The Arab League issued a statement following a summit in Cairo on Tuesday backing an Egyptian-proposed $53 billion reconstruction plan for Gaza, an idea quickly rejected by Israel and the US.
The Egyptian proposal was a response to President Trump’s calls for the US to “take over” Gaza, a plan that would involve an ethnic cleansing campaign to forcibly displace Palestinians. The Arab statement rejected “any form of Palestinian displacement, whether within or beyond their land, under any pretext or justification.”
A major talking point from the Trump administration is that Palestinians can no longer live in Gaza due to the massive destruction caused by the US-backed Israeli bombing campaign, but the Egyptian proposal would keep Palestinians in the territory during reconstruction.
The first phase of the five-year reconstruction plan would involve establishing temporary housing and initial repairs of partially damaged homes that aren’t totally destroyed. A temporary committee led by the Palestinian Authority (PA) would oversee the first six months of reconstruction, and then the PA would take over the management of the Strip.
Hamas, which has said it does not need to rule over a post-war Gaza, welcomed the plan. “We welcome the Gaza reconstruction plan adopted in the summit’s final statement and call for ensuring all necessary resources for its success,” the group said.
Hamas also expressed support for “the formation of the Community Support Committee to oversee relief efforts, reconstruction and governance in Gaza,” referring to the temporary committee.
In its statement rejecting the proposal, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the Arab League’s statement “fails to address the realities of the situation following October 7th, 2023, remaining rooted in outdated perspectives.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry complained that the Arab statement didn’t condemn Hamas’s October 7 attack and that it “relies” on the PA and the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA. The ministry called for President Trump’s plan to be implemented instead.
“Now, with President Trump’s idea, there is an opportunity for the Gazans to have free choice based on their free will. This should be encouraged! Instead, Arab states have rejected this opportunity, without giving it a fair chance, and continue to level baseless accusations against Israel,” the ministry said.
White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes also rejected the Arab League statement, saying the plan doesn’t “address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance.”
Hughes added that President Trump “stands by his vision to rebuild Gaza free from Hamas.”
https://www.gandhimemorialcenter.org/the-gandhi-message/2022/12/30/gandhi-on-peace
I read an early Reuter’s piece on this meeting, and there was all kinds of bickering about Hamas involvement even as a precursory consult before handing over responsibility to another representative group.
Also, Iranians aren’t Arabs, but as Muslims, and in close proximity, shouldn’t they have been invited?
The Arab league is useless. But even they had to stand against Israel and the US. This indicates there is huge tension building up. Of course they should have invited the Iranians, but as I said the League is worthless.
Was this kabuki theater for their masses?
Like, well we tried, but the US went against us? An attempt to pretend they weren’t onboard to calm any potential uprising?
And will it work?
Yes of course. They delayed the meeting until March 4, although it was supposed to be an "emergency." King Abdullah of Jordan was humiliated at the Whitehouse when he was told he should accept the Palestinians. The Arab leaders are caught between the Arab masses and US pressures. They will ultimately lose.
Israel's demands will eventually be greater than any of these leaders can withstand. That's when things will get out of hand. Washington still thinks that it can isolate Hamas and the resistance. The reality is the resistance is nurtured at its basic level on the Arab street and in every home of the Arabs and Muslims around the world.
Hopefully this epiphany happens before Israel uses its nukes.
Don't forget "before the US uses its nukes". It has already been suggested by at least 2 politicians in congress plus a lot of imbeciles in the public.
I don't get the plan behind such talk by such idiots. It seems to boil down to :
1. Use nuclear weapon to destroy Gaza.
2. Immediately annex former Gaza with Israeli settlers.
3. Ignore decades of massive spikes in infant mortality, cancers, and radiation sickness in settlers from some inexplicable source…
There's no sugar coating this. All that is possible, including Israel using nuclear weapons. However, the outcome is already determined. Israel will not survive in the Middle East no matter what it does. However, if they go down "fighting" all they do is insure another diaspora in their long history of diaspora.
We just have to keep saying that the Muslims can offer our cousins something no one else can; the right to live anywhere between the Nile and Euphrates but not as usurpers. The alternative is apartheid, endless war, the destruction of Israel and diaspora. And this is not because I want it so, but based on Israel's own actions. I would prefer a peaceful transition.
"Israel will not survive in the Middle East no matter what it does" People like you have been saying that for 76 years.
You keep failing to understand Muslims. It doesn't matter how long it takes or whether it's in our life times or not. We are accountable for our deeds and actions. God is responsible for the result. It is either victory or martyrdom.
Capitalizing on the efforts of his predecessors, Salahuddin broke the Crusader grip on the Holy Land and liberated Jerusalem in 1187. It wasn't until 1291 that the Mamluks kicked out the last Crusader kingdom on the coast.
It's Israel that is calling this an existential war. Wars have many battles. This war that ends with the liberation of Palestine will have a start date of October 7, 2023.
@bnorth66:disqus@cjgeek:disqus@disqus_qhuce9v5DO:disqus@ThomasMalthaus:disqus@warsrus:disqus@disqus_ky8vtfPjLn:disqus@disqus_HGCF0P8pAL:disqus@existentialdread:disqus@unclesapien:disqus@disqus_lbkuZ0DrY6:disqus@disqus_In8bVbaBlI:disqus@disqus_yQfZ1jQKBt:disqus
“Wars have many battles.” The last “battle” began 10/7, the war – God willing it will find the political settlement it needs – began to germinate in the 1860s with a group of European rabbis & philosophers’ ("Proto-Zionists") idea of creating the Jewish State through the emigration of Jews to Ottoman Palestine.
What began with wealthy Zionists bankrolling land buying and the first Zionist settlement in Palestine in 1882 later became land appropriation through militia means. The 1878 Ottoman census reported the Palestine’s Jewish population as 3.1% naturally-born and 2.1% foreign born; by 1945 Jewish emigration to Palestine had become > 90% of it’s total.
The Arab League has good reason to find unity. For the Religious Zionists Greater Israel is God’s covenant with Abraham: "To your descendants I have given this Land, from the river of Egypt to the Great river, the River of Euphrates” From the Euphrates to the Nile and all the land in between: Eastern Egypt, Sinai, Jordan, part of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, part of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and part of Turkey and Cyprus.
It's notable that Persians are majority Shia's Muslims, not Sunni as much of the Gaza-adjacent Muslim-dominant countries are. That divide causes significant issues.
I mean, they could have an Arab League and a Persian League, but that'd mean countries in the Arab League see each other twice a season (out of, like, 13 meetings) while fans have to wait, like, five seasons for an Arab League and Persian League team to play each other.
Israel and America are at logger heads with everyone in the Middle east, including their own puppets.
Yesterday I read an article about how Jordan shot and killed an Indian man for attempting to enter Israel at an illegal entry point. Jordan seems to be providing Israeli security?
post script: the man had been invited to Israel for work.
Jordanian security is on edge.
Well trump is a logger heads with Mexico, Canada, Panama, Greenland and most of Europe. That is what Americans voted for.
It's difficult to feel like a die-hard American when Israel rules the roost.
We all know that is just a pile of crap….!
Of course it is. Workers will be needed to build.
“Now, with President Trump’s idea, there is an opportunity for the Gazans to have free choice based on their free will. This should be encouraged! Instead, Arab states have rejected this opportunity, without giving it a fair chance, and continue to level baseless accusations against Israel,” the ministry said.
Someone should hold this assclown to his word.
It won't be his GISS Army followers to do that.
I guess Israel is saying they can have a free choice of moving to Israel
It would seem.
I agree with the Arabs on this, with one condition. All hostages are freed. Once this occurs, Israel needs to close the border with Gaza and let Gaza alone to do what they want. Gaza can get aid via Egypt and they can build a sea port.
Gaza is the homeland to the 2.4 millions or so Palestinians that were born there. Trump idea of kicking them out is just wrong on many levels.
The opportunistic use of words like "free choice" and "free will" coming from the zionists is sickening. Who do they think they're kidding? The Arab nations had better step up to the plate or they'll forever be branded as Israel's useful idiots and co-partners in genocide.
Canada is now the largest single source of U.S. total petroleum and crude oil imports.
Good luck with the tariffs.
.
According to Article 2 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Article III
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
Interesting clip from Alon Mizrahi, an Arab Israeli Jew:
A good balance of what I've read/seen thus far – an Israeli, a Palestinian and an America. I found the latter more negative than warranted in the face of the unique Arab League unity and the 3-Phase deoccupation plan Witkcoff's keeping on life-support.
Can Egypt's plan for Gaza backed by Arab League become reality?