If the Abraham Accords promised prosperity through peace, Gaza today demands the reverse – peace through prosperity.
The accords introduced a transformative idea to the Middle East: that normalization between Israel and Arab states could foster trade, innovation, and growth. For the UAE, Bahrain, and later Morocco, that vision materialized. Economic cooperation replaced old hostilities, and shared prosperity became the new foundation for peace.
But Gaza presents a paradox. Here, the model must be inverted: There can be no peace without prosperity. The idea of “prosperity for peace” acknowledges that unless people have something to live for – security, jobs, education, and hope – no political accord will hold.
The Gaza enclave’s decades-long isolation, economic deprivation, and rule by militant factions have created a perpetual cycle of despair that fuels extremism.
To break this cycle, prosperity must precede peace.
Remove extremism
The first precondition for any viable Palestinian state, or even sustained calm, is the complete dismantling of extremist factions, chiefly Hamas, and the eradication of their ideological influence. This is not merely a military demand but a societal transformation. The schools, mosques, and media outlets in Gaza have long been vehicles for extremist indoctrination.
Peace cannot flourish while the younger generation is raised to hate and while militant narratives dominate public life.
True prosperity begins in the mind – with a shift in consciousness that replaces martyrdom with productivity, vengeance with coexistence, and nihilism with purpose. Education reform, media accountability, and the cultivation of civic culture are as essential to peace as any ceasefire or political agreement.
Amid these circumstances, the Sharm El-Sheikh Summit emerged as a pivotal milestone and, in many ways, a personal victory for US President Donald Trump. Widely regarded as “Trump’s moment,” the summit revived his defining doctrine of “peace through strength.”
Rather than pursuing open-ended negotiations, Trump sought concrete, enforceable security measures to address Gaza’s instability. His goal was to bring together the primary backers and facilitators of Hamas – Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar – into a unified framework designed to dismantle the group’s financial lifelines and logistical support.
Recipe for instability
At Sharm El-Sheikh, Trump made his position unmistakably clear: There would be no reconstruction without disarmament and international oversight.
Should Hamas refuse to surrender its arsenal, the United States would intervene militarily to enforce the agreement. If the plan were obstructed, he warned, Israel would resume the war.
In his bluntest assessment yet, Trump called Gaza under Hamas “a terrorist hub more dangerous than Afghanistan,” signaling that leaving the enclave in its current state would be a recipe for perpetual instability.
The symbolism surrounding the summit reinforced this posture. Trump received the Presidential Medal in Israel and the Order of the Nile in Egypt, a diplomatic acknowledgment of his role in shifting the regional conversation toward an enforceable peace.
His approach aligned closely with the concept of “prosperity for peace,” peace built not on promises but on structural transformation. Without dismantling the architecture of terror and replacing it with the architecture of development, any peace agreement would be nothing more than a pause between wars.
Excluding Hamas
The blueprint that followed the summit outlined an unprecedented multinational framework for Gaza’s security and governance. Trump’s plan stipulated that the forces operating in Gaza would not belong to a single nation, ensuring broader legitimacy and accountability.
Egypt and Jordan would train a new Palestinian security force, lightly armed and locally focused, while other Muslim-majority countries, most notably Pakistan and Indonesia, whose president pledged to send 20,000 soldiers, would participate alongside Western contingents. About 200 American troops would monitor implementation within Gaza itself, ensuring transparency and preventing rearmament.
Meanwhile, Israel would maintain a 15% buffer zone inside Gaza and continue to control the borders, including the crucial Philadelphi Corridor, to stop weapons smuggling. The initial goals were specific and uncompromising: the return of all hostages, whether alive or deceased, and the total disarmament of Gaza. Once those conditions were met, reconstruction could begin under international supervision, financed largely by Arab Gulf states.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE believe Hamas must be completely excluded, viewing its ideology as incompatible with modernization and stability.
Their stance reflects a Gulf vision of rebuilding the Middle East on development and moderation, insisting that Gaza’s reconstruction be free of extremism. Egypt, however, considers such exclusion unrealistic, given Hamas’s popular base. In the long run, Cairo’s approach risks making Gulf-funded reconstruction a short-term fix that rebuilds infrastructure without eradicating extremism.
This divergence may also explain the deliberate absence of the Saudi and Emirati leaders from the Sharm El-Sheikh Summit.
Challenges ahead
Despite this momentum, however, formidable challenges remain. The Sharm El-Sheikh plan defers the most contentious political questions – sovereignty, borders, governance, and statehood – to a later phase fraught with uncertainty. Israel’s internal politics, particularly under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, resists any framework that might be seen as empowering Palestinian autonomy.
Hamas’s networks, deeply rooted in Gaza’s society, will not be easily dismantled. The deployment of a multinational force, composed of diverse nationalities and agendas, presents logistical and diplomatic complexities that could stall the process before it begins.
Critics caution that if the security-first sequence of the plan is prolonged or implemented too rigidly, it risks turning into a framework that manages conflict rather than resolves it, a controlled ceasefire maintained by external actors but lacking genuine sovereignty or lasting prosperity.
For the concept of “prosperity for peace” to succeed, reconstruction cannot be indefinitely delayed in the name of security. Economic recovery, educational reform, and social empowerment must advance in parallel with demilitarization, creating tangible progress that rebuilds public confidence in peace as a realistic and sustainable path forward.
Gaza’s engine
At this stage, the role of Arab capitals is crucial. Through their financial resources, border control, and political influence, they possess the leverage to transform the transition from conflict to peace into a tangible reality rather than a rhetorical promise.
Prosperity must act as a tool to dismantle extremism, not as a reward postponed until peace is achieved. Central to this phase are key questions: Who will oversee implementation? How will disarmament be verified? How can reconstruction commitments be used as enforcement mechanisms? What form of Palestinian governance is realistically viable?
Among the proposed ideas is the establishment of a technocratic Palestinian authority, with several Arab states advocating for a renewed role of the PA in Gaza, an option that Israel firmly rejects. The concept of “prosperity for peace” asserts that true stability in Gaza can only begin once Hamas is fully expelled and stripped of its control.
As long as Hamas remains, reconstruction will serve only to rebuild the mechanisms of extremism, not the foundations of peace.
For Gaza’s renewal to take shape, development, education, and regional cooperation must replace militant ideology with opportunity and hope. Trump’s plan can only succeed if Palestinians are offered a tangible alternative: a future built on jobs, dignity, and stability rather than fear and destruction.
Prosperity, not militancy, must become Gaza’s new engine – its path from despair to peace and from radicalism to reconstruction.■
Dr. Najwa AlSaeed is a member of MENA 2050 and serves as a writer and researcher for several leading publications. She has also lectured at multiple universities across the MENA region. She can be reached at: najwasaied@hotmail.com