Why India is best suited to lead reconstruction of Gaza

Israeli forces continue to battle with Hamas across northern Gaza. Ceasefire or not, the fighting is not over and the damage wrought is clear. Urban combat has devastated infrastructure. Apartment blocks lie in ruins. Roads, electrical plants, and water systems will need reconstruction. So too will schools and hospitals. As the international community begins to discuss what comes next in the Gaza Strip, India should put itself forward as lead on reconstruction, if not on security. The sensitivity of Gaza mandates that the international community handle reconstruction deftly. A simple donors’ conference to channel money through the United Nations or local authorities will not work. The United Nations has disqualified itself, both with Secretary-General António Guterres tone-deaf pro-Hamas commentary and because Hamas developed its terror infrastructure under the watch if not with the complicity of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The scandals surrounding UN mismanagement in Gaza mark the greatest UN scandal since the Oil-for-Food corruption scandal under late Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Many candidates to lead reconstruction should be disqualified If Israel eradicates Hamas, the Palestinian Authority is seeking to return to the territory from which Hamas ousted them in a bloody 2007 coup. But the Palestinian Authority has neither the capacity nor the trust to receive the funds and material necessary for reconstruction. Corruption disqualifies Mahmoud Abbas’ government. So too does his detachment from reality, especially after he called into question Hamas’ culpability in the October 7 massacres with the conspiracy theory that Israelis themselves conducted the massacre. That the 88-year-old Abbas, currently in the 18th year of his four-year presidential term, has refused to nominate a successor makes any reliance upon him foolish. Reconstruction will be a multi-year project, and Abbas is apparently too old for the job. Iran could seek in theory a slice of the Gaza reconstruction pie, just as it seeks to participate in rebuilding Syria. Israel, many Arab states, Europe, and the United States would balk at any Iranian role given the Islamic Republic’s vocal desire to eradicate Israel. Even if that diplomatic reality was cast aside, the security impediments to any Iranian role would be insurmountable given that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ economic wing monopolizes Iran’s construction sector. Turkish construction firms are formidable. Many work in difficult security environments like Iraq and Somalia, but Turkey should likewise be off-the-table. Not only has President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s incitement and his justification for Hamas terrorism disqualified Turkey for any post-Hamas role in the Gaza Strip, but Turkey’s corruption problem is disqualifying in its own right. Azerbaijan dissident Gubad Ibadoghlu has documented Turkish corruption in reconstruction projects in Nagorno-Karabakh. Erdogan himself and his top advisors have incentive, they maintain personal stakes in many of the firms whose financial practices are now under question. Then there is Qatar. The gas-giant previously undertook large scale development projects to support Palestinians, most notably Rawabi, a town built from scratch in the West Bank with a capacity for 40,000 residents. Qatar’s culpability in hosting Hamas leadership as well as its past financing of extremism today, however, disqualifies it. Qatari officials looked shell-shocked after the extent of Hamas’ atrocities became clear. Nor does Qatar itself have the labour force to undertake a project of the scale necessary to rebuild Gaza. While Qataris might point to their successful hosting of the World Cup, they built infrastructure to support that marquee football tournament upon the back of imported South Asian labour that raises the question about why any South Asian country should allow Qatar to play middleman and take credit for what Indians themselves might build. Saudi Arabia has relevant experience but the kingdom also is not the right choice. Saudi investors largely financed Beirut’s reconstruction after 17-years of civil war. Saudi authorities did not act from altruism, though; rather, Saudi authorities propped up Rafic Hariri, a Lebanese Sunni Arab with deep ties to Saudi Arabia, to manage the post-war order as a placeholder. Saudi investment flooded in with the understanding that Hariri would ensure Riyadh would reap political and financial rewards. That worked until pro-Iran partisans assassinated Hariri by detonating a buried bomb as his convoy passed. Initially, Saudi authorities sought to maintain their influence, but Lebanon is such a corrupt morass that eventually Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman threw in the towel; he would no longer pour endless funds into the country whose venal elite kept the tiny country on the precipice of state failure. If Iran wanted to capture Lebanon through Hezbollah, Bin Salman theorised, then it could be Tehran’s problem. From a financial standpoint, it was logical. The problem was diplomatic and strategic. By signalling limits to his patience, the Saudi Crown Prince signalled persistent Iranian-backed challenges could force Saudi defeat. In Gaza, any Saudi control would reignite an Iran-Saudi proxy war. India should take the lead, with Egypt as junior partner India, however, is in a completely different category. The world’s most populous country is a natural leader. It has warm ties with both Iran and Israel. Indian participation in Gaza would not trigger Iran as Saudi participation would, as no one in Tehran sees India as a geopolitical threat. Even if some Iranians did view India negatively, no Iranian authority would be stupid enough to provoke India. They would never risk Iran’s trade with India or Iranian access to Indian universities. Israeli authorities would trust Indian security involvement in Gaza. While countries like Canada or Germany exist in bubbles and persistently misunderstand or downplay the Islamist threat, India and Israel share a unique perspective as democracies whom Islamist terrorists regularly attack. Finally, Palestinians would accept India. Neither Palestinians nor other Arabs could accuse India of having imperial ambitions in the Mediterranean. Indian peacekeepers are already deeply experienced. Should India work outside UN constraints, they could be far more effective. If India were to enter the Gaza Strip commercially, it would still need an Arab partner to ease business and bridge cultural divides. Here, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s broader strategy could pay dividends. In August 2023, India welcomed Egypt into the BRICS group. While Egypt has a deeper history in Gaza—it occupied the region prior to the 1967 Six Day War—Israel would welcome Egyptian participation alongside India more than it would any other potential Arab partner. In the more than four decades since the Camp David Accords, Israel and Egypt have developed robust intelligence sharing and a trusted security partnership. Both countries understand the threat that Hamas poses beyond the Gaza Strip. While India has Tata and several smaller conglomerates, construction has grown to be a major portion of Egyptian gross domestic product in recent years. Egyptian companies like Orascom Construction, El Sewedy, Hassan Allam, and Qalaa Holdings each have strong track records of working in difficult environments and partnering with international firms. Each delivers. China’s summit with Islamic countries ostensibly to discuss Gaza was less about Palestinians and more about using the Arab diplomatic presence in Beijing to launder China’s genocide against the Muslim Uyghurs. It was cynicism on a level that only a leader as shameless as Xi Jinping would indulge. Should India step forward with a plan to reconstruct Gaza, PM Modi could rightly show India to be the partner that promises prosperity, but demands no sacrifice. Both the United Nations and the West have tried and failed. It is now India’s turn. New Delhi should take the lead. The author is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. 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