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By Sharon Zhang / Truthout
White House Adviser Jared Kushner revealed a neocolonial plan to transform Gaza into a home for luxury tourist resorts and data centers at the World Economic Forum on Thursday.
The plan has been widely condemned by human rights advocates, who say it is an an attempt to erase Palestinians by building a capitalist dystopia on the ruins of Israel’s genocide.
At the signing ceremony for President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” Kushner shared a set of slides depicting a colonialist fantasy of the Gaza Strip under a hypothetical “demilitarization” of Hamas — despite the group’s repeated refusal to disarm, saying it would leave them defenseless against further attacks by Israel or otherwise.
The slides show computer-generated photos of high rise buildings along the coast and rows of residential buildings elsewhere.
The presentation includes a blueprint of Gaza divided into sections, which Kushner says is the U.S.’s plan for “catastrophic success” in the event of demilitarization of Hamas. The blueprint, labelled as the “Master Plan,” shows the entirety of the coast — where Palestinians have long fished for sustenance — dedicated to “coastal tourism,” with a sea port and an airport. There are large swaths dedicated to “parks, agriculture, and sports facilities.”
Tellingly, numerous parts of the map located next to residential areas are dedicated to industry and “data centers.” Ruinous technology like AI, reports have said, are slated to be a major part of the White House’s plan for Gaza, with other slides in the pitch deck reported by The Wall Street Journal showing a transformation of the Strip into a “smart city” with “tech driven governance.”
Nowhere is there a designation for cultural sites, nor does the map seem to be built around keeping or restoring any parts of Gaza that retain Palestinian heritage or life. The plan appears to be to finish Israel’s razing of the territory, clear the rubble in which thousands of Palestinians’ bodies are thought to be trapped, and replace it with real estate opportunities for investors.
“Gaza, as President Trump has been saying, has amazing potential,” said Kushner.
At the signing ceremony, Trump said that Gaza, home to millions of Palestinians, is “a great location” that should be viewed as a “big real estate site,” and expressed his interest in the region as a “real estate person at heart.”
“I said, look at this location on the sea, look at this beautiful piece of property — what it could be for so many people, it’ll be so great, people that are living so poorly are gonna be living so well,” Trump said.
Kushner touted the White House’s goal of applying “free market economy principles” to the razing and redevelopment of Gaza. He also expressed a desire to replace the humanitarian aid system for Palestinians in the region using those principles.
Palestinians have strongly condemned the plan.
“This is a plan to erase Gaza’s indigenous character, turn what remains of her people into a cheap labor force to manage their ‘industrial zones’ and create an exclusive coastline for ‘tourism,’” wrote Palestinian American writer Susan Abulhawa. “Palestinians will be pushed behind walls and gates, retrained in ‘technical schools’ to serve Israel’s supremacists ideology. The indigenous traditions and social fabric of this land will be obliterated utterly.”
“If the goal is truly peace, then the path is simple: end the occupation and help restore the rights that have been taken from Palestinians since 1948,” said Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian writer from Gaza. “We, the Palestinian people, are the ones who must determine our own future. Peace cannot be imposed while our land is occupied, our lives controlled, and our voices ignored.”
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Sharon Zhang
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter: @zhang_sharon.