In late August, United States President Donald Trump met with his son-in-law Jared Kushner and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss plans for a postwar Gaza.
A month earlier, staff members of a think tank set up by Blair met with Israeli business leaders to develop a postwar Gaza plan. It included the creation of a “Trump Riviera” and a manufacturing zone to be named after Elon Musk, using financial models developed by the Boston Consulting Group
Kushner has praised Gaza’s potential as a “very valuable waterfront property”, some of which he would like to own with his father in law. Back in February, Trump called for setting up a luxury beach resort called “Trump Gaza” after Israel crushes Palestinians there.
Blair was a leader of “New Labour”, and is an anti-socialist right-winger. Present-day British Labour PM Keir Starmer led a witch-hunt in the party to drive out anyone who voiced pro-Palestinian positions, charging them with antisemitism.
John Paul, a former US State Department official, who resigned over the US policy toward Gaza, responded to Trump and Blair’s meeting, telling Democracy Now!: “At the end of the day, this is a nightmarish example of profits over people. What you have with Kushner and Blair is a combination of the corrupt and the feckless…”
The Gaza Riviera project “is reliant ultimately, on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians,” said Paul. “And that’s the reason the Boston Consulting Group — which had played a part in developing it — not only withdrew from the project, but fired some of the consultants who had been involved, precisely because there is no way to advance this project without violating international law.”
This proposal for a postwar Gaza coincides with Israel’s invasion of Gaza City, which paves the way for the mass slaughter and driving out of Palestinians from the entire Gaza Strip. To achieve this, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is mobilising 60,000 army reserves to join the slaughter.
Trump has repeatedly said that Palestinians should be displaced from all the land that Israel currently occupies, including the West Bank, Gaza and so-called “Green Line Israel” — a position Netanyahu says he agrees with.
US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has even claimed that “Palestinians don’t exist”, a position he hasn’t backed away from.
Trump recently banned Palestinians from entering the US, including members of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Israeli-occupied West Bank. This would mean they could not participate in the upcoming United Nations General Assembly in October.
Previously, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has attended the General Assembly. But Netanyahu has now ruled out any role for the PA in “Greater Israel”, in spite of Abbas’ cooperation with the Israeli occupying forces in the West Bank and his pro-Israel and pro-US positions.
Trump and Netanyahu are in lockstep. While it is too early to say whether Israel’s recent attack on Hamas peace negotiators in Qatar has any serious impact on Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu, the US-Israel alliance is longstanding and based on common interests.
Israel’s new assault on Gaza City aims to force all Palestinians into Gaza’s south, around Raffah. This is designed to pressure Egypt to take them in — which Egypt has opposed.
Paul says that Israel’s aim is to force Palestinians into “small manageable groups … and then impose forms of governance that are undemocratic, that are autocratic, and that allow for companies to come in and take profits and gain strategic advantage.”
The US is participating directly in Israel’s ethnic cleansing through the misnamed “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”, which aims to displace the UN and other legitimate aid groups, and to entrap Palestinians seeking food, allowing them to be mowed down by Israeli troops.
More than 1000 Palestinians have been killed at these sites, according to Paul.
While Netanyahu’s and Trump’s aims are clear, achieving them is another matter. Palestinians are fighting back, through Hamas or other subsequent groups — if it comes to that.
In such situations of war against a whole people, the adage is, “for every fighter killed, two take their place”. Two historical examples are the Algerian fighters against the French, and the Vietnamese people — firstly against the French and then the US.
Palestinians in Gaza will fight Israel to the bitter end. Our job in the “West” is to continue to fight for the Palestinians against Israel and its US backers, through mass mobilisations and other means, right now, with the demand to stop arming Israel.