Oct. 7th, 2023, was the day that the world should have come to its senses and said, “No more!” But in these ruins, there is hope — hope for a new and better future not only for Gaza but for the Middle East. 

Put aside the idea of bringing the corrupt, failed leadership of the Fatah-PLO in Ramallah to rule Gaza. They don’t even have the support of their own people, according to recent Palestinian polls and actual elections. 

Let’s be brutally honest and acknowledge that the half-century experiment of a two-state (non)solution is dead in the water, killed along with thousands of Israelis by those incited and rewarded by the Palestinian Authority (PA). It should not be revived in Gaza; this will condemn an already violent Middle East to another half century of conflict.  

Clearly, Gaza needs to be built from scratch. The rubble of its violent past has to be swept away, along with its ideology. It must not be mismanaged by those whose principles led to its ruin. It must be led by people rejecting its violent past, totally dedicated to making Gaza a better place to live rather than looking obsessively at territories they do not possess and very likely never will. 

The location and size of Gaza make it a place that can become the Cote D’Azur of the Middle East — the sort of place that Beirut was before the intrusion of dangerous and deadly forces such as radical Islam and anti-Israel rejectionism. 

Another solution is desperately needed. The new experiment should be incorporated into the spirit and fabric of the Abraham Accords. 

Let me make it clear. The PA should have no role in governing a future Gaza. Neither should Israel. Instead, an international administration would reconstruct a future Gaza, while establishing a future local leadership based on merit. 

No self-governing administration would be envisaged for at least a decade. That time is needed for a new generation of educated and capable Gazans to blossom and begin to take charge. 

Israel must have a commanding presence in the creation of a new Gaza, however; following the October events, and what went before, it has a vested interest in ensuring that radical Islam will not strike again out of Gaza, or coalesce with a rejectionist Ramallah leadership. 

The reconstruction of a new Gaza should be established by a regional board, led by Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, and the United States, and incorporate both the UAE and Bahrain into its management. 

Israel’s moderate Arab Abraham Accord partners have a vested interest in strengthening a regional coalition headed by the United States, to create a prosperous and peaceful Middle East. In effect, the budding State of Gaza will be a protectorate of the Abraham Accord regional partners. 

As a political and governing system, the concept of protectorates has been successful in the past and is currently working well in the international arena. The United States itself has five protectorates, from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea to Guam, Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. 

People forget — and this has echoes for Gaza — that, after the United States defeated Japan in World War Two, including the atomic annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it became a protectorate of the United States until it relinquished its control in 1952. 

France has several protectorates, including Guadeloupe, Guiana, Martinique, La Réunion, Mayotte, Saint-Barthélemy and even several Polynesian islands. All are peaceful and prosperous. 

The United Kingdom has 14 protectorates, known as UK Overseas Territories. Perhaps the most famous are the Falkland Islands, which the British defended when invaded by Argentina in 1982. 

The independent status of protectorates is recognized under international law, and the specific relationship between the “protectorate” and the “protector” is set out under a treaty signed by both parties. In the case of Gaza, the “protectors” would be multi-layered, including the participating Arab Abraham Accord countries, with the important addition of Saudi Arabia representing one leg of the protectorate chair, and the other three legs being Israel, Egypt and the United States.

Once the new State of Gaza achieves self-governance — and this could take a decade or more — under the guidance of the protectors, it can be introduced into the United Nations as a member nation. 

The peace and independence of Gaza will be protected by its two neighbors, Israel and Egypt. Both have shared, vested interests in maintaining a peaceful Gaza, and both have protected transit points for goods, services and people to flow in and out of Gaza for work or business. 

In the past, Israel proposed a Gaza with an offshore airport, marina and seaport, with a connecting road and rail bridge to the mainland. This ambitious project should be revived, and Gaza City should become a hotel- and services-based economy. 

The potential of Gaza as a demilitarized agricultural, light industry, and tourism economy, with the potential of becoming a hi-tech data center to the Arab world, is enormous. These projects alone will assure gainful employment and prosperity for the people of Gaza. 

Gazans would be relieved of the security burden of its borders, ports and airports, by Egyptian and Israeli police. This would guarantee that no malevolent actor or goods can be smuggled into Gaza. 

Israel’s Arab partners in the Abraham Accords must play a central and essential role in reforming their moderate form of Islam into the local Muslim population, to replace the radical violence spread by extremist imams and teachers that led Gaza to its ruin. Saudi Arabia and the UAE would employ the imams. The United States and Israel would develop a new curriculum for the Gazan education system, from elementary schools to universities. This must not be left to United Nations organizations following the abject failure of UNRWA. 

In that future, when Gazans are able to develop their government in accordance with the requirements of the Abraham Accord partners, they will be free to decide for themselves whether to remain independent or join a confederation with either the PA, Israel or both. 

A successful Gaza can be an example to Arabs living under a failed Ramallah leadership. We cannot be led by those of limited vision. It will take Israeli and regional leaders who are original thinkers to open up for us a new and better future. 

A three-state solution is a better vision than a half-century two-state failure. A new Gaza under the promise of the Abraham Accords heralds a new and peaceful Middle East. 

Barry Shaw is the international public diplomacy director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.  

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