Flick 🇬🇧 on Nostr: Hot take: I don’t think Trump’s Gaza plan is entirely mad. Gaza needs to be ...
Hot take: I don’t think Trump’s Gaza plan is entirely mad.
Gaza needs to be rebuilt, and the Gulf states have made it pretty clear they will only fund it if there’s a reasonable expectation that it won’t get flattened again in a few years. If the area is empty, that rebuilding can take place with no risk of Hamas including tunnels, etc.
When it is rebuilt, it will need third-party leadership for a while, to make sure that Hamas can’t retake control. Obviously that can’t be Israel, but it needs to be someone Israel trusts so it also can’t be the Gulf states. (In an ideal world, it would be the UN, but yeah right.) I don’t really think it should be the US, but I’m struggling for better suggestions. New Zealand? The Netherlands? ECOWAS?
The current residents can’t realistically stay there with no water/power/jobs for fifteen or more years. They need to go somewhere (TBD, but I am amused by the suggestion that Spain and Ireland should take them). Importantly, they need to go somewhere and not be treated as perpetual refugees: Palestinians are the only people who are trapped in that status yea unto the third generation and counting. Let them actually build lives, rather than being dependent on aid and with nothing to do but rehash how hard they were done by. Then, in twenty years time, if they still want to go “home”, they can, to modern housing in a place with good jobs and a stable administration.
Not all of them will want to leave, but I suspect the most stubborn are also the most ideologically risky: it probably will require military force to clear the land. As with administration, I don’t think that should be the US but struggle to think of a good alternative (does the Arab League have any unified military capability?) as the UN Peacekeepers have been so utterly useless in Lebanon.
I would not be surprised if something with the same general outline as Trump’s plan ends up happening. No idea if it will work long-term, but the status quo obviously doesn’t either so what harm in trying?
Gaza needs to be rebuilt, and the Gulf states have made it pretty clear they will only fund it if there’s a reasonable expectation that it won’t get flattened again in a few years. If the area is empty, that rebuilding can take place with no risk of Hamas including tunnels, etc.
When it is rebuilt, it will need third-party leadership for a while, to make sure that Hamas can’t retake control. Obviously that can’t be Israel, but it needs to be someone Israel trusts so it also can’t be the Gulf states. (In an ideal world, it would be the UN, but yeah right.) I don’t really think it should be the US, but I’m struggling for better suggestions. New Zealand? The Netherlands? ECOWAS?
The current residents can’t realistically stay there with no water/power/jobs for fifteen or more years. They need to go somewhere (TBD, but I am amused by the suggestion that Spain and Ireland should take them). Importantly, they need to go somewhere and not be treated as perpetual refugees: Palestinians are the only people who are trapped in that status yea unto the third generation and counting. Let them actually build lives, rather than being dependent on aid and with nothing to do but rehash how hard they were done by. Then, in twenty years time, if they still want to go “home”, they can, to modern housing in a place with good jobs and a stable administration.
Not all of them will want to leave, but I suspect the most stubborn are also the most ideologically risky: it probably will require military force to clear the land. As with administration, I don’t think that should be the US but struggle to think of a good alternative (does the Arab League have any unified military capability?) as the UN Peacekeepers have been so utterly useless in Lebanon.
I would not be surprised if something with the same general outline as Trump’s plan ends up happening. No idea if it will work long-term, but the status quo obviously doesn’t either so what harm in trying?