Team Trump pitches real estate-led plan for Gaza

• Jared Kushner presents blueprint
• Launch event for Board of Peace
• Projects $25bn investment

Skyscrapers overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, an airport, thousands of new middle-class homes and hundreds of educational, medical and community facilities are among the highlights of a US plan for Gaza unveiled yesterday as President Donald Trump embraces a real estate developer’s approach to tackling one of the world’s thorniest crises.

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner presented the blueprint at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, during an event to launch the Board of Peace, an international body the US leader wants to help coordinate the reconstruction of Gaza following a devastating two-year-long military offensive by Israel as part of its war against Hamas. 

Gaza needs security first and foremost, and then investments to create jobs, Kushner said, adding that the Trump administration intends to use “free-market principles” to get there.

“So we did a masterplan,” Kushner said. “We brought in Yakir Gabay… and we’ve developed ways to redevelop Gaza.”

Gabay is a Cyprus-based Israeli real estate billionaire with extensive interests in the German property market, as well as other European countries.

“We’ll be doing it in phases,” Kushner, who leads private equity firm Affinity Partners and has close ties to the Arab Gulf states, said. “In the Middle East, they build cities like this, two, three million people, they build this in three years, and so stuff like this is very doable.” 

That timeline is at odds with UN expectations of how long it will take to rehabilitate Gaza. The Associated Press reported the UN Office for Project Services as saying that Gaza has more than 60 million tonnes of rubble that will take over seven years to clear, and then additional time is needed for demining.

The few slides Kushner shared at the ceremony were light on detail – for example he did not say how demining would be handled or where Gaza’s residents would live as their areas are being rebuilt.

However the plan promised at least $25 billion of investment in utilities and public services in 10 years, more than 500,000 jobs in construction, agriculture, manufacturing and digital services, and about 100,000 housing units for workers in the “new” Rafah, the first city in the enclave supposedly in line for redevelopment.

Kushner said countries that comprise the Board of Peace, which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will come together in Washington in a “couple of weeks” to reveal their “contributions” to the project. 

Further reading:

• The $80bn logistics challenge of rebuilding Gaza
• Gaza peace deal does little to shift oil and market prices
• Kushner’s Affinity blurs the lines between politics and Gulf capital

The Board of Peace represents the latest phase of a White House-designed, 20-point roadmap that Israel and Hamas agreed in October.

Critical issues, such as Hamas’ full demilitarisation, Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza and the path toward an eventual Palestinian state remain hotly contested.

Trump said yesterday in Davos, regarding Gaza: “I said, look at this location on the sea, look at this beautiful piece of property, what it could be for so many people. It’ll be so, so great. People that are living so poorly are gonna be living so well.”