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Arab leaders met in Cairo, Egypt, for an emergency meeting to come up with an alternative plan to the one promoted by United States President, Donald Trump, for the Gaza Strip’s reconstruction. Trump’s proposition of Egypt and Jordan taking in the Palestinian population of the Strip while it is turned into some kind of ‘riviera’ has, if nothing else, pushed Arab leaders to take notice and push back with their own alternative.
The outcome from Cairo was close to what was expected, which was, much like Trump, a mere Arab-led band-aid to the Palestine issue and the war between Hamas and Israel. The future of Hamas in the Gaza Strip should be at the core of both a political future and the proverbial reconstruction effort. While the summit endorsed a US$53 billion plan to devise a new blueprint for Gaza’s rebuilding, it shied away from the more contentious political questions, including Hamas as the main political and military actor and the question of offerings towards Israel’s security dilemmas. The Arab proposal’s main aim was to create a buffer and present a united front against not just Trump’s plan against Egypt and Jordan but also to be seen not as bystanders around a growing narrative of forced displacement. Both the US and Israel have rejected the Arab proposal.
The Arab proposal’s main aim was to create a buffer and present a united front against not just Trump’s plan against Egypt and Jordan but also to be seen not as bystanders around a growing narrative of forced displacement.
Previously, it was also reported that the Egyptian plan involved developing a Governance Assistance Mission to replace the Hamas-led government, take over management of humanitarian aid, and serve as the core body to outline how Gaza would be governed. Hamas has, as expected, rejected the idea, even as it welcomed the Arab-led proposal since it did not challenge its political and military control over Gaza. Whether changes were made regarding how best to address the issue of Hamas in the twilight hours before the Cairo deal was offered remains unknown.
For the Arab world, marking a balance between their regional aims, which include working-relations with Israel translating to international and regional economic prominence and those of the Palestinian crisis, is critical. Hamas’s attack against Israel in October 2023 set back multiple agendas in capitals such as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, and over the past two years have pulled Arab actors back into play on the Palestine issue despite their desire to enjoy a level of neutrality, as the contest between Israel and Iran was given prominence as the core regional fissure. Israel, for example, has made it clear that projects such as the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) require Riyadh’s participation to deliver their full potential. The consistency with which both Israel and the US promoted the idea of a Saudi–Israel normalisation being inevitable may have ended up being counter-productive as Riyadh has been forced to strengthen its position demanding a sovereign Palestinian state before such a normalisation takes place.
Israel has made it clear that projects such as the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) require Riyadh’s participation to deliver their full potential.
Another underlying fear could be that a forced dismantling of Hamas in Gaza might not only turn the Palestinian group against some of their Arab partners, but further turn the proverbial Arab street in favour of Hamas’s narratives, Iran’s push for a pan-sectarian identity, and give a new lease of life to ideologies such as those built around political Islam—a theological posture both the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have spent years to make redundant. A looming threat remains that such ideologies can resurge and rebuild, giving a new lease of life to ultra-conservative versions of Islam, which stand at odds against designs being employed to liberalise regional economies and make them globally palatable. The success of this endeavour also depends on the re-branding of states such as Saudi Arabia and how they have been perceived, particularly in the West, over the past decades. Scholar Hesham Alghannam highlights in his work that the Kingdom “aims to foster warmer international relationships by moving away from a religious approach that earned the royal family legitimacy; however, it is adopting measures to minimise the potential price paid for this realignment.” Undoing these sensitive projects undertaken in the Middle East can have global repercussions.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to seek for his ‘deal’ to stop the conflict. Driven by a need for personality first rather than policy, a core deliverable for the US president towards his constituency is to end wars that he believes were started by traditional American political structures, and this includes both Democrats and Republicans. To this effect, Trump has even begun direct consultations with Hamas itself, delivering a stark message to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that even the ironclad Israel–US relationship is not beyond Trump’s appetite to cut deals towards an accelerated demand for peace. As per reports, the Israelis only came to know about the Trump administration’s direct talks with Hamas via ‘other channels’ and not the White House.
Driven by a need for personality first rather than policy, a core deliverable for the US president towards his constituency is to end wars that he believes were started by traditional American political structures, and this includes both Democrats and Republicans.
For the Arab leaderships, the US and Israel deciding the outcome of the Gaza issue may well be unpalatable. While the Arab states would ideally like to see the back of Hamas in Gaza, what kind of alternative can be constructed that can satiate the multiple interests at place, both regional and global, is a question that no one seems to have an answer to, yet. The Gaza crisis is not new, and expecting it to be resolved at a heady pace, only due to the disruptive nature of Trump’s political candour and lack of tact, can lead to bad choices and forced opportunities.
Kabir Taneja is a Deputy Director and Fellow with the Strategic Studies programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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