‘Imperial’ agenda: What’s Trump’s Gaza development plan, unveiled in Davos?

Glittering towers lining the Mediterranean coastline, a “New Gaza” and “New Rafah” in the offing, with more than 100,000 housing units alongside orderly industrial parks – and even a new airport.

All without consultation with the people this development is supposed to benefit.

This is the skeleton of a “masterplan” for post-war Gaza, presented by Jared Kushner, United States President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a real estate developer, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week.

“There is no Plan B,” said Kushner, as he unveiled the ambitious plan.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians – with thousands more missing and presumed dead under the rubble – in Gaza since October 7, 2023, the day Hamas launched an attack on villages and army outposts in southern Israel and Israel began its bombardment. More than 470 Palestinians have been killed since a ceasefire was announced by Trump on October 10 last year.

Presented as a plan to rebuild the Palestinian territory, the Trump administration’s proposal this week, however, offers no insight into core issues such as property and land rights — let alone justice for war crimes — amid plans to construct shimmering buildings atop an estimated 68 million tonnes of rubble and war debris, where thousands of bodies remain buried.

Praising the redevelopment plan, Trump, who also spoke at length at the forum in Davos, argued that the war in Gaza “was really coming to an end”, even as Israeli forces killed at least 11 Palestinians, including two children and three journalists, in separate strikes on the Gaza Strip on Thursday.

“I’m a real estate person at heart, and it’s all about location,” Trump said about the development plan. “And I said, look at this location on the sea, look at this beautiful piece of property, what it could be for so many people.”

Experts have strongly criticised the “imperialist” vision of Trump’s so-called master plan, which they say does not include any consultation with Palestinians and reduces the ongoing catastrophic genocide to an “investment opportunity”.