Clearly, Gaza needs to be built from scratch. The rubble of its violent past has to be swept away along with its radical ideology. It must not be mismanaged by those whose principles led to its ruin. It must be led by leaders dedicated to making Gaza a peaceful and prosperous place, rather than the Hamas terror state it was before.

The location and size of Gaza makes it a place that can become the Côte d’Azur of the Middle East, as Beirut was before the intrusion of lethal forces in Lebanon—Arafat’s PLO, Syria, and homegrown Hezbollah.

The Gaza project must be founded on the total removal of Hamas from power or influence. Neither should the corrupt Palestinian Authority control the new Gaza; they have yet to prove their worth in Ramallah (West Bank) and, according to Palestinian polls, their people do not want them.

Let me make it clear: Not only should the PA have no role in governing a future Gaza, but neither should Israel. It is unreasonable for Israel to be patrolling Gaza for the next decade, although its security may demand it if no other solution is forthcoming.

Hence, a new experiment should be incorporated into the spirit and fabric of the Abraham Accords consisting of Israel and moderate peaceful Arab states, together with the United States and willing democratic partners.

In recent days, Anthony Blinken visited Riyadh. Part of that visit had to do with Gaza and Israel. Blinken can play a role in bringing the Saudis to move away from outdated and failed strategies.

It’s time for a new vision.

The reconstruction of a new Gaza should be established with a regional board led by the UAE, Bahrain, with the addition of Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States, as its corporate management.

Israel’s moderate Abraham Accord partners have a vested interest in creating a regional coalition headed by the United States to prevent the recursion of a radical Islam by creating a different reality of a prosperous and peaceful Middle East.

In effect, the budding State of Gaza will be a protectorate of the Abraham Accord regional partners.

There are many successful examples of small nations flourishing under the guidance of larger democracies.

The United States has five protectorates ranging from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, to Guam and Samoa in the Pacific.

The United States defeated Japan in World War Two (atomically annihilating Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and it became a protectorate of the United States until the nation regained its sovereignty in 1952—Japan was on its way to becoming a prosperous and peaceful Asian nation.

France has several protectorates including Guadeloupe, Guiana, Martinique, La Réunion, Mayotte, Saint-Barthélemy, and even several Polynesian islands. All peaceful and prosperous.

The United Kingdom has fourteen protectorates, known as Overseas Territories, perhaps the most famous being the Falkland Islands in which the British came to its defense when invaded by Argentina in 1982.

The status of protectorates is recognized under international law and the specific relationship between the “protectorate” and the “protector” is set out under a treaty signed by both parties.

As a political and governing system, the concept of a protectorate has been successful in the past, and is currently working well in the international arena.

In the case of Gaza, the “protectors” will be multi-layered Abraham Accord countries with the important addition of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has clung to the condition of a formal peace with Israel on the establishment of a Palestinian state. That can begin with Gaza to become the role model for Palestinians living under their failed Ramallah leadership.

In time, the new Gaza can decide to federate with the West Bank or become an independent Gazan state. This may end up with a three-state solution. That choice will rest with the people and leadership of a new Gaza when they mature to actual independent rule. And, if it chooses, this self-governing entity can be introduced into the United Nations as a member nation.

The peace and independence of Gaza will be protected by its two neighbors, Israel and Egypt, with the help of the United States. All have vested interests in maintaining a peaceful Gaza.

To help Gaza develop into a modern entity, both Israel and the United States will supervise an educational system concentrating on languages, science, math, technology, and not of radical ideology.

The United States and Israel will develop a new curriculum for the Gazan education system from elementary schools to universities, designed to give the new generation of Gazans a brighter future.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE will construct new and grand mosques. They will employ the imams that will preach a moderate and respectful Islam. They will employ the teachers in the madrassas.

Gaza should be a center of tourism, technology, and agriculture.

In the past, Israel proposed a Gaza with an offshore airport, marina, and a seaport with a connecting road and rail bridge to the mainland.

This ambitious project should be revived, and Gaza City should become a hotel and services-based economy.

The potential of Gaza as a demilitarized agricultural-lite and tourism economy, with the potential to become a high-tech data hub to the Arab world, is enormous.

Successful Israelis, such a Mellanox billionaire, Eyal Waldman, once had the vision of a tech-center in Gaza; that was before Waldman’s daughter and her boyfriend were murdered by Hamas at the Nova Festival on October 7th. 

Given the backing of a regional partnership, people like Waldman could be encouraged to help create an oasis of regional cooperation in this once troubled place.

These projects will assure gainful employment and prosperity for the people of Gaza.

Maybe the Gazan success would become the model to replace the failed PA regime in Ramallah. A regime that should be allowed to wither on the vine until they elect leadership not bent on jihad indoctrination and rewarding the murder of Jews.

In that future, when Gazans prove themselves capable of developing their skills under the guidance of its Abraham Accord partners, they will establish their own government and decide for themselves whether to remain independent, or join a confederation with either the reformed PA, Israel, or both.

Gazans, Palestinians, can no longer be led by those wedded to regressive hatred. It needs moderate regional leaders and original thinkers to imagine a new and better future.

So-called “experts” have bleated about a two-state solution for half a century. They failed, utterly, because they were wrong, dead wrong, in their perception of the deceptive Palestinian leaders who never, for a moment, wanted two-states. They wanted one—from the river to the sea.

So why not try a three-state solution?

This, surely, is a better vision than a fifty-year-old two-state failure. 

A new Gaza heralds a new Middle East, under the promise of the Abraham Accords.

Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

Image: Public domain.