The Board of Occupation

Monday was a “big, big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization,” according to United States President Donald Trump. 

Standing at a podium in the White House beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the US president reached for his typical litany of hyperbolic descriptors that center and flatter himself as the arbiter of history, a messiah in a blue Brioni suit styled for New York millionaires, who has come to wipe out all past wrongs, stupidities of bureaucracy, corruption and personal grievances, all at the same time. 

And on this “big, big” day, Trump had come to work his latest miracle: the war on Gaza. The styling was on display as Trump garbled a Hebrew pronunciation of the word Abrahm as he referenced the 2020 normalization agreements with Israel led by the UAE. 

Over the course of a 40-minute press conference, Trump and Netanyahu laid out a narrative for the end of the war, intermixing celebratory flourishes with threats to Hamas if it fails to accept the proposed plan. Released by the White House just before the two heads of state began their address, the plan sketches out terms for a prisoner exchange, interfaith dialogue, economic development, transitional governance, disarmament of Hamas, the introduction of a new international security body, a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces and a demand for reform for the Palestinian Authority. All of this in a brief and detail-scant 20 points. 

But as much as Trump proffered Monday as a defining break with history for Palestine and the wider Middle East, he was not pulling from the Jewish mythology mixed with sinister Manicheanism that populates Netanyahu’s “curse-blessing” speeches to advance his new day. No. For Trump, the material at hand was his own brand of disruptive boardroom theatrics and the recent history of US imperialism in the region. 

This could be seen clearly in the inclusion of two key architects of the deal and wider postwar plan: Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, one of the authors of the Deal of the Century economization of Gaza who is now a private equity firm manager almost entirely buoyed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, and Tony Blair, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom who plunged Britain into the unilateral, US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. 

The blend of these two personalities, who played a key role in hashing out the plan, came to a head in the proposed governance structure for the post-war period: the “Board of Peace.”

“We call it the Board of Peace. Sort of a beautiful name, the Board of Peace, which will be headed, not at my request, believe me, I'm very busy, but we have to make sure this works — the leaders of the Arab world and Israel and everybody involved asked me to do this — so it will be headed by a gentleman known as President Donald J. Trump of the United States,” Trump said at the presser.

Mention of CEOs, boardrooms, “service delivery” is littered throughout a leaked document detailing the proposed institutional structure of the Gaza International Transitional Authority — referred to in the White House plan as the Board of Peace. 

But for some of the Arab and Muslim states that engaged with the drafting of the plan, the last-minute inclusion of the Board of Peace and other edits was a “betrayal” as it will effectively separate Gaza from the West Bank and place it under foreign protection, sources told Mada Masr. For Egypt, the postwar path cemented in the plan is far from an agreed on eventuality, sources say, as Cairo has voiced substantial concerns about the proposed security framework and its location on Egyptian territory. 

Over the course of the last week, Mada Masr has spoken to Egyptian and Gulf officials, regional, Arab and Western diplomats, and Palestinian sources in the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to understand the contours of the plan, its chances for implementation, and its ramifications for the wider Middle East.

***

The plan for Gaza’s postwar governance has several historical precedents, most prominently the Deal of the Century put forward during Trump’s first term. 

But this general idea of real estate development for Gaza took on renewed force when Trump reentered office at the beginning of this year. 

In a February press conference with Netanyahu, Trump laid out his vision for making Gaza the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said at the time. “We’ll own it and be responsible” for disposing of unexploded munitions and rebuilding Gaza into a mecca for jobs and tourism. 

A large part of that real estate plan included displacing Palestinians from Gaza. 

“I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza,” Trump said. “I heard that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They live like hell. They live like they’re living in hell. Gaza is not a place for people to be living, and the only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is because they have no alternative.”

Egypt took the lead in trying to propose such an alternative. Cairo’s plan — which focused on Egypt-led reconstruction, funded by the Gulf, and a new technocratic Palestinian government — ultimately failed to get broad acceptance. 

As Egypt scrambled to put the plan together for an emergency Arab League summit, Trump appeared to back off the unilateralism of the move in an interview with Fox News by the end of February, saying “I think that’s the plan that really works. But I’m not forcing it. I’m just going to sit back and recommend it.”

But the plan was still gaining headway away from the limelight. 

In July, the Financial Times published details of a planned project for postwar Gaza that envisaged kick-starting the enclave’s economy with a “Trump Riviera” and an “Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone.”

The composition of the plan was led by Israeli businessmen and used financial models developed inside Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to reimagine Gaza as a thriving trading hub.

Crucially, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) also played a role in the plan with two staff members at the institute having participated in message groups and calls as the project developed, people familiar with the work told the Financial Times.

One document on postwar Gaza, written by a TBI staff member, was shared within the group for consideration. “This included the idea of a ‘Gaza Riviera’ with artificial islands off the coast akin to those in Dubai, blockchain-based trade initiatives, a deep water port to tie Gaza into the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor, and low-tax ‘special economic zones,’” the Financial Times reported. 

Blair resurfaced, this time in the flesh, in late August when he sat for a meeting at the White House with Kushner, Trump and a phoned-in Israeli official, Ron Dermer.

Axios quotes a source with direct knowledge of the talks saying that Kushner and Blair “tried to give an idea of how Gaza could be governed and how you create an environment for investment so that reconstruction can happen. The goal was to run the ideas by Trump to see if he likes them and wants to move forward, so that Witkoff and Rubio can use them.”

Aside from these two known instances, Blair and Kushner’s involvement in the postwar planning precedes Trump's current presidency. As early as 2023, a few months into the war, they met in Abu Dhabi with Dermer and former PA official Mohamed Dahlan to discuss features of the plan, according to an Egyptian official. It was in this meeting, the official says, that the plan took on the idea of forming a joint Arab force to protect the Israelis from the resistance. The idea was later presented to Egypt and Jordan as an American idea, the official adds. 

This plan did in fact eventually come to light when it made its way to the press as an Arab and American proposal.

An Egyptian official told Mada Masr in a past report that in November 2023, some Arab states proposed to the US that it take security responsibility for managing Gaza. Washington responded by conditioning its involvement on the formation of a joint force composed of Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Morocco and Indonesia to secure the strip. 

Under the plan, which was leaked to the American press last year, a senior US military officer would command the joint force, while US diplomats and senior officials would oversee local affairs, effectively having the US take the lead in Gaza. The proposal had yet to gain approval, except for from the UAE, which agreed to participate in the joint force, the official said at the time, adding that there was hesitancy toward the plan after the Biden administration revised its vision for Gaza, making it resemble the post-2003 Iraq model.

While this implicit trail of events does seem to point to Kushner and Blair’s involvement in putting together this week’s plan, an Arab League source in New York makes the point more emphatically. “Of course Tony Blair is involved in it. He is very close to Kushner. They worked on this with Netanyahu. And they deliberately made [the plan] very vague,” the source says.

And as such, it is easy to see the fingerprints of these earlier plans in the proposed structure for the Gaza International Transitional Authority. 

The joint force has now become the International Stabilization Force and Blair is slated to be on the board.

According to the leaked document, the transitional authority will have a tripartite structure, at the top of which sits the Gaza International Transitional Authority International Board, or in Trump’s phrasing, the Board of Peace, which will be led by the chairman or “senior political executive.”

The board and the chairman will have sole authority to issue binding decisions, approve legislation and major appointments and provide strategic direction. 

The plan mentions several names as possible appointments to the board, including Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris, alongside UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Sigrid Kaag, American investor Marc Rowan and “possibly” Abraham Accord Peace Institute CEO Aryeh Lightstone.

The board will have direct oversight over several other supra-Palestinian bodies. The first is the Executive Secretariat, which will consist of up to 25 people reporting directly to the chairman, five of whom will serve as “commissioners” providing oversight, coordination and regulation across five governance domains: humanitarian supervision, legislative and legal supervision, security oversight, PA coordination supervision, and the head of the newly created Gaza Investment Promotion and Economic Development Authority. 

At the third level will be what the proposal calls the “service delivery arm:” a Palestinian Executive Authority to be headed by a Palestinian Chief Executive Officer which will have no executive power of its own. 

The CEO will oversee a series of technocratic ministries and report directly to the Executive Secretariat. All nominations for technocratic ministries will be submitted by the CEO to the GITA International Board, who will have sole discretion of appointment and dismissal and replacement.

The proposal also includes a trifold security structure. The first level is an elite guard that provides security for the board members itself. It is followed by two other bodies: the civil police and the International Stabilization Force. 

The civil police will be nationally recruited and “professionally vetted” and will be tasked with enforcing Gaza’s transitional laws. It will serve as the primary law enforcement agency in Gaza’s urban and municipal environments. 

The ISF, on the other hand, is an internationally mandated, multinational security force that will be tasked with ensuring “border integrity, deter[ing] armed group resurgence, protect[ing] humanitarian and reconstruction operations, and support[ing] local law enforcement through coordination — not substitution.”

It is the chairman of the board, however, that will maintain responsibility for GITA’s “security posture,” according to the document. 

The chairman leads “strategic engagement with Israel, Egypt, the United States and other international stakeholders on security access, force posture and crisis resolution,” and “serves as the principal escalation channel for high-risk incidents that exceed the scope of operational actors.” 

The proposal also makes provision for a “property rights preservation unit” whose core task will be to “ensure that any voluntary departure of residents from Gaza during the transitional period is documented, legally protected, and does not compromise the individual’s right to return or retain property ownership.” 

***

While Blair, Kushner, Trump and Netanyahu have worked to put together this postwar structure, there remain several hurdles to its implementation.

Immediately following the press conference, Egypt and Qatar took the 20-point proposal to Hamas officials in Doha. They have since been joined by a Turkish delegation. 

According to a source at a research center affiliated with Egyptian sovereign bodies and an Egyptian official, Hamas initially told the Egyptians and Qataris that they cannot work with this plan, but Cairo and Doha advised Hamas not to decline the offer outright but to think of a way for acceptance. 

Hamas asked Egypt to revive its plan that put on the table collective Palestinian management of Gaza, the source adds. And if that isn’t an option, says a second researcher, Hamas told Cairo that it is willing to accept the conditions of demilitarization if there is a real concrete proposal for a Palestinian state. 

But Hamas’s leeway for rejecting the proposal seems small.

“The Palestinian people have no chance of rejecting it because the options are zero-sum: either acceptance or massive support for Netanyahu to continue the war and displace Palestinians from Gaza,” a Fatah leader tells Mada Masr. “The proposal contains unclear and provocative points, but Hamas will accept it even if it is difficult in order to overcome this difficult phase, especially since Qatar was neutralized through a phone call between Netanyahu and Sheikh Tamim.”

Pointing to the difficult position it puts Hamas in, the Fattah source says, “The proposal did not clarify how Hamas leaders would be removed or protected, and talk of international committees governing Gaza is not reassuring and raises questions about its purpose.”

For former Egyptian Ambassador to the UN Moataz Ahmadeen, the proposal has a single goal.  

“The only purpose of this plan is to secure the release of the hostages. Otherwise, there is nothing concrete and it is clearly written in a way that allows Israel to use whichever pretext it wishes to resume its war on Gaza. If we read this text and we listen to what Netanyahu said in the joint press conference with Trump, we will find that Netanyahu is already saying it: ‘We will either do it the easy way or the hard way,’” Ahmadeen tells Mada Masr. 

And on whether the proposal makes any real step toward statehood, Ahmadeen is not sanguine: “It is very important to not look at specific terms in the plan out of context. The reference to statehood takes us back to the 1970 because it talks about self-determination. The reference to self-determination has gone out of use since the Oslo Peace Accords,” he adds. “The reference to a horizon of statehood is coupled with ‘aspiration,’ which means the Palestinians can dream of it all they want.” 

The Arab League source agrees with the assessment, calling the proposal a disaster at worst or at best nothing. “There is nothing serious there. Nothing that offers a base that Arab and Muslim countries could work with. This is not something that Hamas could accept. It is offering Israel what it wants and is leaving Hamas with nothing in specific,” the source says. “Trump said it in so many words that he only cares about the hostages. He said it in his speech before the UNGA. But we have a disastrous situation on the ground, and we have to try.”

And even if Hamas agrees to the deal, it may be difficult to meet Israel’s demands, which an Egyptian official says is “to have the hostages to appear in Jerusalem on the eve of October 7.” 

A second source at a research institute affiliated with a sovereign body says that Hamas wanted time before it gives its final answer, but there is US pressure for a prompt answer that Cairo and Doha are relaying to Hamas. “Hamas said that it was impossible for them to amass the bodies of all the Israeli hostages who died while in captivity and to collect all hostages in less than one week,” he adds. 

In the eyes of a regional diplomat, then, it seems like the plan may be a way of putting a postwar plan in motion, yes, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee an end to the war in the short term, even if Hamas agrees. “I cannot call the 20 points of Trump as a plan to end the war. It is not even a disengagement plan. It is a decompressing plan,” the diplomat says. 

***

Once the war does end, whether the “easy or the hard way,” in Netanyahu’s words, the question of getting the postwar governance structure off the ground will still face problems. 

First and foremost is the question of its legitimacy and acceptance internationally and regionally. 

According to the leaked GITA document, when the transitional authority plan is set in motion, there will be an appeal to the UN Security Council to issue a resolution granting the GITA the legal basis for its authority. 

According to the regional diplomat, this provision came about per Egypt’s request, which was adopted by Arab and Islamic countries. “This achieves two advantages: first, it prevents the US from completely monopolizing the issue, and second, it opens a loophole for the UNSC to reconsider the implementation of the plan later.”

“Of course, it is not in America's interest for Russia, China and Algeria to interfere in the details,” they continue, referring to other sitting members on the security council who could undermine this plan. 

An Egyptian official, however, says that some Gulf countries are already advancing plans to make generous investment offers to Russia and China to try to secure endorsement at the UNSC in the event that the proposal is tabled. 

For Ahmedeen, the inclusion of the UNSC gives some Arab states the possibility to challenge the plan. 

“This ISF thing is a joke because, inevitably, even if composed by the endorsement of the UNSC, it ultimately reports to Blair and Trump. In fact, it is under the guardianship of the representatives of Trump and Blair,” he says. “What some Arab countries could do is go to the UNSC and demand a resolution whereby the ISF should report to the UNSC, not to Trump and Blair. Arab countries should also demand that the ISF take responsibility for the protection of Palestinian civilians because otherwise it could come across as a body designed to execute an Israeli wishlist.” 

Ahmedeen is also clear to point out that there is not a unified Arab position on the deal. 

“We do not talk about Arab countries as a whole because you cannot ignore the role of the Emirates in this whole thing, because it was the idea of the Emiratis to have this meeting on the sidelines of the UNGA,” he says. “It is very important to look at the Arab-Muslim communique. It reflects a great deal of unease, and the Arab and Muslim states chose the traditional diplomatic way of showing their unease by focusing on the specific points that they agree with rather than talking about the plan as a whole.” 

“Netanyahu did the same thing. He focused on the points that he is in agreement with. There is a very important difference, however. What Netanyahu said was openly, publicly and firmly endorsed by Trump. This is not the case of the Arab communique,” Ahmedeen adds. 

On Monday, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar and Egypt released a joint statement to “welcome President Donald J Trump’s leadership and his sincere efforts to end the war in Gaza, and assert their confidence in his ability to find a path to peace.” The statement then affirmed the eight countries’ willingness to work toward a comprehensive deal that “ensures unrestricted delivery of sufficient humanitarian aid to Gaza, no displacement of the Palestinians, the release of hostages, a security mechanism that guarantees the security of all sides, full Israeli withdrawal, rebuilds Gaza and creates a path for a just peace on the basis of the two-state solution, under which Gaza is fully integrated with the West Bank in a Palestinian state.” 

Since the communique was published, Egypt, Qatar and Pakistan have expressed their unease more publicly. While Pakistan’s prime minister initially lauded Trump for the proposal, Pakistani Foreign Minister Mohamed Dar said on Tuesday that the plan released by the White House was “not our document.” Meanwhile Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Atty and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani have each said that several points in the plan need further discussion. When asked if Egypt would partake in Trump’s plan, Abdel Atty more stridently, after a brief praise of it, said on Wednesday that Gaza “is to be managed by Palestinians normally and our role is to support and help” and "some elements [of the proposal] need extensive discussion [...] As they say, the devil is in the details."

An Egyptian official and the Arab League source both say that it is not true that the proposal released on Monday is an “entirely different document.” But both acknowledge that significant edits were made to the proposal after the meeting of Arab and Muslim state officials on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on September 24. 

“When Netanyahu arrived in New York, he told the US that he had shared the document with his security cabinet and received negative comments. So he worked with the American team — Kushner, Dermer and Blair — to make amendments. He sent the amended draft to the right wing elements of his government and then requested further amendments when he met with Trump,” the Egyptian official says. 

“The Arab and Muslim countries that went to the New York meeting were told that there were amendments made but they would be shared after the Trump and Netanyahu meeting. And this is why there is a sense of betrayal, because originally they did not like a lot of things about the document, but with the changes that were made, it was getting a lot more biased than it already was and it will be very difficult to send to Hamas. But to claim that this is an entirely different document is not true,” the official adds. 

The Arab League source says that the most substantial edits heightened the separation between the West Bank and Gaza. 

This separation “is a major step back because it effectively means that Gaza is no longer part of the Palestinian territories, and it is going to be under foreign guardianship,” the source adds.

Mada Masr obtained a draft document tracking the final round of edits made to the plan before it was published. The draft tracks four substantial edits. First, explicit mention of Blair, the Board of Peace and the International Stabilization Force were added to the document. Second, language concerning Israel “progressively handing over the Gaza territory they occupy” was amended with additions to spell out the current plan’s language around the withdrawal being done according to “standards, milestones and timeframes linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the IDF, ISF, the guarantors, and the United States.” Third, language concerning “a commitment to destroy and stop building offensive military infrastructure” was changed to “military, terror and offensive infrastructure,” and the following clause was added: “There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors.” Finally, an apology to Qatar was removed. 

And while the US has exerted pressure for the deal to be accepted, the Egyptian source said that Doha and Cairo have seized on the “messy process” and the new amendments as an opportunity to tell the Americans that “we will have to accept some amendments from Hamas,” to which the US has responded affirmatively. 

Outside of Qatar and Egypt, however, some Arab states do seem to be on board, even if some more so than others. 

A Qatari political source says there is an expectation that Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar and the UAE will all field members to sit on the board. 

A senior Saudi official tells Mada Masr that while Riyadh has not yet decided whether to be on the Board of Peace, it undoubtedly supports the proposal and is very close to Trump.

Some of the larger points of disagreement for Egypt specifically come regarding the proposed transitional government itself. 

One of the key issues for Egypt concerns the location of the GITA. In the leaked proposal document, the first year of the transitional plan will see “partial deployment via forward coordination cells (e.g. El Arish).” Elsewhere, using the same language, the cell in Arish “will support early access and interface with Israeli and Egyptian officials.” 

Two Egyptian officials and one of the researchers confirm that American officials have broached the idea of establishing the headquarters of the GITA in Arish. 

“Discussions about the headquarters of the new governing bodies in Gaza have not yet been settled, especially since the US and Israel insist that the initial headquarters of the force be located on Egyptian territory, specifically in North Sinai, including the cities of Arish and Rafah,” one of the officials says. “According to the new plan, the joint force will conduct security patrols inside Gaza and return to its headquarters in North Sinai, under the pretext that there are no headquarters from which the force's leadership could operate inside Gaza.”

The US has justified its insistence on Arish by virtue of the city's infrastructure, which includes an airport and a seaport that has been the main gateway for aid shipments to Gaza for years, the official adds. 

Egypt has struck out against this plan, however, according to the official, who tells Mada Masr that Cairo believes that installing the GITA in Arish will open the door to usurping Egyptian sovereignty over the city and the border area with Gaza. 

The official says that Egypt has communicated its concerns “related to the security management, command structure and extent of international participation in these forces.” 

In addition, the official adds “the issue of Palestinian resistance leaders and their transfer abroad has not been addressed. No serious and practical discussions or understandings have taken place on this matter, which requires coordination at the highest level, which has not yet occurred."

Two other Egyptian sources echoed this concern without specifically addressing the location of the headquarters in Arish, “We have not yet decided on our position because the Americans have not addressed our concerns about the plan,” one of the officials says. Both sources added that the refusal comes from suspicion toward the plan that has prompted fear of an “internationalization of the situation in North Sinai.”

***

All of these discussions hinge on Hamas and the negotiations in Doha that are currently playing out. It is clear for everyone that the Trump plan — criticized as vague by nearly every Egyptian, Palestinian and regional diplomat who spoke to Mada Masr — has a momentum that will be hard to slow down and may not even lead to an end to the war in the immediate term. 

But as one Egyptian official says, “there is a limit to how long Netanyahu can continue fighting. Despite the fact that Netanyhu says he can continue to fight on seven fronts, in reality, he can’t, because Gaza is consuming the capacity of the military.” 

And when the war finally does stop, Tony Blair and Jared Kushner will be there, waiting, smiling and ready to have a big, big day. But saying it and doing it are different things. And to this point, everyone is far from convinced. As one Egyptian official puts it, this is all just a “disgusting” con that no one should take seriously. 

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