President Donald Trump’s son-in-law stood before global elites in Davos last week and unveiled renderings of a “New Gaza”—glittering skyscrapers along the Mediterranean, data centers, an airport, and 170 coastal towers. Jared Kushner called it “amazing investment opportunities” for a territory where more than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed and 2 million live in tents amid rubble.
It would be easy to dismiss this as uniquely Trumpian buffoonery. But the Gaza proposal isn’t an anomaly. It’s part of a pattern and one that spans three active conflict zones and draws from a 30-year-old playbook that has never actually worked.
The Three-Front Economic “Peace” Strategy
Within weeks of each other, the Trump administration has rolled out strikingly similar proposals for Gaza, Syria’s Golan Heights, and Ukraine’s Donbas region. The template is identical: ignore the political dispute, deploy economic development as the solution, assume people will trade sovereignty for prosperity.
In Gaza, Kushner’s $25-30 billion “master plan” promises $10 billion GDP by 2035, 500,000 jobs, and luxury resorts, all contingent on Hamas disarmament and with no Palestinian input on governance. The “Board of Peace” executive committee overseeing this contains no Palestinians.
On the Golan Heights, the U.S. has proposed converting the Israeli-occupied demilitarized zone into a joint economic area featuring, and this is real—a ski resort, wind farms, pharmaceutical plants, and data centers. The proposal offers Syria $4 billion in GDP growth and 15,000 jobs in exchange for effectively legitimizing Israeli control over sovereign Syrian territory.
In Ukraine’s Donbas, Washington floated creating a “free economic zone” in parts of the region from which Ukrainian forces would withdraw. Russia wouldn’t enter these areas either, theoretically. The zone would have special tax and legal regimes. Who would govern it, ensure security, or prevent Russian forces from simply advancing anyway? Details remain unclear.
Where We’ve Seen This Before
None of this is new. As analyst Samer Jaber noted in Al Jazeera, these neoliberal approaches have been tested repeatedly in Palestine, and failed every time.
In the 1990s, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres championed “economic peace” during the Oslo process. His “New Middle East” promised Palestinian economic integration would resolve the conflict. The occupation expanded. The second Intifada followed.
In 2007, Tony Blair arrived as the Quartet’s envoy with “quick impact” economic projects after the Palestinian economy had collapsed 40%. This coincided with “Fayyadism”—economic growth as a pathway to statehood. The World Bank warned investment without ending Israeli control would fail. It did.
The pattern: propose development, ignore occupation, assume prosperity replaces sovereignty. It never works because economic problems are symptoms, not causes.
The Fatal Flaw: Politics First, Economics Second
The core problem with all three current proposals is the same: they put economics before politics, assuming material incentives can substitute for resolving fundamental disputes over sovereignty, security, and self-determination.
Consider the investor calculus. Kushner talks about “amazing investment opportunities” in Gaza. But no serious investor commits billions without political stability and rule of law. The U.S. can’t credibly guarantee either because there’s no political settlement. Israel hasn’t agreed to withdraw. Hamas hasn’t agreed to disarm. The governance structure is a “technocratic Palestinian administration” answerable to a “Board of Peace” where Trump is chairman for life with veto power over all decisions.
What rational investor puts money into that?
The same logic applies to the Golan and Donbas. A ski resort on disputed territory between Israel and Syria, with no peace treaty and continued Israeli airstrikes? Economic zones in eastern Ukraine that require Ukrainian withdrawal but offer no enforcement mechanism to prevent Russian advances? These aren’t investment opportunities. They’re geopolitical fantasies dressed up with renderings and GDP projections.
The “Nations as Consumers” Fallacy
There’s a deeper assumption underlying this approach: that people are primarily economic actors who will accept political subjugation in exchange for material comfort.
Palestinians aren’t just consumers who need jobs. They’re a people with national identity and political rights under international law. Syrians aren’t bargaining chips to be bought off with pharmaceutical plants and ski resorts. Ukrainians aren’t going to surrender industrial heartland for a “free economic zone” with no security guarantees.
This is what distinguishes nations from markets. Economic incentives matter, obviously. But they follow political settlement; they don’t precede it. You can’t bribe people into abandoning self-determination. The 1990s and 2000s proved this in Palestine. Peres and Blair both tried. Both failed.
The current proposals ignore this lesson entirely. Kushner’s presentation in Davos showed detailed architectural renderings but no political framework for Palestinian sovereignty. The Golan proposal includes GDP projections but sidesteps the question of Syrian territorial rights. The Donbas plan offers economic zones but no resolution on Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.
What Trump Misunderstands About “The Deal”
Trump built his brand on deal-making. He sees every problem as negotiation where the right incentives produce agreement. In real estate, that works—everyone wants profit.
Geopolitics is different. Sovereignty isn’t for sale. These require political compromise where both sides sacrifice something valued.
Trump’s proposals don’t ask anything meaningful of the powerful. Israel doesn’t withdraw from Gaza or the Golan. Russia doesn’t give up territorial gains. Instead, Palestinians, Syrians, and Ukrainians trade political rights for economic development within continued occupation or loss.
That’s not a deal. That’s dressed-up surrender.
The Credibility Problem
Even accepting the economic logic, which we shouldn’t, there’s a practical problem: the U.S. lacks credibility as guarantor.
In Gaza, Israel continues strikes despite the ceasefire, has killed 500+ Palestinians since it began, and just banned Doctors Without Borders. Why would investors believe stability is guaranteed?
In the Golan, Washington is supposed to guarantee security between Israel and Syria. But its close alliance with Israel undermines impartiality. The U.S. can’t credibly restrain Israel because it never has.
In Donbas, Ukraine must withdraw and trust Russia won’t advance. Given Russia’s track record violating the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, occupying Crimea, invading in 2022, why would anyone believe Russian forces will respect the arrangement?
These proposals assume American credibility that doesn’t exist and security guarantees Washington can’t provide.
Our Take: The Fantasy of Economics Without Politics
Strip away the renderings and GDP projections, and Trump is proposing that victors consolidate gains while marketing economic development to the defeated as consolation.
This isn’t peace. It’s pacification through privatization, resting on a flawed premise: that economics can substitute for political rights, that development replaces self-determination, that people forget occupation if you build nice enough prisons.
Trump’s business instincts work against him. In real estate, you sell the vision and minimize risks. But nations aren’t portfolios. They’re people with histories and political aspirations that don’t fit on balance sheets.
Palestinians who survived 15 months of bombardment won’t forget their dead for waterfront condos. Syrians won’t legitimize occupation for ski resorts. Ukrainians won’t surrender industrial heartland for “free economic zones” without security.
The 1990s and 2000s proved this. Peres’s “New Middle East” collapsed into the second Intifada. Blair’s projects achieved nothing. Fayyadism couldn’t overcome occupation. Economic peace failed because it tried to buy off political rights.
Trump is recycling this playbook across three fronts, expecting different results. That’s not deal-making. It’s magical thinking, believing nice renderings and big numbers make political reality bend.
It won’t. Political settlements must address sovereignty and self-determination before economics can follow. Any framework ignoring collective rights and international law will fail—no matter how many ski resorts you promise.
Trump’s proposals aren’t bold reinventions of peacemaking, they’re the greatest hits of failed neoliberal strategies, now playing simultaneously across three theaters. The architects have changed and the renderings are slicker. The promised investment figures have more zeros. But the fundamental logic remains unchanged, and so will the results. You can’t resolve political conflicts with economic Band-Aids. You can’t buy sovereignty. And you can’t expect different outcomes from the same discredited playbook, no matter how confidently you pitch it in Davos.
