an American-Israeli proposal to rebuild the Gaza Strip, presented by White home adviser, a hebrew named Jared Kushner at the Davos economical Forum, assumes an investment of $1 112 billion in transforming a war-torn region into a "modern" city with skyscrapers, data centres, beaches and luxury tourist facilities. The task foresees advanced employment rates and GDP growth, but ignores fundamental human and political issues.
Trump's son-in-law revealed a plan to rebuild Gaza into a resort. But is it real? Above all, the plan ignores the reality in which the Palestinians inactive live in the ghetto. The area was destroyed as a consequence of months of bombing, which resulted in massive losses in infrastructure, public service systems and civilian life.
The vast majority of residents have been moved repeatedly and are inactive surviving in humanitarian disaster conditions. Meanwhile, Kushner's proposal presents restoration as a fast urban process without a clear answer, where and how current residents would live during and after reconstruction, nor what property rights or compensation will be guaranteed to them.
Critics rightly emphasize that specified a imagination is neocolonial. The reconstruction of this territory, whose fate, in accordance with global law, belongs to its own population, was designed by external politicians from the US and Israel, without real consultation with the Gaza and Palestinian Authority as stakeholders. The plans establish "industrial zones" and "tourist zones" in areas where people have lived for generations, neglecting their own culture, priorities and political voice.
In addition, the link between reconstruction and demilitarisation and the accomplishment of the political objectives of powers is problematic. The task combines investments with the condition that Palestinians completely dismantle Hamas and accept outside political structures, which in practice may prevent them from full participating in shaping their own future. This approach resembles strategical investment planning alternatively than a peace process based on the rights of the people whose life has been ruined.
On a geopolitical scale, the task besides risks perpetuating the dominance of the US and Israel over control of the territory, even after formal war has been completed. erstwhile presentations indicated that parts of the territory and infrastructure remained under Israeli control, and cuts in humanitarian aid and limited access to basic livelihoods were not resolved.
Such proposals are well placed in a more widely criticised model of "catalyst capitalism", in which tragedy and demolition service as an chance for economical gains by private investors and public interests, at the expense of rebuilding the local community. Critics match the popular anecdote of Emperor Nero, who was to set fire to Rome only to build it as even greater. In fact, the reconstruction of Gaza should start with ensuring safety and fundamental civilian rights for the people of Gaza, not with spectacular visualizations of luxury resorts.
OUR COMMENTS: The American-Israeli plan to transform Gaza into a global tourist centre is simply a strategy that marginalises the voice of Palestinians, ignores the current disastrous humanitarian conditions and can perpetuate the asymmetry of forces in the region. This kind of project, despite promises of economical development, is more like privatising reconstruction at the expense of autochthons, not treated like people, than a real solution to the conflict.
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