A few months ago the idea was floated that Egypt would sell/lease an area of land that would expand the size of Gaza 5-fold, Israel would annex the major settlement blocks and other strategic zones in the West Bank, and the Palestinians would have a limited presence in the West Bank but a large opportunity to build a new sovereign country in the Sinai which would include new cities, new roads and infrastructure, sea ports, air port, plus sovereign control over several natural gas deposits and oil deposits.
If the Palestinian state were to be largely set up in an area of Sinai there would be plenty of room to resettle all refugees, plenty of resources to manage a nation state’s internal needs, and really a blank slate to build modern cities for its people. They would in theory have access to both the Med and Red seas (or at least the Med plus rights to use the canal), access to water and desalination, energy independence to power their country with nat gas and oil, and lots of land which could be farmed. I have watched the Gulf countries build modern cities in the desert, and even on the water. With the combined technological know-how of the US, Europe, Israel and others they would really have an opportunity to build a very efficient country - having learned from 100’s of years of mistake made around the world that have led to congestion, pollution, lack of transportation and poor public planning.
Obviously this story is short on details like that, and truth be told as great an idea it sounds (at least insofar as the opportunity to literally build a brand new country to house millions of people from scratch) I wouldn’t expect the PA to jump at the idea. It would take a lot of pressure including promises of lots of money and a vision for it must be sold to the people. The thing of it is, and I’ve known this for a long time, the idea of resettling refugees inside the West Bank is a non-starter for the Palestinians themselves who live there. They don’t even really want a major highway from Ramallah to Gaza. The West Bank Palestinians have a very large number of middle class, merchant class, educated, skilled, politically moderate people. They suffer NIMBY like any other people in any other country they do not want hundreds of thousand or millions of unskilled, under-educated people moving in. This is why the PA leaders want Israel to absorb them but that’s also a non-starter. The only plan that makes sense is to use land in Sinai or in Jordan. Leave the core of the people in the West Bank but the majority of the new country to be build in the Sinai.
Is there any other plan being floated? Are they still going with the “land for peace” and the idea that they can divide Israel from the West Bank and house another 5-8 million people?
The article says we renewed 5 year aid package for Jordan, I would suspect that means that Jordan’s participation in the plan is already accepted (and likely negligible). That leaves of course Palestinians, Israel and potentially Egypt to sit at the table and work it out. If that Sinai plan is where it is headed, I suspect Saudi Arabia will want to put it’s 2 cents in and it should cost them many billions to do so. But Saudi Arabia recently purchased 2 Islands from Egypt in return for direct investment inside Egypt. Saudis will likely want to invest in a Palestinian state not just for charity but for access to its markets, construction contracts and more influence in Egypt, Jordan and Israel.
