Witkoff wants to manage Gaza peace deal ‘from the ground’

Alameen Templeton

He doesn’t like “policy wonks” and reportedly “used salty language” when Israeli Fuhrer Benjamin Netanyahu tried to dodge a ceasefire meeting pleading it was the Sabbath, now US envoy to Arabia, Steve Witkoff, wants to oversee the peace deal “from the ground”.

His aides say the billionaire real estate developer and long-time golfing partner of Donald Trump plans to head to Palestine where he will reportedly join an inspection team that will visit the Netzarim and Philadelphia corridors in the devastated enclave.

How long Witkoff will keep his feet on the blood-soaked ground, however, remains to be seen.

One up on Genocide Joe

He says he’s determined to implement the ceasefire deal and get it to its next phase, which will be reconstruction and rehabilitation.

Trump want to go “one up” on his predecessor, Genocide Joe Biden, and wants to show the American public he can get his “normalization” deal between Nazi Israel and its neighbouring Arab states off the ground.

Riyadh, facing considerable pressure to show some kind of backbone in the strained relations with Washington, is insisting a viable Palestinian state must either be established or on an irrevocable path to statehood before it will sign any deal with Nazi Israel.

That’s despite clown prince Muhammad bin Salman notoriously telling Biden’s former foreign minister Antony Blinken he didn’t care for the Palestinian issue. Hamas’s traditional links to the Muslim Brotherhood are seen as a threat to the stability of the Saudi state.

So, Witkoff says he’s been given almost carte blanche by Trump to ensure Gaza gets to the next stage as soon as possible.

Given the scale of delinquent, Israeli devastation in Gaza, that may be a lot further off than Witkoff realises, some say it will take up to 350 years.

Mountain to climb

Trump has said he has doubts the deal with make it through to the next stage.

NPR reports Dima Toukan, a scholar at the Middle East Institute, says it’s important to acknowledge that this last phase could be a long way off — or never happen at all. “The path forward beyond the first phase of the agreement is fraught with challenges and remains unclear,” she says.

“The United Nations estimates that $50 billion will be required to rebuild Gaza, which occupies an area about the size of Philadelphia on the Mediterranean coast between Israel and Egypt. Even the rosiest of estimates project it would take a decade.

“But other predictions are much more dire. A U.N. report issued in September estimates $18.5 billion worth of damage was done to Gaza’s infrastructure from the war’s start through the end of January 2024, and that once a ceasefire is reached, “a return to the 2007–2022 growth trend would imply that it would take Gaza 350 years just to restore GDP to its level in 2022.”

Witkoff says he hears the concerns, including Trump’s, but says he’s focussed on ensuring the deal stays on track.

‘Normalization’ is the big prize

Middle East Eye reports Witkoff says he’s undeterred: “We have to make sure that the implementation goes well because if it goes well, we’ll get into phase two, and we’re going to get a lot more live bodies out,” Witkoff said.

“And I think that that is what the president’s directive to me and everybody else working in the American government on this – that’s his directive, and that’s what we’re going to do.

”My own opinion is that a condition precedent to normalisation was a ceasefire. We needed to get people believing again.”

Witkoff said normalisation could have a domino effect over the Middle East, with other countries following Saudi Arabia’s move.

“Normalisation means the beginning of the end of war. It means the entire region becomes investable. It becomes financeable.”

It all sounds very good, like a real estate developer’s sales pitch. “Investable” and “financeable” may sound like good catchwords in Manhattan, but after 470 days of genocide, Gazans are focussed on other issues.

Bread-and-butter issues

Retrieving bodies trapped beneath the rubble, rather than the rubble itself, is their main concern right now.

“At least a million people won’t have homes to return to,” says Shelly Culbertson, a senior researcher at the ultra-right think tank RAND.

That’s a massive, horrific figure, but it also massively underestimates the size of the challenge. The UN says at least two million Gazans are homeless.

Most utilities, such as electricity, sewage, water and communications are not working in Gaza, and the Zionazis have destroyed the vast majority of hospitals and schools.

Israel is even speaking of “taking over” the school curriculum to “deradicalize” Palestinian children, as though they can be educated out of remembering what they have just been through.

Sam Rose, acting director of Unrwa, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, said the aid supplies were just the beginning in the challenge of bringing the strip back to life.

“We’re not just talking about food, healthcare, buildings, roads, infrastructure, we’ve got individuals, families, communities that need to be rebuilt,” he said.

“The trauma that they’ve gone through, the suffering, the loss, the grief, the humiliation, and the cruelty that they’ve endured over the past 16 months – this is going to be a very, very long road.”

It remains to be seen if Witkoff’s “deal-making abilities” will be enough to see it through to the end.