A plan circulating in the White House to develop the \u201cGaza Riviera\u201d as a string of high-tech megacities has been dismissed as an \u201cinsane\u201d attempt to provide cover for the large-scale ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territory\u2019s population.<\/p>\n
On Sunday the Washington Post published a leaked prospectus for the plan, which would involve the forced displacement of Gaza\u2019s entire population of 2 million people and put the territory into a US trusteeship for at least a decade.<\/p>\n
Named the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust \u2013 or Great \u2013 the proposal was reportedly developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation with financial planning contributed by Boston Consulting Group.<\/p>\n
Image from the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust \u2013 or Great \u2013 proposal. Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n
Most controversially, the 38-page plan suggests what it calls \u201ctemporary relocation of all of Gaza\u2019s more than 2 million population\u201d \u2013 a proposal that would amount to ethnic cleansing<\/a>, potentially a genocidal act.<\/p>\n Palestinians would be encouraged into \u201cvoluntary\u201d departure to another country or into restricted, secure zones during reconstruction. Those who own land would be offered \u201ca digital token\u201d by the trust in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, to be used to finance a new life elsewhere.<\/p>\n Those who stay would be housed in properties with a tiny footprint of 323 sq ft \u2013 minuscule even by the standards of many non-refugee camp homes in Gaza.<\/p>\n It was not clear if the plan reflects US policy, and neither the White House nor the State Department responded to the Washington Post\u2019s request for comment. But the prospectus seem to reflect Donald Trump\u2019s previously stated ambition to \u201cclean out\u201d Gaza and redevelop it.<\/a><\/p>\n Among critics of the leaked prospectus was Philip Grant, the executive director of Trial International, a human rights group based in Switzerland, who called the plan \u201ca blueprint for mass deportation, marketed as development\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a blueprint for mass deportation, marketed as development. The outcome? A textbook case of international crimes on an unimaginable scale: forcible population transfer, demographic engineering, and collective punishment,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\n Trial is one of fifteen groups that have previously warned that private contractors operating in Gaza<\/a> in collaboration with the Israeli government risk \u201caiding and abetting or otherwise being complicit in crimes under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide\u201d, and that they may be liable under several jurisdictions.<\/p>\n \u201cThose involved in the planning and execution of such a plan \u2013 including corporate actors \u2013 could face legal liability for decades to come,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\n Even in the Israeli media the proposal invited incredulity, with a column in the left-leaning Haaretz describing it as \u201ca Trumpian get-rich-quick scheme reliant on war crimes, AI and tourism\u201d.<\/p>\n The highly fanciful prospectus \u2013 subtitled \u201cFrom a Demolished Iranian Proxy to a Prosperous Abrahamic Ally\u201d\u2013 appears to have been drawn up by people with no physical knowledge of Gaza, the politics of the Middle East or the likely challenges in attempting to rebuild the territory as a multibillion-dollar tourism and technology hub that would inevitably compete with Israel.<\/p>\n The scheme, described as requiring no US funding and intended to be funded by investors to the tune of $100bn, envisages a bustling port city bisected by a watercourse and bordered by up to eight leafy AI-powered high-tech megacities, apparently modelled after Saudi Arabia\u2019s troubled Neom project<\/a>.<\/p>\n It also envisages an \u201cElon Musk\u201d manufacturing park located \u2013 without irony \u2013 on the ruins of the Erez industrial zone<\/a>, which was built with Israeli investment to exploit cheap labour in the Palestinian territory and subsequently closed and destroyed by Israeli forces.<\/p>\n Examination of the map appears to suggest the plan would also involve the expropriation for an Israeli security buffer zone of much of Gaza\u2019s agricultural land, which tends to be located at Gaza\u2019s periphery close to the border with Israel.<\/p>\n