Can the Arab plan for Gaza build a future for Palestinians?
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Al Jazeera Podcasts. Today, Arab countries unite to write a new future for Gaza. Ever since U.S. President Donald Trump proposed taking over Gaza and forcibly displacing Palestinians, questions have swirled about what a unified Arab response would look like. At a high-stakes summit in Cairo, Egypt proposed a plan to rebuild Gaza without displacing its people. But implementing it will be easier said than done. I'm Kevin Hurtin, and this is The Take.

So here's the state of play in Gaza. A ceasefire went into effect in mid-January, but it's been marred by violations. By now, we should have already been in phase two, which would have seen a permanent end to the war, the release of remaining living captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and detainees, and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza. That hasn't happened. Negotiations have barely started.

Israel has decided to stop aid going into Gaza for now. It comes a day after Israel said it had approved a proposal to extend the ceasefire in Gaza during Ramadan and Passover. Hamas says it wants the original deal implemented in full. It's accused Israel of breaching key parts of the first phase. A full-on war could restart at any moment. This was the backdrop as Arab leaders gathered in Cairo this week to find a way forward.

It's almost surreal what's going on. What is positive, however, is that the Arab world has finally, and I hope that it will continue for a long time, has finally decided that we are going to do something serious about what is going on in Gaza, what's happening to the Palestinians, and we want to do something about that.

My name is Ahmad Harb. I am the director of research and analysis at Arab Center Washington, D.C. So, Ahmad, you and I are speaking after Arab leaders gathered for a summit in Cairo. The goal was pretty simple: an Arab-led solution for rebuilding Gaza. So before we get into the plan that came out of the summit, first tell us about the players that are involved, who was there and importantly, who was not there.

For one thing, this was a called-for kind of summit, obviously. The Arab world wanted to show itself a united front. Egypt called for it because Egypt is definitely one of the states affected by what happens in Gaza and one of the states that

American president named for housing displaced Palestinians that he wants to displace from the Gaza Strip. All the Arab world participated there. Egypt, Jordan, obviously, Syria, Bahrain.

What was disappointing was the non-presence of leaders from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This was unfortunate that they did send delegations, they sent officials obviously, but the presence of the Crown Prince and the President of the UAE would have been a very, very good and positive step.

Yeah, okay. So the summit was organized after U.S. President Donald Trump revealed his plan for Gaza, which is to take it over, send two million Palestinians into Egypt and Jordan, and to basically turn Gaza into a Middle Eastern Riviera. The Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so magnificent.

a resort sort of thing that was imagined in an AI post that he posted last week. This was greeted with a lot of horror. There was considerable pushback to this plan, especially from Egypt and Jordan, who would be the ones receiving the displaced Palestinians.

So, after the last few weeks, Arab leaders have been kind of scrambling to come up with an alternative plan, which has now been proposed and adopted. It addressed the reconstruction itself, but it also touches on security and on governance. So let's start with the reconstruction, and specifically how they propose to house the many people who have been displaced by the war.

Well, since President Trump announced his plan for a Riviera in the Middle East, Egypt has rejected the plan, obviously. And they said that Egypt and the Arab world would oppose, reject the displacement of Palestinians. And Egypt said that, you know, the Egyptian authorities are in the process of producing

a rival plan. And this reconstruction rival plan, it's a good plan, specifically because it starts with the premise that the Palestinians would not be displaced from Gaza.

The plan that was decided at the summit is a phase plan, phase one, phase two, phase three, and each phase is divided into different months and how to deal with Palestinians, how to move them into safe areas while the reconstruction is going on.

We're talking about 2.2 million people who have been almost wholly displaced from their homes. The reconstruction plan has to build housing for all of these people and go on from there.

A five-year plan includes building 400,000 housing units, six months to remove rubble and to build temporary housing, and then 200,000 housing units over two years, then another 200,000 over the next two years. So it's like three phases. Right, yeah.

When you are reconstructing a territory as big as the Gaza Strip, I mean, you know, five years, sometimes you feel like five years is a very, very short time. I believe it is a short time. But then, you know, it depends on what kind of funding you get. Okay, we'll get to that too. More details coming out of the summit. Security. What does this plan say about who will actually be policing the streets of Gaza?

First of all, Jordan and Egypt volunteered to train a police force to maintain security, basically some sort of gendarme that keeps law and order. But also they are appealing to the United Nations Security Council to approve a security force, maybe something that's akin to the one in southern Lebanon, a security force that would be composed of

Arab troops and some international troops that would be responsible for the security needed for the Gaza Strip.

So you pointed out that one of the key benefits of this plan is that it keeps Palestinians in Gaza. This seems to be the key sticking point for the U.S. The U.S. reacted last night. National security spokesman Brian Hughes said the current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance. What do you make of that?

The American response was definitely, you know, it's very, very strange for the Trump administration to say that it's worried about, you know, this place is totally destroyed. How can these people stay there? But our solution is to kick them all out. It just doesn't make sense, right? I don't think that the Trump administration has a heart regarding the Palestinians. I think they all think like real estate agents who are trying to sell yet more homes.

The American response honestly does not deserve any consideration. This could be happening in a lot of places, but it's happening in Egypt. Why has Egypt been spearheading this effort? And what do you think are the unique challenges for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as he tries to navigate this?

Well, you know, Egypt has always been involved in Palestinian affairs. Egypt considers itself to be, for the lack of a better expression, the mother of the child. The Palestinians have had good relations with Egypt throughout, but, you know, after Egypt withdrew from the Arab-Israeli conflict, after signing the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, you know, the Palestinians don't necessarily believe that Egypt is ready to defend them

But, you know, Egypt is worried about what happens with the Palestinian refugees who would be kicked out, displaced from Gaza to go into the Sinai Peninsula.

This is something that the Egyptian regime was not ready to accept, not only because of security and the increase of number of refugees in the country, but because the Egyptian people are against displacing Palestinians. They do not want the Palestinians to be yet again displaced in a similar fashion like the 1948 Nakba.

For Egypt, it's very, very important politically, domestically and regionally, obviously. And then Egypt would like to lead on this issue, would like to lead the Arab world on this issue.

This is a prestige for the Sisi regime. And it could also bring in some needed respect, so to speak, for the lack of a different word for Egypt and the Arab system. Yeah, Sisi's in a tough spot, though, because you wrote a piece saying Donald Trump considers him his favorite dictator. Sisi has to do what's right for his people or what these people want. But he also, they rely heavily on U.S. aid and they have all these IMF loans.

Exactly. I mean, Sisi is walking a very, very taut tightrope. And his relationship with the United States is an extremely, extremely important relationship for his regime and for the armed forces of the Republic of Egypt. He does not want to be on the wrong side of Donald Trump. And Donald Trump is, you know,

More with Ahmad after a quick break. This week on True Crime Reports...

It's 2015 and we're in the tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A man, a member of a local indigenous community, enters the forest with his son in search of medicinal herbs. They come across a group of eco-guards who've been placed here to protect the area from poachers. The guards open fire and the man's son is shot dead.

So how far are Western groups willing to go in the name of conservation? True Crime Reports, a new global crime show from Al Jazeera. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts. So, Imad, obviously, rebuilding Gaza is just a monumental task. And there are a lot of big questions that need to be answered.

One of the biggest is who's going to govern Gaza. What Egypt is proposing is a committee of independent technocrats that would rule for six months, paving the way for the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the West Bank to take over eventually. This means Hamas would have to cede power. I wonder how feasible you think this is, because at the moment, Hamas remains a pretty powerful political force there.

Hamas will always be a powerful political force in Palestinian politics, definitely in Gaza. But then again, we have to remember that Hamas has agreed to pull back a little bit and allow for other parties to discuss this issue, to work on this issue, as long as Palestinian interests are preserved. Once the proposal had been officially endorsed by all the attendees, Hamas issued a statement welcoming the outcome of the meeting.

The important question, the important associated question is the Palestinian Authority itself. The Palestinian Authority is weak. The Palestinian Authority is not really very well liked by the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, President Mahmoud Abbas has the support of like 8 to 10 percent of the Palestinian people.

Not being vocal enough on Gaza, maintaining links with Israel, things that have contributed to the PA's falling poll numbers. But public trust was through the floor even before the war. Mahmoud Abbas is old. Nobody really knows how this Palestinian Authority is going to be renewed. Nobody really knows how the Palestinian Authority is going to be reformed.

President Abbas promised at the summit that he is going to be calling for elections, for new elections. I hope that that really does come to pass. But then again, how much can the Palestinian Authority really be in control of Gaza? That's a different story. We're not only considering Palestinian Authority.

the Palestinian street here. We're also considering what Israel is agreeing to or will be agreeing to. I doubt that it will be agreeing to anything of this sort.

So Hamas ceding political power is one thing. Military power is quite another. One of Israel and Trump's biggest demands is that Hamas give up its weapons. But Hamas has said there's just no way they'll do that as part of these negotiations. They do say that demilitarization is a possibility as the end goal of the peace process, but that it's not going to be trading its arms in exchange for help with just reconstruction or more aid.

Seems like a pretty big impasse. How would they get around something like this? I really don't know how they will get around to something like this, because so long as the Israeli occupation continues, I mean, it's the occupied people have the right to resist occupation. If Hamas is totally disarmed, then there is absolutely nothing that the Palestinians can do to protect

what they might be subjected to from Israel. We have seen over the last 16 months how Israel treated Gaza, and we see how Israel is treating the West Bank right now.

So, you know, the Palestinians have to protect themselves. Hamas should not give up its arms now until Israel ends its occupation. These are big, big questions. I really don't see very much that can be resolved around that. Hamas can withdraw from the politics of it, but to give up its arms, it's a very, very tall order.

Yeah, I think the plan suggests monitoring armed groups rather than completely disarming them. But again, from Hamas's perspective, why would they give up the weapons? That's the sole source of leverage they have.

So the, uh, Ahmad, the other big challenge of rebuilding Gaza is going to be cost, right? The UN has said that this would cost more than $50 billion and this would require buy-in from oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE. But it's, it's worth noting again, that neither of the leaders of those countries actually came to the summit. So how likely do you think that this money could come together to help this rebuilding phase?

They have helped the Palestinians, obviously. Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Qatar have been at the forefront of helping Palestinians financially. But right now they're saying that we're not going to be providing any funds without proper mechanisms of monitoring those funds because of corruption and things of that nature.

But, you know, even if they were to provide funds, they're not going to be provided over $50 billion for the reconstruction. So there has to be some sort of an international effort for funding this project. Who is going to provide that? You know, primary institutions are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and probably the European Union. I don't see Donald Trump volunteering any money for the reconstruction of Gaza, honestly. Yeah.

It's going to be a rough question of how to gather enough money to do the reconstruction project, given that they're considering it to be a five-year plan. UAE and Saudi Arabia can provide that. Qatar can provide that, obviously. But nobody is going to really provide all this money without necessarily knowing exactly what the end game is. In other words, is Gaza going to be free?

Is the West Bank going to be free of Israeli occupation? Because Gaza has been rebuilt three or four times before, and now it's destroyed again. Who assures any funder that Israel is not going to be destroying anything that gets rebuilt again? That's exactly what Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said at the summit. He said there would be no true peace without the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Exactly. And, you know, the end game is a Palestinian state. And this is what Israel is objecting to doing. Obviously, it's not going to allow a Palestinian. Neither the United States is going to allow that either.

So say all of this goes to plan, right? Gulf countries put up the money. Hamas agrees to disarm down the road and they put together a new governing structure to manage the Gaza Strip. And of course, the U.S. somehow drops its objections. None of this is possible without buy-in from Israel. Is there any indication that Israel would sign off on any of this? Israel rejects all of this.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the Arab summit failed to address the realities of the situation following October 7th, 2023, and accused it of remaining rooted in outdated perspective. Israel's only game is to destroy the cause of Palestine, to destroy the Palestinian national movement, to disallow the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

any plan that might take that direction, Israel opposes. If there is a change inside Israel, political change inside Israel toward a more liberal kind of policy, toward a policy that may think of ending the occupation of Palestinian land, maybe then we can talk about Israel maybe changing its mind towards the plan or towards the Palestinian state.

So now we have these two opposing plans. You have Trump's plan and now this plan from Egypt. Has anyone considered asking the Palestinians themselves? Perfect question. No Palestinians have been asked to provide any plan. But then we do know, however, that the Palestinians do have a plan. They have voiced their opinion loud and clear.

They want an independent Palestinian state on the June 4th, 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital. And this is, by the way, this is also the Arab plan for peace and security and whatever between Israel and the Palestinians. And that's called the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, in which the Palestinians established their state and Israel received the security that it talks about all the time.

Just as one wrap-up question, I was struck that during the election, certainly the U.S. election, there was this idea that the only person with any agency in this whole process was Joe Biden, that Joe Biden was the only one who could use leverage or maybe put an end to this conflict or find a new way out of this. But this summit seems to show that, like, the Arab world is...

Well, guess what? I mean, the last 16 months, Gaza has been pummeled. Gaza has been destroyed.

And the Arab world did not do very much. The Arab world kept meeting and kept sending emissaries to do this and that and the other thing. And now the Arab world is moving because Donald Trump has demanded a little something and they wanted to say, well, we have our own plan for it. But the Arab world is definitely lacking in action regarding Palestine. And the summit is a good step in the right direction.

I hope it survives longer and the Arab Unified Front for Palestine really gets established and gets off the ground. Imad Harb, thank you for coming on The Take today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. And that's The Take. This episode was produced by Tamara Kandaker and Chloe K. Lee with Philip Lanos, Spencer Klein, Khaled Sultan, Melanie Marich, Hannah Shokir, and me, Kevin Hurtin.

It was edited by Noor Wazwaz. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abusalah and Mohanad Almelhem. Alexander Locke is the take's executive producer. And Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio. We'll be back tomorrow.