Gaza between Arafat's Singapore and Trump's Riviera!!

What Singapore and the Riviera have in common is that Gaza, despite its small area of approximately 360 square kilometers, has the highest population density in the world, approaching two and a half million people. It also has geopolitical characteristics and a climate that is characterized by summer and moderation throughout the year, and a coastline extending along the Mediterranean Sea for approximately 40 kilometers. The demographic characteristics are characterized by moderation, a culture of tolerance and coexistence, and a commercial and consumerist nature. All of this makes Gaza a model for replicating the Singaporean option and the Riviera model. It is an area located on the eastern Mediterranean coast, and one of its most important cities is Nice, with its natural beauty, coastline, and climatic conditions that are similar to those of Gaza.

But there's a big difference between the Singapore option and Trump's Riviera, which he's now pursuing after a war that has lasted more than a year and a half, characterized by total annihilation and the destruction of all the foundations of survival and life, transforming it into an uninhabitable area. The goal of Trump's Riviera is a colonial settlement, aiming to strip Gaza of its Palestinian identity, empty it of its residents, the source of its strength, and transform it into a tourist destination for non-residents. Its primary goal is political, aligned with Israel's goal of closing all files on the Palestinian cause by closing the Gaza file, erasing its name, and giving it another name. The goal here is incompatible with the Riviera itself, which is to displace its residents and disperse them across disparate and distant countries. This is where the greatest danger of displacement lies: dismantling the societal concept of Gaza. The proposal aims to create a Western region and impose it on the land that has embraced thousands of martyrs, whose rejection of Trump's proposal, which is strange in its people, behavior, and values, will shake the earth. The value and greatness of Gaza, with its homogeneity, interaction, integration and fusion of its inhabitants and this small area, creates a distinct and unique identity that has been unique to Gaza throughout history. It is as if we are facing a model and identity that we find only in Gaza throughout all stages of history, the most important of which is coexistence, integration and human unity among all its inhabitants, Muslims and Copts.

I return to the Singapore option, which is the closest to the characteristics of Gaza in all its components and attributes. The question here is: Why hasn't Gaza turned into the Singapore of Palestine and the Arabs? And why did it turn into a state of war with Hamas's control over it in 2007, and did characteristics other than its characteristics and options other than its options begin to emerge? War is not an option for Gaza, and armed resistance is not one of its characteristics. From the perspective of its geographical, demographic and economic characteristics, Gaza is a suitable model for civil development. As for the war option, as we see in the current war that has claimed the lives of more than fifty thousand martyrs, and destroyed all the components of life in it, the goal, as I indicated, is to forcefully displace its people in search of a new life.

The second question is: What is the solution, the alternative, and the prevention of migration? The quick answer is the Singaporean model of development, not just tourism. I heard Gaza-Singapore from the late President Arafat when he returned with Fatah, the leaders, and thousands of Palestinian people to Gaza following the Oslo Accords. At that moment, he announced that Gaza would become the Singapore of Palestine and the Arabs, realizing and understanding that Gaza possesses all the necessary qualifications for this. Perhaps I can preempt the current war and say that if we succeeded in building the Gaza-Singapore model, we would have avoided all Palestinian wars and disputes, and we would have presented to the world a model of a future Palestine based on democracy, peace, and development, capable of ending the occupation. Gaza would have been the nucleus of the Palestinian state.

Before comparing Gaza to the poverty, famine, unemployment, human suffering and devastating wars that have befallen it, does Gaza possess the elements of the Singaporean model and option that President Arafat spoke of? The answer is yes, and the youth element is sufficient, as it constitutes the driving force for the development process, primarily due to education. The question is why did this proposal not become a reality despite the availability of all the conditions at the beginning with Israel's withdrawal from Gaza? And aside from Israel's goals, which do not want to see a successful Palestinian model that would strip it of all justifications that the Palestinians are not fit for political construction and are dominated by the traits of terrorism and violence, there remains a degree of Palestinian responsibility with the first arrival of the authority to Gaza and today with Hamas and its rule of Gaza. There is no doubt that the opportunity for the Gaza-Singapore model arose with the arrival of the Authority and the influx of billions of dollars in aid that were not fully utilized in development, education, and health projects, and the construction of a strong infrastructure based on creative developmental people. Corruption and security prevailed, leading to the Hamas coup and its control of Gaza in 2007, imposing religious rule, widening the gap between poverty and unemployment, and the desire to emigrate in search of work and security.

The question again is, what is the alternative and solution after this devastating war? The answer is to return to reconstruction using the Singaporean development model, based on the Palestinian human element, and to preserve the survival of the population. In response to calls to evacuate its population, the alternative is development, civil governance, and re-establishing the human being on the values of production, coexistence, tolerance, and the rejection of violence and the option of war. This is the solution for Gaza in Singapore, the new Gaza, with its new people.