GATESTONE
Do Not Count on the Arabs to Rebuild Gaza or Help Palestinians
Khaled Abu Toameh
March 17, 2025

The Arab countries have finally come up with a plan for the Gaza Strip that aims to address the humanitarian crisis, restore essential services and rebuild. The $53 billion plan, announced in early March after an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, did not come out of a genuine desire to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but as a counterproposal to US President Donald Trump’s vision of relocating the residents of Gaza and turning it into the Rivera of the Middle East…The truth, however, is that most of the Arab countries have always refused to receive Palestinians. Most Arabs view the Palestinians as ungrateful. The turning point in Arab-Palestinian relations occurred in 1990, when Palestinians supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait – a country that had provided residency and employment to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. When Kuwait was liberated a year later by the US-led coalition, the Kuwaitis and other Gulf states responded by deporting most of them. READ MORE