"After a devastating war, which began as a limited conflict and ended up involving the United States, and after reshaping the Middle East forever, the great powers decided that Palestine should be placed under temporary administration until coexistence between Arabs and Jews was resolved."
This could be, in a few years, the definition in a textbook - or, better yet, in an Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot - of the peace plan being forged for Gaza. It could also be the definition of the Mandate for Palestine that began exactly 102 years ago. The International Transition Authority for Gaza (GITA), to be led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, revives an old idea: that external power can impose order, create institutions, and promote economic development until the governed are "ready" to exercise self-government.
It has been tried many times. The examples preferred by the proponents of the plan for Gaza are those of Kosovo and East Timor: international supervision (exercised by the GITA), a commitment to reconstruction, and a specific timeframe, in this case, between three and five years.
Those who want to be negative have recent examples with the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, and an even better one: the aforementioned Mandate for Palestine, which encompassed present-day Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and Jordan. It was meant to be temporary, with the United Kingdom in charge of managing it and with the goal of preparing the region for self-determination once a "national home for the Jewish people" could be established, without causing "any prejudice to the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine," according to the League of Nations Declaration of July 24, 1922. It was a phase similar to the Balfour Declaration, in which London, five years earlier, had established the right to a Jewish state in Palestine, thus paving the way for a century of British involvement in the Middle East, which now seems to have intensified, albeit indirectly, with Blair's appointment.
In hindsight, the idea of the Mandate was seen as wise. For some, the GITA is also seen in the same light. Perhaps wise is the best word to define the Middle East: King Solomon is part of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian religious traditions, but there is no historical evidence of his existence. Just as there is no evidence that the Jews were slaves in Egypt and migrated through the Sinai to Israel, despite that being the foundational myth of the State, accepted as true by Hebrews, Muslims, and Christians.
The wise and temporary plan ended up lasting 25 years and ten months, and its conclusion was bathed in British, Jewish, and Arab blood. There was no transition. There was no preparation of any government. There was only a hasty retreat by London and the violent partition of the territory between the newly arrived Jews and those who were then known as "Palestinian Arabs." Thus began a conflict that has now lasted more than three-quarters of a century. With such results, it is not surprising that no one wanted to commemorate on September 29, 2023, a century since the practical onset of the Mandate on the ground.
Now, 102 years later, history returns with a different name. The effort is multinational, but the local population still lacks representation. The objectives are similar: stabilization, institution-building, economic development. It is the dream of an International Relations professor. In his office at the Hoover Institution, Francis Fukuyama must be thrilled. But theory and practice differ. While working at the World Bank, Ashraf Ghani wrote the book 'Fixing Failed States' with profound ideas such as technology being a source of economic development and every ruler should listen to the people. Such a gem earned him such fame in Washington that the US made him the president of Afghanistan. Seven years later, with the Taliban at the gates of Kabul, Ghani boarded a helicopter and left his country, never to return.
Avoiding falling into that trap is the goal of the GITA, of which it is only known that it will be in Egypt or Qatar and that, when the situation allows, it will move to Gaza. A leaked 21-page document to the international press, attributed by the French and British press to "a team linked to Tony Blair's office and to US-Israeli circles close to the Trump administration," establishes that, under the GITA, Gaza will be an international protectorate led by all parties involved in the conflict -Israel, the US, Arab countries, and especially those in the Gulf-, except one: the Palestinians. They will only be represented "symbolically," with a voice but no vote.
The vice presidency for Humanitarian Affairs will be held by former Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Sigrid Kaag, who is the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction in Gaza and also for the Peace Process in the Middle East. Ideologically, she aligns, like Blair, with the more centrist wing of European social democracy.
The other council members mentioned in the report had already been leaked to the British media, although there are now more details about their roles. None of them have experience in humanitarian operations or 'state-building'. One is the businessman Naguib Sawiris, the richest man in Egypt, with a fortune of 8.6 billion euros, although his brother Nassef is close behind with 8.4 billion. Sawiris, from a dynasty of businessmen, would be in charge of raising funds in the region to rebuild Gaza. The businessman is a Coptic Christian, a minority that represents between 5% and 15% of the Egyptian population and has historically been discriminated against by the Muslim majority in the country, to the extent of needing special government permission to build churches.
The vice president for establishing the Reconstruction Fund would be American Marc Rowan, a prominent financier of Donald Trump's presidential campaign who was considered a potential Treasury Secretary. Rowan, who is Jewish, is the co-founder of the hedge fund Apollo Management, of which he became CEO four and a half years ago when his predecessor, Leon Black, had to resign after it was revealed that he had paid over 150 million euros to the world elite's pimp, Jeffrey Epstein.
Rowan is a staunch supporter of Israel. In 2023, he unsuccessfully led a boycott against the University of Pennsylvania because it hosted a cultural festival about Palestine, although he did succeed in ousting the university's chancellor, Liz Magill, for allowing the event and anti-Israel demonstrations on campus. His fortune ranges between 6.9 and 8.5 billion euros.
Also included in all the pools as a council member is the former advisor to the US embassy in Israel during Trump's first term - when the diplomatic headquarters was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, much to the fury of the Palestinians - Aryel Lightstone, who is a rabbi and was one of the architects of the historic Abraham Accords, which allowed for the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel, on one side, and the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain, and Sudan during Trump's first presidency. Lightstone is close to Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose family and that of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have had a friendship spanning decades. Kushner and Lightstone previously worked on the 'Deal of the Century', a failed peace plan during Trump's first presidency that essentially involved handing over Palestine to Israel and absorbing the Arab population into Jordan, in exchange for a multi-billion-dollar investment from the international community.
Additionally, there will be an Arab force and at least 200 US soldiers. Israel will maintain absolute control over the borders of Gaza and presumably a veto right. The reconstruction management will be carried out by "neutral" Palestinian middle officials. Over time, a Palestinian Executive of technocrats and a local police under foreign control will be established to prevent Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or other extremist groups from infiltrating.
But that is only the easy part of the equation. The Palestinian authorities are notorious for being riddled with unimaginable corruption. Moreover, the war has led to the proliferation of armed gangs controlling the distribution of humanitarian aid. Removing these groups from the government and society will be as difficult, if not more so, than eliminating Hamas.
A hundred years ago, economic development was key. Now, with Gaza completely destroyed, its importance is even greater. According to the World Bank and the UN, the reconstruction will require between 44,0000 and 68,000 million dollars. Some of this capital will come from multilateral institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN, which could find their 'lifeline' there to demonstrate their usefulness to the United States and thus prevent Donald Trump from threatening to reduce or even expel their headquarters from Washington.
However, the majority should come from private capital, especially from Arab countries and notably from the Gulf, aiming to maximize profit. This has paved the way for the creation of one or several tax-free zones in Gaza to develop AI, software, electric cars, and cryptocurrencies, as already outlined in the controversial plans by the Boston Consulting Group to carry out an ethnic cleansing of the area, in which the Tony Blair Foundation collaborated.
These are sectors where the US, Israel, and Gulf countries have significant leadership but do not currently exist in Gaza. This raises the question of how to develop a tiny land area with a population lacking proper education and subjected to blockades by its neighboring countries, Israel and Egypt.
Once again, the British Mandate precedent adds confusion. In the 1930s, Palestine experienced strong growth partly due to investments from the British government and external Jewish capital, which developed ports and infrastructure, and the influx of highly educated Jewish community members fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany. The outcome was an unbalanced economy, with a more developed and internationalized Jewish sector and an Arab sector still reliant on agriculture. Furthermore, Arab landowners sold their properties to Jews, leaving their laborers homeless and jobless. The Arab reaction was typical: blaming the Jews. The result, also, thousands dead between 1936 and 1938.
Lastly, there is the political issue. The GITA must hand over Gaza to a new Palestinian Authority within a maximum of five years. However, this entails replacing the current Palestinian Authority, which has been sidelined by Israel and the United States and is accused of being corrupt to the core. Currently, no one knows who the new Palestinian leaders will be, but experiences in Afghanistan show that bringing in an unknown leader - like Hamid Karzai or Ashraf Ghani - often ends poorly. In fact, the Palestinians do not even have representative organizations, unlike in Kosovo and East Timor, where there were independence groups, the Kosovo Liberation Army, and the East Timor Liberation Front. Moreover, the international community accepted these groups and placed them on equal footing with the Yugoslav and Indonesian governments, which had lost the war against them.
The Palestinian leaders must be acceptable to Israel, the United States, Gulf countries, Jordan, and Egypt. With so many examiners, one wonders if they will be able to find someone acceptable to the ordinary Palestinians. During the Mandate era, the British negotiated with the World Zionist Congress but appointed Haj Amin al-Husseini as the top political and religious authority for the Arabs, thinking they could manipulate him. It backfired. Al-Husseini took his hatred of Jews to the extreme of becoming a Nazi and going to Germany with Hitler. This is the final nail in the coffin of the Mandate legacy, which the GITA cannot repeat.