The question of who will govern Gaza has always been the most difficult question. At a March 4 summit in Cairo, Arab leaders supported an Egypt-proposed plan, which is more precise than any previous Arab agenda for Gaza, that seeks to answer this critical question.
While Israel will not accede to some key features and the Trump administration immediately condemned it, Egypt’s proposition is useful as the basis for further discussions that will lead to a project that Israel, Palestinians, and other authorities, including the United States and Arab allies, will find feasible.
The Trump government should take the lead and produce on what the Egyptians have proposed in order to push negotiations onwards.
The Egyptian plan meets two central conditions: it prevents Hamas from controlling Gaza and it takes aside any idea that Gaza’s citizens could be resettled. Instead, Gaza would be managed for six months by a technocratic council of Palestinians under the supervision, but probably not the control, of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. The PA would invite in United Nations (UN) peacekeepers to both Gaza and the West Bank. An international reference group would lead the effort. Arab countries would assist in Gaza’s physical redevelopment.
Several factors prevent Israel from accepting this plan in its present condition. Israel has cause to be wary of placing unnamed Palestinians in control of Gaza—though Arab capitals and Jerusalem could reach an understanding in secret talks over who would be on the council.
The main problem for the Netanyahu administration is that it is not ready to commit to riding Gaza over to the PA and to establishing a Palestinian state. This gap can be filled, but it will be the first serious trial of the second Trump administration’s Middle East diplomacy and the administration of leaders in Arab capitals and Israel.
PA “reform” appears necessary but inaccessible. Israelis should not be asked to risk their guarantee on a reformed PA when Arab nations have not been victorious, so far, in pushing much-needed changes on Ramallah. These are all severe problems, but the urgent need to start Gaza’s physical and social rehabilitation cannot wait for all these issues to be cracked. An internationally conducted interim governance authority in control of both security and reconstruction that carries in non-Hamas Palestinians is the only way to begin this process.
The Egyptian plan, like other proposals, is not going to be tolerated immediately. But after years of Hamas’s ruinous rule, the Egyptian plan could form the starting point for talks over a workable strategy for postwar Gaza that will conclude both the security threat to Israel and the misery of the people of Gaza.
