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Trump Admin Circulating Plan to Transform Depopulated Gaza Into High-Tech Cash Cow
Under the proposal, the US would take control after "voluntary" relocation of Palestinians from the strip, where proposed projects include an Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone and Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands.
Sep 01, 2025
The White House is "circulating" a plan to transform a substantially depopulated Gaza into US President Donald Trump's vision of a high-tech "Riviera of the Middle East" brimming with private investment and replete with artificial intelligence-powered "smart cities."
That's according a 38-page prospectus for a proposed Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration, and Transformation (GREAT) Trust obtained by The Washington Post and published in a report on Sunday. Parts of the proposal were previously reported by the Financial Times.
"Gaza can transform into a Mediterranean hub for manufacturing, trade, data, and tourism, benefiting from its strategic location, access to markets... resources, and a young workforce all supported by Israeli tech and [Gulf Cooperation Council] investments," the prospectus states.
However, to journalist Hala Jaber, the plan amounts to "genocide packaged as real estate."
Here comes the Gaza Network State.A plan to turn Gaza into a privately-developed “gleaming tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing and technology hub” with “AI-powered smart cities” and “Trump Riviera” resortgift link:wapo.st/4g2eATo
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— Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) August 31, 2025 at 10:18 AM
The GREAT Trust was drafted by some of the same Israelis behind the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose aid distribution points in Gaza have been the sites of deliberate massacres and other incidents in which thousands of aid-seeking Palestinians have been killed or wounded.
According to the Post, financial modeling for the GREAT Trust proposal "was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group"—which played a key role in creating GHF. BCG told the Post that the firm did not approve work on the trust plan, and that two senior partners who led the financial modeling were subsequently terminated.
The GREAT Trust envisions "a US-led multirlateral custodianship" lasting a decade or longer and leading to "a reformed Palestinian self-governance after Gaza is "demilitarized and de-radicalized."
Josh Paul—a former US State Department official who resigned in October 2023 over the Biden administration's decision to sell more arms to Israel as it waged a war on Gaza increasingly viewed by experts as genocidal—told Democracy Now! last week that Trump's plan for Gaza is "essentially a new form of colonialism, a transition from Israeli colonialism to corporate" colonialism.
The GREAT Trust contains two proposals for Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians. Under one plan, approximately 75% of Gaza's population would remain in the strip during its transformation. The second proposal involves up to 500,000 Gazans relocating to third countries, 75% of them permanently.
The prospectus does not say how many Palestinians would leave Gaza under the relocation option. Those who choose to permanently relocate to other unspecified countries would each receive $5,000 plus four years of subsidized rent and subsidized food for a year.
The GREAT Trust allocates $6 billion for temporary housing for Palestinians who remain in Gaza and $5 billion for those who relocate.
The proposal projects huge profits for investors—nearly four times the return on investment and annual revenue of $4.5 billion within a decade. The project would be a boon for companies ranging from builders including Saudi bin Laden Group, infrastructure specialists like IKEA, the mercenary firm Academi (formerly Blackwater), US military contractor CACI—which last year was found liable for torturing Iraqis at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison—electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, tech firms such as Amazon, and hoteliers Mandarin Oriental and IHG Hotels and Resorts.
Central to the plan are 10 "megaprojects," including half a dozen "smart cities," a regional logistics hub to be build over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah, a central highway named after Saudi Crown Prime Mohammed bin Salman—Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf states feature prominently in the proposal as investors—large-scale solar and desalinization plants, a US data safe haven, an "Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone," and "Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands" similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai.
In addition to "massive" financial gains for private US investors, the GREAT Trust lists strategic benefits for the United States that would enable it to "strengthen" its "hold in the east Mediterranean and secure US industry access to $1.3 trillion of rare-earth minerals from the Gulf."
Earlier this year, Trump said the US would "take over" Gaza, American real estate developers would "level it out" and build the "Riviera of the Middle East" atop its ruins after Palestinians—"all of them"—leave Palestine's coastal exclave. The president called for the "voluntary" transfer of Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, both of whose leaders vehemently rejected the plan.
"Voluntary emigration" is widely considered a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, given Palestinians' general unwillingness to leave their homeland.
According to a May survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, nearly half of Gazans expressed a willingness to apply for Israeli assistance to relocate to other countries. However, many Gazans say they would never leave the strip, where most inhabitants are descendants of survivors of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948. Some are actual Nakba survivors.
"I'm staying in a partially destroyed house in Khan Younis now," one Gazan man told the Post. "But we could renovate. I refuse to be made to go to another country, Muslim or not. This is my homeland."
The Post report follows a meeting last Wednesday at the White House, where Trump, senior administration officials, and invited guests including former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, investor and real estate developer Jared Kushner—who is also the president's son-in-law—and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer discussed Gaza's future.
While Dermer reportedly claimed that Israel does not seek to permanently occupy Gaza, Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation in Gaza—have said they will conquer the entire strip and keep at least large parts of it.
"We conquer, cleanse, and stay until Hamas is destroyed," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently said. "On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains."
The Israel Knesset also recently hosted a conference called "The Gaza Riviera–from vision to reality" where participants openly discussed the occupation and ethnic cleansing of the strip.
The publication of the GREAT Trust comes as Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza City amid a growing engineered famine that has killed at least hundreds of Palestinians and is starving hundreds of thousands of more. Israel's 696-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 233,200 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose casualty figures are seen as a likely undercount by experts.
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La MAGA Nostra: Trump, the Mafia Metaphor, and the Corruption of Power
Just like the old Sicilian mafia called itself Cosa Nostra—meaning “our thing”—Trump presents himself as “Our Monster,” a kind of anti-hero who embodies the public’s disgust with a distant and dismissive establishment.
Feb 25, 2025
On August 24, 2023, a headline blared “La Maga Nostra” over the front page of the New York Post.
Dominating the layout was a photo of then-ex-President Donald Trump, his chin slightly raised in veiled contempt. The comparison was unmistakable: Trump as Don Corleone, the shadowy figurehead of The Godfather.
An accompanying news box underscored the irony. Trump had been hit with RICO charges, a legal framework famously pioneered by his own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to bring down New York’s mafia families, including the infamous “Teflon Don,” John Gotti.
Trump didn’t introduce the corruption of power to America. He simply streamlined it, stripped it of its former subtleties, and branded it in his own image.
The former real estate mogul has long invited comparisons to the mafia. His favorite films include The Godfather and Goodfellas, and his personal style—big pompadour hair, boxy suits, and flashy red ties—reflects that influence.
Michael Cohen once described himself as Trump’s consigliere, akin to Tom Hagen in The Godfather. Former FBI Director James Comey, who spent part of his career investigating organized crime, remarked that Trump’s approach to cultivating loyalty gave him “flashbacks” to his days taking down capos.
Then who could forget Trump’s infamous dig at Chris Cuomo, calling him “Fredo”—a jab that prompted one of the cringiest displays of Italian American male insecurity in decades.
From his “Teflon” ability to evade legal consequences to his swaggering machismo and Joe Pesci-like fragile ego, the affinity is laid bare.
Recent attempts on his life all but cemented Trump’s image as a modern-day mafia man. Whether or not the Post’s editors realized it, they captured the essence of his appeal.
It’s often remarked that unchecked social and economic pain leads to the emergence of “strong men.” In the classic authoritarian model, outlined by thinkers like Theodor Adorno, the disenfranchised turn to leaders who embody defiance, control, and simplicity in the face of chaos.
For millions of Americans mired in debt, struggling to pay rent, and unlikely ever to own a home, calling our society “neo-feudal” hardly feels hyperbolic.
It also tracks with the history of the mafia. The mafia evolved out of feudalism’s wake in southern Italy. As absentee landlords managed vast estates from afar, a vacuum was filled by vicious overseers and middlemen—figures the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia called “parasitic intermediaries.”
Sciascia is widely credited as Italy’s first “anti-mafia” voice, following his 1961 novel The Day of the Owl. He viewed the mafia’s emergence in Sicily, shortly after the country’s unification in 1861, as a metaphor for the modern corruption of power—representing a distorted “ideal” of justice that promises order and protection for society’s have-nots while thriving on internal exploitation.
That this distorted image developed within a historical context marred by colonization and exploitation in Sicily—where peasants often romanticized the mafia and longed for a return to monarchy—pained Sciascia.
Equally, he recognized similar patterns in other contexts.
Trumpism operates in a similar way—not as a rejection of power consolidation, but as its acceleration.
Recent developments in Trump’s second term illustrate how a cartel-like consolidation of power among billionaires is carving out fiefdoms and aligning their interests with Trump’s administration in ways that echo mafia-like dynamics.
Peter Thiel’s role in “disrupting” the establishment sees him pumping money into Trump-friendly candidates and tech ventures that favor the privatization of state functions—a classic power consolidation strategy.
Jared Kushner’s financial deals with Saudi Arabia suggest a patronage model where money secures access and influence. Saudi investments in Silicon Valley, defense, and U.S. real estate could be seen as a geopolitical deal—leveraging Trump’s power for long-term economic control.
Elon Musk’s role, however, may be the most revealing. If Trump is the Don, Musk is shaping up to be his new consigliere, not unlike the old mafia’s lawyer-fixers—except with a global tech empire at his disposal.
His control over X (formerly Twitter) allows him to dictate the flow of political discourse, much like a mafia boss controlling the press. If Cosa Nostra kept power through silence—omertà—Musk ensures loyalty through algorithms, shadowbans, and the subtle privileging of certain voices over others.
Federal deregulation benefiting Musk’s empire (Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink) might reflect the kind of crony capitalism once associated with political machines, but at a planetary scale. Meanwhile, Trump sides with Musk over H-1B visas, even as the MAGA rank and file rebelled, and Musk called them “retarded.”
The direction we are headed in is shocking. But it would be a terrible mistake to view it as aberrant. Trump didn’t introduce the corruption of power to America. He simply streamlined it, stripped it of its former subtleties, and branded it in his own image.
His rise exposes a sickening continuity. Former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton played the game with suit-and-tie professionalism—the neoliberal, financialized version of patronage. Former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney did it through defense contracting and old-money oil interests.
Trump now strips this down to its rawest level: outright transactionalism, loyalty oaths, and a government that operates like a family business.
He presents himself as the “honest liar,” exploiting well-founded perceptions of corruption while openly admitting to behaviors that elites deny. His blatant displays of donor back-scratching feel almost refreshing in their vulgar transparency.
Just like the old Sicilian mafia called itself Cosa Nostra—meaning “our thing”—Trump presents himself as “Our Monster,” so to speak; a kind of anti-hero who embodies the public’s disgust with a distant and dismissive establishment.
Like Al Capone, who opened a soup kitchen in Chicago during the Great Depression, he swoops in to get “close” to the people. As a distorted Robin Hood-like figure, he plays up his everyman appeal, toggling between his gilded digs and disaffected base. His diction is street-level, his parlance tabloid. He eats the food (McDonald’s). He speaks the language.
Sciascia wrote about the insidious spread of corruption, describing how “the palm line”—as a symbol of mafia influence—creeps northward from Sicily to Rome.
In America, Trump represents its teleological end. He doesn’t need to resort to brute violence.
His power lies in painting a romanticized picture—MAGA—over a bleak reality—“American Carnage.” In an Italian context, Sciascia dubbed this Sicilianità: the tendency to “decorate” harsh realities and mask corruption with rhetorical flourish. The Democrats tried to do something similar with “Joy.” But it failed.
The one thing that Sciascia hated more than the mafia was fascism. Yet in a sense, he viewed them as codependent. Ultimately, he viewed the mafia’s power as resulting from a “historic failure, the failure of the Centre-Left,” and the ravages of “eternal bourgeoisie fascism”—the inability of elites to distinguish their dream-hoarding interests from the needs of the masses.
Which brings us to Musk—a billionaire who sells himself as a free-thinking outsider while constructing a world where he remains the gatekeeper of discourse itself.
If Trump’s rise was a mafia movie, Musk’s role makes it something else entirely—a Pirandellian farce, in which power’s corruption is so blatant that it becomes surreal.
We are now through the looking glass. And whatever comes next will be even more profane than the system Trump claims to oppose.
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Trump Call for 'Obviously Illegal' Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza Sparks Global Fury
"The expulsion of the Palestinian civilian population from Gaza would not only be unacceptable and contrary to international law," said Germany's foreign minister. "It would also lead to new suffering and new hatred."
Feb 05, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's call on Tuesday for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza with American military force drew near-universal condemnation from the international community, with political leaders, United Nations officials, and human rights groups denouncing the outrageous proposal as inhumane and blatantly unlawful.
"Any forcible transfer in or deportation of people from occupied territory is strictly prohibited," Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement following Trump's remarks alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing an International Criminal Court arrest warrant after presiding over a 15-month-long, U.S.-backed decimation of the Gaza Strip.
U.S. allies and adversaries, including in the Middle East, swiftly rejected Trump's call for American ownership of Gaza and the total removal of the Palestinian population. Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Palestine's envoy to the U.N., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and ordinary Palestinians in Gaza were among those who dismissed the U.S. president's proposal as unconscionable.
"These calls represent a serious violation of international law," said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. "Peace and stability will not be achieved in the region without establishing a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital on the borders of 1967, based on the two-state solution."
European nations also sharply criticized Trump's proposal, with France's foreign ministry expressing "opposition to any forced displacement of Gaza's Palestinian population, which would constitute a serious violation of international law, an attack on the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians, and also a major obstacle to the two-state solution and a factor of major destabilization for our close partners, Egypt and Jordan, and the whole region."
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that "the expulsion of the Palestinian civilian population from Gaza would not only be unacceptable and contrary to international law."
"It would also lead to new suffering and new hatred," she warned.
"Once again, the man who claimed to be the peace candidate is showing himself to be nothing more than the War Profiteer President."
Trump's call for a U.S. takeover of the Gaza Strip came days after the president said he wants to "just clean out" the Palestinian enclave by forcibly displacing the territory's population, which is living under a fragile cease-fire agreement and in the process of returning to homes left in utter ruins by Israeli and American bombs.
Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, said at a press conference on Tuesday that Trump's proposal is "completely irresponsible." Even the act of floating ethnic cleansing in Gaza amounts to "incitement to commit forced displacement, which is an international crime," said Albanese.
"The international community is made up of 193 states," she added, "and this is the time to give the U.S. what it has been looking for: isolation."
U.S. human rights and anti-war organizations joined the chorus slamming Trump's proposal, with Amnesty International USA executive director Paul O'Brien writing on social media that "removing all Palestinians from Gaza is tantamount to destroying them as a people."
Sara Haghdoosti, executive director of Win Without War, said in a statement late Tuesday that "forcibly removing Palestinians from Gaza is ethnic cleansing."
"It is obviously illegal, deeply morally wrong, and incredibly dangerous," said Haghdoosti. "People in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, and beyond need a real end to the war, not permanent forced displacement. Instead, tonight President Trump proposed to send U.S. armed forces to Gaza to kick Palestinians out and act as security guards for [Jared] Kushner and friends as they cash in on what Trump called 'the Riviera of the Middle East.'"
"Once again," Haghdoosti added, "the man who claimed to be the peace candidate is showing himself to be nothing more than the War Profiteer President."
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