Will Trump turn Gaza into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’?

There are plenty of legitimate questions to be asked about the Trump-Blair peace plan for ending the conflict with Israel. Will Hamas ever agree to it? Will any peace deal hold? Will the wider Middle East get behind it? And will Sir Tony Blair ever be able to overcome the legacy of his earlier military adventures in the region to establish any kind of authority? But there is also another question that we must ask. If this peace does hold, can Trump and Blair turn Gaza into a cross between Dubai and Singapore – or is that completely deluded?

All the immediate attention will, of course, be on whether this new deal actually ends the fighting. We will find out over the next few weeks. But assuming it does, the President and the former British prime minister have ambitious plans for the strip of land that has been fought over so fiercely.

There will reportedly be a ‘Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energise Gaza’ crafted by a ‘panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East’. It will be a ‘special economic zone…with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries’.

It is not hard to work out what President Trump has in mind. Back in February, he declared he wanted to transform Gaza into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ and put out an AI video of a new Gaza complete with a Trump tower, golf courses, luxury hotels, and gleaming, air-conditioned offices and apartment complexes. Meanwhile, earlier this year there were reports that staff from the Tony Blair Institute had worked on plans for a ‘Trump Riviera’ in the region.

Could that possibly work? On the surface, of course, it sounds completely crackers. It is hard to imagine that anyone is going to want to play a leisurely round of golf over land best known for its tunnels, hostages and booby traps. Or indeed that the Palestinians want their country to be turned into a strip of casinos and condos, or a tax haven for jet-hopping expats. And, in fairness, it certainly faces plenty of obstacles.

And yet, this plan not entirely crazy. After all, the booming statelets of the Gulf have clearly shown that entirely new financial and business centres can be built out of a desert in a remarkably short space of time. From 2000 to 2022, the GDP of the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai and Qatar, grew from $157 billion (£117 billion) to $550 billion (£409 billion). Work has already started on the Ras El Hekma Project, a $35 billion (£26 billion) joint venture between Egypt and the UAE to build a new city on its Mediterranean coast, while Saudi Arabia is building new cities and business centres as well. 

With its prime Mediterranean location and closer flying times to Europe, Gaza might well be able to do at least as well. Of course, it will take complete peace and security to have a chance of success, plenty of American and Israeli money, and tariff-free access to the US market. But low tax, entrepreneurial statelets are one of the boom industries of the 21st century. There is no necessary reason why the Trump-Blair vision of Gaza should not join them – as far-fetched as it might sound right now.