Arab Gaza Plan: Technocrats, no disarmament—Hamas wins, Gazans (and the world) lose ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Wednesday, March 05, 2025

Arab Gaza Plan: Technocrats, no disarmament—Hamas wins, Gazans (and the world) lose

Arab countries countered President Trump’s proposal to expel Palestinians from Gaza and transform it into a beachfront destination with their own vision on Tuesday, endorsing a plan to keep the population there, rebuild the territory and turn it into part of a future Palestinian state, without Hamas in government.

The Egyptian framework envisions putting a committee of technocrats and other figures unaffiliated with Hamas in charge of Gaza for an initial period.

Where have we seen technocratic governments before? Oh, yes, the Palestinian Authority.

Salam Fayyad's government from 2007–2013 and Rami Hamdallah's from 2013–2019 were also based on supposed experts, not politicians.

In a limited way, like for economic policies and reducing corruption, they were far better than the Fatah-dominated PA governments. The problem is that this is only a subset of what a proper government should do. Hamas' reaction highlights the issue:

Hamas officials have said they would be willing to hand over control of civilian affairs to a governing committee of which the group was not a part, as long as Gaza’s postwar future was determined by Palestinian “national consensus,” according to a Tuesday statement.

That's the problem - Hamas wants to wash its hands of "civilian affairs" and concentrate on terror. It doesn't want to hand over its military or police functions to this government, and of course it doesn't want anyone to disarm it which is what any sane government should do.

Though a number of Arab countries would like to see its armed wing disband, Tuesday’s declaration does not outright call for Hamas to lay down its arms. The language was left somewhat murky, proposing that security and weaponry should be managed by “legitimate Palestinian institutions” based on the principles of a single armed force and a single legitimate authority.

Hamas has rejected demilitarization, with an official Hamas media outlet reporting on Tuesday that “the resistance’s weapons are a red line.” But Israel and the Trump administration have demanded exactly that — a seemingly irreconcilable difference.

Any plan that doesn't disarm Hamas is no plan at all. The technocratic government is busywork to make it look like they made a plan but none of the hard decisions were made.

The real goal of this plan is to find a way for Gazans to not take refuge in the very Arab states that formulated it. This is not a plan for peace nor for creating a future for Gazans. It is selfishness dressed up as humanitarianism.