Hugh Lovatt

Trump's plan for Gaza would also:
👉create a "free market economy" tailored to foreign businesses
👉evict Palestinian coast communities to make way for 180 high-end tourist beachfront towers, presumably owned by real estate funds linked to BoP's Executive Board members

Trump's BoP plan for Gaza will
👉permanently erase towns such Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, central Jabaliya and Rafah
👉destroy agricultural lands, universities, hospitals, historical sites
👉fragment it into 7 disconnected & heavily surveilled communities
👉Reduce Gaza's size through sterile buffer zones

European and Arab states should not buy what Trump is selling.

Instead, they should work together to develop and fund an alternative positive vision for Gaza’s future that ensures Palestinian political sovereignty and territorial unity remain at the forefront of rebuilding.

New @ecfr.eu by @muhammadshehada.bsky.social:

Trump’s dystopian economic plan will turn Gaza into a real-estate bonanza for oligarchs, obliterating its historic, cultural and social fabric, and herding Palestinian into heavily surveilled gated communities.

t.co/d11lljJPfO

Selling peace to Trump: How Europe can prevent the next Middle East war – European Council on Foreign Relations Israel is agitating for US strikes against Iran, while preparing for renewed war in Lebanon. Europeans should work to contain Trump and Netanyahu to prevent ren

Beth Oppenheim @ecfr.eu:

Europeans should oppose renewed military intervention and press the case for diplomacy. Together with Arab states, they should play on Trump’s desire for deal-making to show him that more military action will not serve his agenda of regional peace.

ecfr.eu/article/sell...

But the real winners would be private investment / real estate funds, incl those in Trump's Board of Peace:

Jared Kushner/Affinity Partners; Marc Rowan/Apollo Global Management; & Yakir Gabay, a Cypriot-Israeli real estate billionaire

As Trump would say "I have made a lot of people rich".

Many stand to make money through the Trump/BoP Gaza plan.

Egyptian companies tied to the military will no doubt scoop up rubble clearance and reconstruction contracts.

Gulf sovereign wealth funds may be involved. The UAE will reportedly bankroll the 1st gated community in Rafah. t.co/DdiH7giR3W

The final piece of the puzzle comes in March 2025 as part of Egyptian-led efforts to develop a post-war vision for Gaza reconstruction. While emphasising Palestinian rights, Egypt envisages a new urban landscape.

Trump copy/pasted the Egyptian master plan in his Davos presentation.

Aryeh Lightstone’s has been very active in Gaza planning through the CMCC. He was an advisor to US Ambassador David Friedman, is a staunch defender of Israeli settlement, and reportedly involved in establishing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. He will have much influence in the BoP.

"Gated communities" are central to the Trump plan being pushed through the Board of Peace.

Working through the CMCC, Aryeh Lightstone (now a senior BoP advisor) proposed a “Gaza First Planned Community” on the ruins of Rafah. This has become "New Rafah" in the Trump plan.

In 2024, US-Israeli companies, like Moti Kahana's GDC, got involved in the Gaza war, proposing "secure Humanitarian Assistance" points (future GHF) + gated communities ("humanitarian bubbles") where Pals are subject to biometric checks and guarded by mercenaries in cooperation with the IDF.

Many of these original White House Gaza economic ideas were incorporated into Trump's 2020 highly detailed "Peace to Prosperity", including construction of several joint Palestinian-Israeli-Egyptian economic zones and international venture capital firm involvement.

Tellingly, the 2019 White House presentation was prepared by John Rader in the NSC & Executive Office of the President.

Rader was a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and is a senior counselor at Palantir Technologies.

The WH wanted its $15bn+ plan funded with private investment.

There were sensible ideas: upgrading powerlines, solar panels, Gaza Marine gas, wastewater treatment, West Bank link, etc.

But crazy stuff was already creeping in such as an "Abraham Path" tourism corridor via Gaza from Syria to Egypt.

Trump's economic development plan for New Gaza can be traced back to his first presidency.

It also includes ideas from US-Israeli security companies & Egypt.

Mega🧵🧵

In 2019, the White House developed a 21-slide PPT presentation with ideas to support Gaza's economic future.

@hlovatt.bsky.social outlines a Board of Peace structure proposed by Trump in Davos.

"The mixture of private investment funds with American power and geopolitics, combined with likely opaque decision-making and is a recipe for kleptocratic oligarchy."

📌 Check out more: https://bit.ly/4rarkvA

My longer read for @ecfr.eu on what Trump's Board of Peace means for Gaza, Europe's quest for strategic autonomy, and the future of the global order:

ecfr.eu/article/welc...

“Principled and pragmatic: Canada’s path” Prime Minister Carney addresses the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Thank you, Larry.It’s a pleasure – and a duty – to be with you at this turning point for Canada and for the world.Today, I’ll talk about the rupture in the world order, the end of a nice story, and th...

Canada’s prime minister on the rupture of the old world order and the need of a new values-based realism: “The powerful have their power. But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together.” www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/spee...

Members of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), which will report to the Board of Peace via High Representative Nikolay Mladenov, were announced last week. For a full breakdown, visit @ecfr.eu's Mapping Palestinian Politics project 👇 ecfr.eu/special/mapp...

Being relevant viz Gaza does not mean toeing the US line, but making real commitments to empower the Palestinian National Committee, provide funding & support to the ISF (subject to agreement on its mandate & C2). This would actually give Europe real influence with Trump.

BoP Inc is a Trump vanity project that has nothing to do with Gaza. But Europeans should still engage with its subsidiary Gaza Executive Committee which is aligned with UNSCR 2803 and where there is strong European representation through Nikolay Mladenov, Tony Blair & Sigrid Kaag.

In any case, not joining the BoP does not mean marginalisation. Europeans have plenty of fora to engage with the US and better advance their global agendas (UN, G7, etc). As the liberal order frays, it is important to keep these multilateral mechanisms alive and relevant.

At the very least European states should condition their participation in the Board of Peace on Trump dropping his territorial demands towards Greenland, ending his trade tariffs, and aligning on Ukrainian security.

Currying Trump's favour by joining the BoP by itself is also unlikely to fundamentally change US policy viz Greenland, Ukraine, European security, tariffs, etc. If anything, it may re-inforce Trump's view that Europeans are weak an will fall in line with him.

By buying into the BoP, European countries will be legitimising an illiberal Trumpian order that is increasingly at odds with their own world vision and national interests; while further eroding their own strategic autonomy and geopolitical ambitions at a time of deepening global crisis.

a man in a suit and tie is sitting in a chair and says you 're fired . ALT: a man in a suit and tie is sitting in a chair and says you 're fired .

Europeans are unlikely to have much agency on Trump's Board where they will have to compete against the likes of Argentina, Israel, the UAE, Belarus, and each other, for the President's favour to avoid being humiliated and fired as if they were in an episode of the Apprentice.

With major Arab and Muslim states backing the BoP, Europeans are now grappling with the dilemma of whether to join, given concerns over its undermining of the UN and issues with its mandate/scope; vs the desire to get the US back onside, avoid tariffs, stay in the mix, etc. This is a false choice.🧵

Trump’s Board of Peace violates the Palestinians’ right to sovereignty in their own land. But it’s not really about Gaza at all . It is about Trump giving himself imperial power to replace the UN globally with his hand-picked friends and family, to make money and to even choose his own successor

Of course, Trump is unlikely to succeed in replacing the UN with a Trumpian order bound to himself, even without his Anschluss of Greenland.

But his demolishment of the current international system, for all its faults, risks leaving us little to cling to when he is gone...

All of this further shows how short-sighted the European and Arab decision to legitimise the Board of Peace through UNSCR 2803 was.

At the time, European governments were very aware of the legal issues and lack of clarity on its mandate. Short termism won the day. And this is now the consequence.