Long Before Plans To Make It Another Riviera, Gaza Was Actually Compared To Singapore (Daled Amos) ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, February 17, 2025

Long Before Plans To Make It Another Riviera, Gaza Was Actually Compared To Singapore (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

On February 4th, Trump held a joint press conference with Netanyahu:

We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don't want to be cute. I don't want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so...This could be so magnificent. But more importantly than that is the people that have been absolutely destroyed that live there now can live in peace in a much better situation because they are living in hell. And those people will now be able to live in peace. We'll make sure that it's done world class.

Trump has not supplied much detail on how he plans to bring this transformation about or what it might look like, but mention of the Riviera does conjure up a certain image:

French Riviera

But Trump is the only one to have come up with a plan. Last year, Netanyahu introduced his own plan for Gaza. Netanyahu called his plan -- Gaza 2035. It has 3 stages:

Stage 1: Humanitarian aid. Israel will create safe areas free of Hamas control. This step is planned to take 12 months to complete. A coalition of Arab countries, consisting of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, and Morocco will supervise humanitarian aid in the safe areas, which would be run by Gazan Palestinians

Stage 2: Israeli security responsibility would be moved to Israel, while the Arab coalition mentioned in Stage 1 would creat the Gaza Rehabilitation Authority (GRA) to oversee reconstruction and and manage Gaza's finances. This would be coordinated with a "Marshall Plan" and a deradicalization program.

Stage 3: Self-governance. Israel would retain the right to act against security threats. Authority would slowly be transferred either to a local Gaza government or a unified Palestinian government, which would include the West Bank. It would be contingent on Gaza being successfully deradicalized and demilitarized and subject to agreement by all parties. The final step would be for the Palestinian Arabs to fully manage Gaza independently and join the Abraham Accords.

In addition to governance and security, the plan also covers ways to ramp up the Gazan economy. These include various plans for connecting with the Saudi NEOM mega-project, creating massive free-trade zones, creating solar energy fields, and turning Gaza into a hub for electric vehicle manufacturing.

AI-generated image of Gaza found in the PMO's plan for a post-war Gaza, May 3, 2024.

But talking about turning Gaza into a Riviera might remind us of a time when Gaza--and the West Bank--had an economy whose potential for growth rivaled, and even surpassed, some formidable economies at the time.

In the July/August 2002 edition of Commentary Magazine, Efraim Karsh wrote an article, What Occupation? He describes Gaza and the West Bank following the Six Day War, when those areas came under Israeli control.

Efraim Karsh writes about how severe the situation of the Palestinian Arabs was before the start of Israeli control following the 1967 War:

The larger part, still untold in all its detail, is of the astounding social and economic progress made by the Palestinian Arabs under Israeli "oppression." At the inception of the occupation, conditions in the territories were quite dire. Life expectancy was low; malnutrition, infectious diseases, and child mortality were rife; and the level of education was very poor. Prior to the 1967 war, fewer than 60 percent of all male adults had been employed, with unemployment among refugees running as high as 83 percent. Within a brief period after the war, Israeli occupation had led to dramatic improvements in general well-being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors.

Compare that with the the development of Gaza just during the 1970's:

During the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world-ahead of such "wonders" as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself.

The World Bank report, published in 1993, bears this out.

Page 10 of the report discusses the crisis in 1993 resulting from the First Intifada and compares that to the economic situation of both Gaza and the West Bank during the 1970's:

The charts below from page 13 support Karsh's conclusion. The growth of the economies of the West Bank and Gaza outpaced Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and was substantially ahead of Israel:

The intifada's and the border closings necessary for security reasons did not do the Palestinian Arabs any favors.

But that did not stop Israel from making another offer to help turn the Gazan economy around. In March 1995, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered to see to it that Soon The Gaza Strip Will Be Competing with Singapore, thanks to

industrial parks which the leadership of the [Israeli] Foreign, Industry and Finance Ministries is planning at this very moment, under total secrecy. The goal: to establish between 8 to 11 such parks on the cease-fire line between Israel and the autonomous areas, which the Palestinian Authority will control within the next few months.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is the one who envisioned all this, and those close to him say with pride: We are getting closer to Singapore, Taiwan and Hong-Kong, in huge steps.

And then, after the vision arrives to develop the cities Gaza, Dir Al- Balah, Ofakim and Sderot it will be copied in the cease-fire line between Afula and Jenin, to Mt. Hebron and Tul-Karm, and will reach the entrance of Kochav Yair.

Each industrial park will be established for about 10,000 employees, and will sit on 2,000 dunam of land, with considerable financial assistance from foreign investors and also governmental subsidies. The Palestinians will run them, and be its workers, for the most part.

Gazan cooperation was not forthcoming, so neither was the rejuvenation of the Palestinian Arab economy.

So here we are, once again, offering to reimagine Gaza.