What Would It Take to Rebuild Gaza?

US president Donald Trump has developed a peace plan this week that promises to end the current fighting in Gaza if Hamas accepted this. This raised the issue of what will happen in Gaza, politically and economically. What is already clear is that the volume of destruction in the Palestinian territories was incomplete.

What is the necessary reconstruction scale in Gaza? What did Tony Blair, who can oversee Gaza after the war, since left his position as British Prime Minister? What may stimulate decisions in Hamas at this stage?

These are only a few questions that appeared in my last conversation with the FP ECONOMICS Adam Tooze writer on the podcast that we participated in its host, That weight. The following is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. For a full conversation, search for That weight Wherever you get your podcast. And check the newsletter of Adam alternative.

Cameron Abadi: Trump says the goal of his plan is to re -develop Gaza. What is the reconstruction scale that will be necessary here?

Adam Tuzi: It is extremely difficult to draw the issue of reconstruction and re -development headed on one head because the scale of the destruction is very enormous. They believe that it is like 50 million tons of rubble is what was reduced in the Gaza attack to the Israeli attack since October 7. Amazing mountain. It is like 12 pyramids of materials. Apparently, 2 million tons of which are contaminated with asbestos. There are huge amounts of unintended ammunition and ammunition, and of course, there, we must expect, thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the bodies that degrade between this waste. So the rebuilding effort, if it starts and when, will be great and difficult.

But then I also think in broader phrases, one has to ask himself, what does one really mean reconstruction in this context? Because Gaza, before October 2023, was the economy of the blockade. I mean, since 2006, from the victory of Hamas on an upward, especially from 2007, he was truly subject to a very severe Israeli siege. So the reconstruction means what, exactly? And if you look at the plans that are proposed, in many cases, do not really reach the reconstruction – any kind of restoration of what was before – but the phrase used in some of them is somewhat different; It is a reshaping. It is a reshaping, really, Gaza. It is clear that this is the intention behind this Trump Nyahoo plan; It is not really rebuilding or restoring, but to reshape Gaza. It is a very different type of proposal. They retracted the public program for ethnic cleansing and removing the mass in Ghazan. But I believe that the project remains clearly not with Gaza’s restoration of the current situation, but it is made, and it is reshaped in a completely different form.

California: Trump’s plan is visualized by a transitional body – the international transitional authority in Gaza – which will oversee the region for some unspecified time. It appears that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be supervised. Is the idea of ​​a ruling body in which foreigners work is a colonial and exploitative idea, in essence? Or is there other more similar precedents?

in: I don’t know if exploitation is the right category here. It seems more as if humiliation is arranging today. I mean, exploitation means that there was a kind of work contract or a kind of unequal exchange that would have been continuing. While I think this structure is a way to avoid the political problem, right? They are terrified of the possibility of allowing adequate self -government committee, which is likely to contain in the wake of Israel’s attack on extremist elements, determining to take revenge and search for revenge in an unsuccessful manner of what happened.

What really reminds me of it is the less complete colonial structures of the type of nations from the First World War, which of course was Palestine for decades until the aftermath of the Second World War. They are of this strange type of homes in the middle of the road, as you know, they cannot really retreat back to the inclusion of a complete empire, and of course, the negotiators try to do is to adhere to the aspirations announced in the radical factions that must be in a state of Israeli factions. Avoid at any cost as well.

Since October 7, there has been a variety of really strange suggestions. There was that Israeli vision of tribal groups, which seemed to have sought to inspire from the United Arab Emirates as a model. And now we have this. The immediate problem is the violence that is being done in Gaza by Israel. But the peace plan is preoccupied with Gaza no longer pose a threat to Israel. Since Israel was able to consolidate this idea so much that all its procedures are essentially justified by the threat that Gaza poses to them, no matter how improoted, no matter how violent, but it is clear that it is even in the end.

This is what this framework is organized around. And yes, I mean, choose the people concerned. Blair was at least an elected politician with government experience, but Mark Rawan, what action did he have a personality like that? I mean, he is a prominent American supporter of Israel, a very rich man. But otherwise, what is his role here? It is very unusual and surprising – like a sign of government forms and political language at this stage.

California: What has been doing this since he left the position of British Prime Minister? He had a consulting company, but what exactly does this mean?

in: You know the standard story about Blair and the effects of the long prime minister is that his first priority was simply to become rich, right? Since it was difficult to be the British prime minister who heads the neopoitic enthusiasm in the late 1990s and the twentieth century, he swings constantly with very rich people and live on a modest salary. Fortunately, there were no big scandals of corruption during his time in his position, so he set out hard to make a lot of money after that. The Middle East Speaker of the Quartet was for a while, but on the side of the private sector, he was a consultant to JP Morgan and Zurich Financial Services, both of whom started in January 2008, so just before the financial crisis.

In 2008, the Consulting Consulting Company established in 2008 in the middle of the financial crisis. The list of his client consists of a full list of players is not completely related to the situation. Therefore, Kazakhstan from 2011 to 2015; Kuwaiti government; The sovereign investor of Abu Dhabi; Mongolia, the Serbian government, where it established a delivery unit that was paid by the Emirati; Then Azerbaijan. However, it ended in 2016, at this point Blair and [his wife] Sherry has gained the level of wealth that felt comfortable, I think. Then they established the Tony Blair Institute, and this has become his main car recently.

and A new statesman It was recently mentioned that the main thing is that Blair had cooperated with Larry Ellison from Oracle, who was briefly the richest man in the world recently, and got what was, according to British standards, as a giant competition of more than 230 million pounds, which is considered a major British research tank. I think they have up to 900 employees now. And Elyson is also a prominent supporter of Israel. The Tony Blair Institute is deep, deep in the Middle East, which is of course a major center for artificial intelligence, and very much on the artificial intelligence cart. These were the new types of paths for Blair when the news broke out about the role of his institute in the planning of Gaza, which seemed to be deep, comprehensive and continuous for a period of time and supported this alliance from the players.

California: Hamas is a group that clearly spoke and thought about the testimony. Are there economics of the testimony that we must think about in this context? Can Hamas be ready to accept the destruction of Gaza at this stage?

in: There is a kind of terrible economy in which the numbers of martyrs accumulate, and the more dead life, and the greater the logic of not allowing their sacrifices to be useless. This is also a logic that you see in other wars that was difficult to end. With Ukraine and Russia, we may also see this. At some point, it will be almost impossible for any of the two sides to accept a drug peace because it will believe that hundreds of thousands of lives have been sacrificed for nothing. Thus, there are, in cases of conflict like this, what you may think of as a kind of emotional economy that begins. After all, in the case of enthusiasm in particular, the movement gained its emergence specifically through its stubbornness. This was the thing that distinguished it from other Palestinian movements.

But on the other hand, they were always a three -way movement. There is the military wing, the brigades Qassam. There is a political movement, which still has great support. Then the third thing is that there is a device of enthusiasm, forced power, of course it may tear it, shook, and its arrangement largely at this stage but it is another thing that Hamas does. It is an organization that knows how to survive. The struggle that is supposed to be taking place will now be between those three groups within the movement. The military leadership has now been transferred to a person named EZZ Al -Din Al -Hardad, which is still alive and is still in Gaza City by all accounts and is to lead the rest of the military wing in the Gaza tunnels. Then there is driving in Qatar, which is negotiating. Then there is the party’s apparatus, which maintains diplomatic ties with Iran, receives money inside and outside to support prisoners, etc. Thus, all of these different electoral districts will be within Hamas and different views.

The main problem is that the four basics agreed upon by the three wings were not disarmament, the release of prisoners on a large scale of the hostages, the Israeli withdrawal, not only to publish, and rebuilding with access guarantees. Among them, there is a large -scale prisoner’s release of the hostages in the package, you can say. In a pinch, you may be able to describe the process as an Israeli withdrawal, although it meets the standards that Hamas expects, it is difficult to say. But it is clear that one and four were not fulfilled. It is the surrender of what is proposed here. There is a safe passage for Hamas fighters who abandon their weapons and sign the dotted line saying that they will give up the battle, but this is mainly a surrender. Reconstruction, what is proposed, as we used to say above, is not in fact the restoration of ancient Gaza, but this strange house in the middle of the road is a kind of international mandate.

If Hamas agrees, it will reconcile the fact that she crossed at least two of its four red lines. So this will be a very difficult decision. But I believe that there is one thing that we can say with certainty is that the plan, even if Hamas accepts it, the final logic of this plan is to cancel the expansion of the conflict, remove politics, reduce Gaza to two million grateful Palestinians, and we are happy to live under its management between the structures of technocrats who oversee the good of the international palm. This, in the end, enthusiasm could not be part of this solution, and in the end, why I think this model is fake. Because you cannot imagine that after this campaign, this may be a viable or realistic result, to be honest. Because what they want to do is the end of politics in Palestine. What they do not want at any cost is to negotiate with living and kicking Palestinian politicians.