Hadley’s view
US President Donald Trump’s pitch to transform Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” has provoked outrage, but in retrospect, it was obvious. The idea surfaced last year via his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and was cemented by Trump’s appointment of a fellow property titan as special envoy to the Middle East.
In real estate parlance, turning a 25-mile stretch of Mediterranean coastline from a demolition site into a multibillion dollar destination is a pretty big flex. It’s time for the Gulf to make a “backup” offer.
In plain terms, Trump is telling the Middle East to take care of its own problems. For once.
During his first term, Trump delivered the first Middle East peace deal in generations. The Abraham Accords brought Israel into formal agreements with Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE. Even before his second inauguration, Trump and his team were credited with helping force an end to Israel’s war in Gaza. Now, the president is pitching a solution to a decades-old conflict that no amount of negotiations, money, or military action has managed to resolve.
Consider this: the US poured $22 billion into shoring up Israel’s military after the Oct. 7 attacks; Israel has spent over $28 billion in the last year alone. As I wrote in my Sep. 30 column for Semafor, that money didn’t just destroy Gaza and swaths of south Lebanon — it redrew the map of the Middle East. Gulf countries, despite condemning Israel’s actions and sending millions in aid to Gaza, didn’t intervene to stop the carnage of Palestinians. No one pulled out of the Abraham Accords. No Middle Eastern nation opened its doors to Palestinians as refugees.
Once Hamas and Hezbollah were severely degraded, Gulf states moved forward. They restored high-level ties with Lebanon, witnessed the Assad regime’s collapse in Syria, and committed to “help rebuild” Gaza once the war ended. The ceasefire is holding — it’s time for someone, anyone, to come up with a plan to rebuild.
There should be no illusions about Trump’s vision. The president’s agenda — “Make America Great Again” — does not and will not include putting US troops back on the ground in the Middle East. After so much devastation, and real progress in curbing Tehran’s regional reach, neither Israel nor Washington can allow Gaza to become another breeding ground for insurgency. Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf can’t afford it either. After the horrors inflicted on its residents, Gaza may well produce a generation of radical militants.
Hadley Gamble is Al Arabiya’s Chief International Anchor, and a former anchor with CNBC covering energy, politics, and business.