Dark skies over Jared Kushner’s Gaza plan ‘Project Sunrise’

OPINION:

We have to be amused by the photos of former President Bill Clinton floating along in one of the pools on Jeffrey Epstein’s island, accompanied by an apparently naked Ghislaine Maxwell and another unidentified woman. But that shouldn’t divert us from far more serious matters.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the Gaza Strip lies under about 68 million tons of rubble. If Gaza were the size of Manhattan, every square foot would be under more than 200 pounds of debris.

Tens of thousands of buildings have been destroyed and about 17,000 Hamas terrorists have been killed since October 2023. Both are the predictable results of Hamas’s genocidal Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed 1,200 Israelis and took about 250 hostages.

President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has a plan to turn the Gaza Strip into a modern version of Gotham called “Project Sunrise.” It would require an enormous amount of U.S. investment — about 20% of the total — over 10 years.

Mr. Kushner’s 32-page PowerPoint presentation is meant to attract other foreign investors. It’s said to show high-rise apartments and resorts along with dozens of hospitals and hundreds of schools. The plan has reportedly been shown to Arab nations, including Egypt, and Turkish representatives.

Neither Egypt nor Turkey has a strong enough economy to invest in Gaza. Several Arab nations, especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, can afford such investments but aren’t likely to make them.

The first and most obvious problem with the plan is stated in those slides: Hamas must disarm if the plan has any hope of succeeding.

Hamas has made eminently clear that it will not disarm. Khaled Meshaal, a Hamas leader, has said that doing so would be like “removing the soul” of Hamas. Other Hamas leaders, including Hamas leaders, Husam Baran and Mohammed Nazzal, refuse to disarm, maintaining that the issue of arms is an “internal national matter.” They believe Hamas is a nation because it is allowed to act as if it were one.

Hamas intends to continue to govern Gaza and has murdered many opponents including as Yasser Abu Shabab who was a militia leader armed by Israel to oppose Hamas. Hamas has also murdered many other real and supposed opponents. Its primary intention now is to keep control of Gaza.

Hamas links possible disarmament to the creation of a Palestinian state that includes the West Bank area and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. Hamas is not interested in disarmament or peace, only in repeating the Oct. 7 genocidal attack.

Hamas will never disarm peacefully and has as its primary ideological goal to destroy Israel. Because of that — and for many other reasons — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there will never be a Palestinian state. Most of the Israeli populace agrees.

No nation has yet signed up for the “international stabilization force” which is supposed to keep the peace in Gaza. The “ISF” is supposed to ensure the disarmament of Hamas and the flow of aid to Gaza as well as oversee the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The “ISF” will, like so many other United Nations projects, fail.

The fact that no nation has undertaken to join the ISF makes it even more unlikely that Mr. Kushner will be able to sell his plan to the Arab states — which brings up the possible U.S. investment in Gaza.

Why should we pay for the reconstruction of Gaza when other nations – notably Iran and Qatar – are responsible for supporting and encouraging the attacks on Israel? If either nation had one scintilla of regard for the “Palestinians” of Gaza, they would invest heavily in its reconstruction. But those nations don’t care and won’t invest. They support Hamas financially and in the case of Iran, with weapons, money and a command structure.

It is obvious to the world that Iran is the principal sponsor of terrorism. Qatar is a supposed ally of the United States but its ideological commitments are with Hamas and Iran. Qatar’s failure as our ally cannot be allowed to continue.

Mr. Kushner’s plan for reconstruction of Gaza should not be but is a fantasy that will never happen. It is, nevertheless, an enormously useful tool to demonstrate the failure of the Arab states to care one whit about the Palestinians. To them, the Palestinians are only a political tool useful against Israel.