
Economic Development on the Agenda Trump Pushes Arabs To Force Bibi Into Phase 2
Jan. 30—With negotiations set to begin Feb. 3 between Israel, Hamas, and their mediators on Phase 2 of the Ceasefire/Hostage release deal in Gaza, even as the hostage and prisoner releases continue under Phase 1, President Donald Trump has summoned the Butcher of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu to meet with him Feb. 4 in the White House for some frank discussion. Sources report that whatever else takes place, Trump is expected to demand that Netanyahu commit to full implementation of all three phases of the deal that pressure from Trump and his no-nonsense Middle East Envoy, personal friend, and fellow real estate developer Steve Witkoff, forced him to sign off on.
“Bibi has made it clear, as have lunatic members of his coalition government, especially the fanatical racist [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich, that Israel intends to restart the war in Gaza, claiming that he must finish the job of eliminating Hamas,” said the source. “Trump does not want the war to restart there, or in Lebanon which is clinging to a tenuous ceasefire. Trump intends to explain to Bibi that he risks losing his support should he sabotage the negotiations. [Special Envoy Steve] Witkoff, who is on the ground inspecting the situation in Gaza, has told Bibi the same thing. The pressure on him is getting unbearable.”
This and other sources with contacts in the White House and in Israel’s government say the situation for Netanyahu is far more complicated than merely wrecking his coalition if he does not soon resume the killing of more Palestinians. Smotrich has said that if Bibi does not go after Hamas after Phase 1, he will pull his party, the National Religious Party-Religious Zionism, out of the coalition; Smotrich’s collaborator in racist lunacy, former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has already pulled his Jewish Power party out. But Bibi has been promised support from opposition leaders if he carries out the deal to the end.
“What Trump is really demanding,” said the source, “is that Bibi give up his messianic crusade to slaughter as many Palestinians as possible to prevent the establishment of Palestinian state. This was never about Hamas. Oct. 7 was just a pretext—that’s why Bibi is so intent on preventing a state commission of inquiry into Hamas’ attack. Many people actually believe that Bibi may have deliberately looked the other way. After all, Bibi put Hamas in power with suitcases of money delivered by Qatar. Yahya Sinwar, Hamas' late leader, who some people call Bibi’s co-evil twin, once said that he was willing to accept “one million Palestinian martyrs” or more. Bibi is more than willing to comply with that. Many people doubt that Bibi can give up his lust for Palestinian blood. But that is what Trump is demanding he do.”
A Western diplomat told Haaretz, ”we are all asking ourselves if Netanyahu will give in to the extremists in his government and look for reasons to blow up the agreement. The professional staff seem to be very committed to it, but everyone is looking to see what they will do after Day 42, [the day on which the last of the 33 Hamas held hostages—dead or alive- is to be released in Phase 1].” But Bibi would just be using people like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir to cover for his own murderous intentions in restarting the war.
On Jan. 18, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced the establishment of a joint operations room in Egypt, with participation of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, and the U.S., who’s mission is to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire deal, facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, take responsibility for the return of residents to northern Gaza, and the release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and manage transit procedures for the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
The primary mission of the joint operations room, however, is to clear possible roadblocks ahead of the Phase 2 of the hostage-ceasefire agreement, and then move on to Phase 3, which involves reconstructing Gaza. In the concise version of the agreement released in Israel—excluding protocols—this third stage was summarized in just a line and a half.
While public debate in Israel focuses on the potential resumption of war once Phase 1 is completed, it is the reconstruction of Gaza that concerns Egypt and other Arab nations, which are expected to foot the bill.
And then we have Trump’s own confusing statements about his intentions to build something different in Gaza, perhaps without a million or more Palestinians who would be shipped to Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt. He made these remarks Jan. 24 to reporters who were traveling with the President. A source close to Trump said that the President is not really talking about a permanent mass resettlement or expulsion of Palestinians from their Gazan homeland, even if it sounds enough like that to cause the likes of Ben-Gvir to find fulsome praise for the vague proposal.
“Look, the guy is a developer,” said the source of Trump. “He has seen pictures of the devastation brought about by the Israelis which has left more than a million homeless survivors, lacking basic infrastructure, picking through the rubble. If you want to rebuild from what he calls ‘literally a demolition site right now,’ he says you need to get the people out of the way. So, he says move them off site to Jordan and Egypt, until we can get things built in Gaza. This makes sense to a guy who builds housing.”
Writes analyst Zvi Bar’el in Haaretz Jan. 29: “Gazans going northward under Hamas’ supervision are an answer to U.S. President Donald Trump’s call to evacuate Gaza to ‘just clean out’ the rubble and get down to reconstruction. His real estate magnate logic, backed by some of his allies, overlooks the Palestinian concept of sumud, ‘steadfastness’—holding on to the land even if it’s strewn with debris and rubble.”
On Jan. 25, Egypt, like Jordan previously, clarified that it firmly rejects President Trump’s proposal to absorb Gazan refugees into its territory, either “temporarily” or “long term,” as Trump put it, to enable the rebuilding of the enclave.
Trump, sources report, will pivot away from his “thinking out loud” points about Gazan development to a more precise plan—what he once proposed during his first term as the “Deal of the Century,” as Bar’el reports, “which outlines, among other provisions, the rebuilding of Gaza, construction of an airport and a designated port in El Arish, and a large industrial park in Sinai to employ Gazans who would commute daily. Trump’s latest proposal—excluding the transfer of refugees—is viewed in Egypt as a sign that the U.S. president is committed to Gaza’s reconstruction. Egyptian economists, contractors and businessmen are pinning their hopes on this development."
Trump's original deal was a plan to implement a two-state solution, and it involved various exchanges of land between Israel, the Palestinians on the West Bank and Egypt. The core proposal would give Israel 30% of the West Bank, while the Palestinians would some of that back in land from Egypt. Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis supported the deal—the Palestinians because they felt they were being given too little; the Israelis because they thought the Palestinians were being given too much.
But what intrigued many was the economic development component of the deal, which recognized that such development was a necessary step to create peace—a shared prosperity was required, for Arab states and Israel, as well as for the Palestinian people if the region was ever to become peaceful and stable. That is what is interesting and important in President Trump's efforts to revive and recast to present circumstances his "Deal of the Century."
“In an interview with the Emirati newspaper Al-Sharq," reports Bar'el, "a leading Egyptian construction executive said that it is ‘already possible to establish a factory for prefabricated houses on the Egyptian side of Rafah, which could provide housing for thousands of Gazans, and then build factories for producing cement and other construction materials, thus starting to implement Trump’s vision presented almost six years ago.
“For Egyptian businesses—large construction companies, owners of cement, iron, glass and wood factories, earthworks contractors, and owners of heavy equipment—Gaza represents a “land of opportunities,” which could rescue them from a long streak of recession and unemployment. They eagerly await the order to enter Gaza, as long as there is someone who will finance the work and guarantee the payments....
“Egypt is not the only country waiting for the green light. Türkiye has also expressed interest to take part in this initiative, as has Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. A Turkish diplomat told Haaretz that Ankara fully understands that to join the Gaza investment channel, it will have to ‘repair relations with Israel. It’s possible that if the cease-fire becomes permanent, and the war actually ends, Türkiye might resume trade with Israel.’
“Similar statements were made last week by Nail Olpak, President of the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Türkiye. However, while Israel objects to Türkiye’s and Qatar’s involvement in rebuilding Gaza, it is uncertain that it will have the final say in this decision. The close ties between Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, as well as their collective connections with President Trump and his family, could potentially shift away from Israel the monopoly determining Gaza’s future. The alliance of ‘moderate nations’ for dealing with Gaza affairs—Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia—has promised Trump and his staff that they will bring the knowledge, money, and everything else that is needed to remove the rubble from the northern Gaza Strip and Rafah to build modern cities with modern infrastructure to replace the Israeli 'valley of destruction.'”
"These countries also have no interest in cooperating with what is perceived to be the second Nakba, the expulsion of Gaza’s residents. They are there to clear out the ruins, not the people. A Western diplomat with detailed knowledge of the negotiations between the United States and the other countries told Haaretz that when a serious American plan emerges, we’ll hear about it from Witkoff. Not from Trump. Witkoff’s the only one involved in the details of the complex negotiations between the countries.”
The Schiller Institute is circulating around the globe, including inside Israel, the Arab world, and the U.S., another, broader, plan for development of the entire region. The Oasis Plan was first drawn up in the 1970s at the behest of Labor Party-linked forces in Israel by the late physical economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, as a means to develop trust and understanding between Arab nations and Israel as they worked on a vast project to secure water and power supplies for the region, enabling the development of its agro-industrial base. The plan is perfectly coherent with the intent of Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” and would require the marshalling of a large pool of low-interest credit, emanating from a regional or international development bank, whose lending would also steer similar utterances of low-interest credits from private banking interests.
The Oasis Plan, if implemented, would provide a workable and sustainable pathway to peace and prosperity for the entire region, and should be discussed in the context of the need to create economically viable states, not based on their own limited existing resources, but on new resources sourced locally and planet-wide, created through such investment. For example: the construction of safe modern nuclear power plants, using small nuclear reactors, could power desalination facilities along the Mediterranean coast, that would create a vast and reliable supply of potable water for human, agricultural, and industrial consumption.
“I don’t know if he has seen [LaRouche’s] Oasis Plan,” said a source of Trump. “But I can tell you this, it is right up his alley. His idea is the way you build peace is through cooperative economic development. As crazy as he sounds, sometimes, that is how he sees things coming together, even among former enemies.”