Trump's Gaza Plan: Sandcastle Diplomacy or Real Peace?

480 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire began. Four more died on the very day world leaders signed Trump's "Board of Peace" charter in the Swiss Alps. While diplomats posed for photos unveiling glossy Gaza reconstruction plans, the killing continued below.

The contrast couldn't be starker. In Davos, Donald Trump and 19 ministers from various nations signed a charter promising to rebuild Gaza with luxury towers, commercial zones, and beachfront promenades. Back in Gaza, families continued burying their dead.

This is what Sultan Barakat, a public policy professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, calls "sandcastle diplomacy" — impressive to the global public, comforting to elites, but destined to wash away when political reality hits.

The Real Estate Prospectus Approach

Jared Kushner's vision for Gaza reads less like a recovery plan and more like a developer's pitch deck. The proposal treats the devastated territory not as a traumatized society emerging from catastrophic violence, but as a blank investment canvas.

The plan envisions luxury housing developments, data hubs, and GDP targets that would make any venture capitalist salivate. But Gaza isn't a failed startup seeking funding — it's home to over 2 million Palestinians who have endured siege, displacement, and repeated wars for decades.

For many Palestinian families, even modest homes in Gaza's refugee camps represented something far more valuable than real estate: a fragile bridge to their ancestral lands, a symbol of continuity and memory, a placeholder for the right of return. You can't replace that with glitzy towers, no matter how impressive the architectural renderings.

Designed Without the People Who Live There

Perhaps the most glaring flaw in Trump's approach is the systematic exclusion of Palestinians from shaping their own future. These plans were unveiled in elite Swiss conference halls, not debated with the people whose neighborhoods lie in ruins.

Sultan Barakat points to a harsh lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan: reconstruction imposed from the outside — however well-branded — reproduces the very power imbalances that fuel instability. Without Palestinian ownership, legitimacy collapses before the first foundation is poured.

The plan also deliberately avoids addressing the root causes of Gaza's suffering: occupation, blockade, and military control. You can't rebuild sustainably while preserving the machinery that repeatedly destroys what you build. It's like renovating a house while leaving the wrecking ball parked outside.

Security Architecture Disguised as Urban Planning

The proposed physical redesign of Gaza raises deeper concerns about spatial engineering. The plans call for buffer zones, segmented districts, and "green corridors" that would fragment the territory internally.

This isn't just urban planning — it's security architecture. These corridors would facilitate surveillance, control, and rapid military access. What's marketed as modernization could become a sophisticated containment system, similar to the settlement networks that carve up the West Bank.

The demographic implications are equally troubling. Shifting Gaza's population center southward — closer to Egypt and further from Israel's settlements — would quietly alter the political center of gravity of Palestinian life. Population engineering under the banner of reconstruction raises serious ethical red flags.

The Missing Voices

Notice who wasn't rushing to join this board? The European Union, despite having funded multiple reconstruction cycles in Gaza, sent no members to the signing ceremony. Egypt, Gaza's neighbor, limited its participation to intelligence leadership rather than sending senior political figures.

Their hesitation might reflect hard-earned wisdom. The EU learned through bitter experience that no amount of concrete and foreign investment can substitute for political resolution. Prosperity cannot flourish inside a cage.

Beyond the Sandcastles

This doesn't mean Gaza must wait for perfect peace before rebuilding. Recovery must proceed urgently — homes, hospitals, schools, and infrastructure are desperately needed. But rebuilding must empower Palestinians rather than redesign their constraints.

The fundamental assumption behind Trump's approach — that economic growth can substitute for political rights — has been tested repeatedly throughout history. People don't resist simply because they're poor; they resist because they lack dignity, security, and self-determination. No skyline can compensate for political exclusion.