FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Informed sources say that (GITA) is modeled after the international administrations that oversaw the transition of East Timor and Kosovo to statehood.
Gaza is a hell. Israeli tanks have plowed its cities into dust and destroyed its infrastructure. Just last week, its soldiers expelled half a million people from Gaza City. And yet, as Israel fights what it calls its final campaign in Gaza, a battle is brewing over who will rule the desert.
As Western powers line up to recognize the state of Palestine at the UN, behind the scenes they are debating who should take control of Gaza. Since the war began in October 2023, more than a dozen governments and government-sponsored think tanks have offered plans for Gaza’s “day after.” They range from the seven-page New York declaration unveiled by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Faisal al-Saud, the Saudi foreign minister, at the UN in July, to a 200-page “green paper” published in January by Hamas, the Islamist militants that hold part of the Strip.
The governments of Britain, Denmark, Egypt, Israel, Palestine and America have drafted documents, as have a government-backed think tank in the United Arab Emirates and businessmen in regional and Western capitals.
Perhaps the most enthusiastic is Tony Blair, a former British prime minister. Within weeks of the outbreak of the Gaza war, he had made repeated visits to Jerusalem and had his London-based foundation draw up a plan for a post-war mandate. According to multiple sources involved in the plan, Blair could head a body called the Gaza International Transition Authority (GITA).
He would seek a UN mandate to be Gaza's "supreme political and legal authority" for five years. If approved, Blair would have a secretariat of up to 25 people and chair a seven-person board to oversee an executive body that runs the territory. The Gulf states would pay.
"He is willing to sacrifice his time. He really wants to end the war ," says a source who knows Blair.
Blair’s plan has strong supporters, from Gulf leaders to Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law. Perhaps most importantly, unlike other plans, it appears to have the blessing of Donald Trump. Blair, Kushner and Steve Witkoff, the president’s Middle East envoy, all argued the case in a meeting with the president on August 27. (Ron Dermer, the Israeli prime minister’s confidant and minister for strategic affairs, joined by telephone.) And on September 23, Trump reportedly pitched the idea to the leaders of Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia and five Arab countries.
"Maybe we can end the war in Gaza now ," Mr. Trump told them.
For the Palestinians, the plan is a marked improvement on the vision Trump announced in February. At the time, he supported expelling Gazans and building a “riviera” designed by artificial intelligence after they left. According to polls released by Blair’s team in May, more than a quarter of Gazans favored some form of international rule, compared with a third for the Palestinian Authority, the administration of President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Almost no one wanted Hamas, which has run Gaza since 2007, to remain in power. Most don’t care who rules as long as the bombing stops and there’s food to eat, says a former civil servant who is leaving Gaza City.
Informed sources say that the (GITA) is modeled after the international administrations that oversaw the transition of East Timor and Kosovo to statehood. Initially, it could be based in el-Arish, an Egyptian provincial capital near the southern border of Gaza. GITA would enter Gaza once the Strip was stabilized, accompanied by a multinational force. Under the plan, these sources insist, Palestinians would not be encouraged to leave Gaza, Gaza and the West Bank would be reunited, and Gaza would be gradually handed over to the Palestinian government.
But mandates have a habit of lasting longer than planned. In November 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration promising the Jews a homeland in Palestine; that same day it quickly occupied Gaza. It used Gaza as an air base and a stopover for Imperial Airways (a predecessor to British Airways). It remained there for 30 years. Now some Palestinians fear that Britain is repeating the exercise.
Blair's record in the region hardly endears him to them. As prime minister, he joined America in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In his eight years as envoy to the Quartet, a group including America, the EU, Russia and the UN tasked with implementing a roadmap for Palestinian statehood, Israel attacked Gaza four times and tightened its grip on the Palestinian territories.
Convincing Abbas will be difficult. He has the backing of Arab states to run Gaza after the war and appears willing to remove challengers. When a Palestinian businessman, Samir Hulileh, suggested that he should be governor of Gaza, Abbas imprisoned him. Another invasion is coming, warns an Abbas adviser about Blair's plan.
Given a political vision, Egyptian mediators claim, Hamas would surrender its weapons and allow a technocratic Palestinian government to administer the Gaza Strip. But if its members are banned from working in education and health services, as our sources suggest, the group may hesitate.
And then there is Israel. Having taken Gaza at a crushing cost, its messianic ministers want to keep it. Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, aims for “a real estate bonanza.” Sooner or later, he argues, the world will take pity on Gazans and offer them shelter elsewhere. Blair frequently calls Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, hoping to convince him of his vision. But, like the two-state solution, he may find that talks about the future simply buy Israel time to create alternative facts in the present./ Adapted from “Pamphlet” by “TheEconomist”
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