,” Al-Arabiya added.
Hegazy accused Israeli “occupation forces” of interfering with humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, implying their ultimate goal was to sabotage any reconstruction plan that did not involve relocating the Palestinian population.
“This non-compliance appears to be an effort to force Palestinians out of their land and undermine their inalienable right to establish their state on all occupied Palestinian territories from 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” he said.
Somewhere in all of Egypt and Jordan’s jockeying to respond to Donald Trump, without jeopardizing their vital alliance with America, may lie the beginnings of some new thinking about the Palestinian issue. For many involved parties, anything would be preferable to repeating the same old demands while more corpses pile up. The more time and money Egypt and Jordan pour into rebuilding Hamas’ fiefdom, the more they may find themselves wondering if letting Donald Trump have it might not be such a bad idea.
NPR on Wednesday said Trump has “shaken up the Middle East” with the first diplomatic actions of his second term, and “more drama could soon be on the way.” Few regions of the Earth were more in need of shaking up.
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