U.S. to Spend $60B Turning Gaza into ‘High-Tech Metropolis’

Why would we spend a dime, let alone $60 billion “to take Gaza residents from tents to penthouses”?

by Daniel Greenfield | Dec 22, 2025

Let me repeat what I’ve been saying since Day 1 of these ceasefire proposals.

No one else is going to rebuild Gaza except us. No one else is going to police Gaza except us. If we don’t want to be stuck with any of that, we need to drop the fake ‘ceasefire’ and end our involvement in Gaza. Because what’s waiting for us isn’t just nation building or even nation building on steroids, but nation building on crack.

Beachside luxury resorts. High-speed rail. AI-optimized smart grids. Welcome to “Project Sunrise,” the Trump administration’s pitch to foreign governments and investors to turn Gaza’s rubble into a futuristic coastal destination.

A team led by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, two top White House aides, developed a draft proposal to convert the bombed-out enclave into a gleaming metropolis. In 32 pages of PowerPoint slides, replete with images of coastal high-rises alongside charts and cost tables, the plan outlines steps to take Gaza residents from tents to penthouses and from poverty to prosperity.

The project, according to the draft, would cost a total of $112.1 billion over 10 years, though the U.S. would commit to being an “anchor” supporting nearly $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period.

These are delusional fantasies completely detached from reality. We can’t make this stuff work in America, let alone in a Middle Eastern hellhole, even if it weren’t run by terrorists and populated by people who have spent generations teaching their children that their highest value is killing and conquering non-Muslims.

And why in the world would we want to?

Why would we spend a dime, let alone $60 billion “to take Gaza residents from tents to penthouses”?

Mind you, Gaza had plenty of penthouses and prosperity before Oct 7. They chose this course of action. Build them more penthouses and they’ll do it again.

The ceasefire is a lie. There’s no ‘international force’ that’s coming to do anything. Turkey. Qatar and whoever will be happy to send money to Hamas to ‘rebuild’ Gaza. Turkey, Egypt and whoever will send troops to protect Hamas. That’s all.

There is no viable post-Hamas plan. There’s empty hype and spreadsheets made by people who hype a product before they have it and think that if they hype enough, they can get the money to follow through, but Gaza isn’t a real estate development or an AI product. The problem isn’t securing enough funds to solve the problem, because the problem isn’t money. It’s the equivalent of raising capital to build a perpetual motion machine. You can raise the capital, but you can never deliver the product.

The answer is to stop doing the same stupid things we’ve been doing since the Clinton administration before we once again get stuck with the bill. Drop the ceasefire. Drop the nation building. Drop trying to fix the unfixable problem of Islamic terrorism.

December 22, 2025 | 16 Comments »

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16 Comments / 16 Comments

    • @Sebastien

      Good luck with keeping the US military out of Israel as Israel relies upon US military assets and arms deliveries to support its war preparedness. While I fully support Pollard’s thesis that the Americans should not be in Israel, they have been there since long before 10/7, and evicting them is not a reality which Israel can or will pursue no matter who is PM.

    • The main problem with the $60B is that most of it will inevitably land in Hamas leader’s bank accounts. What a waste of money. If you don’t believe me, research Arafat’s financial state when he finally passed away.

  3. Before we go into details about those swimming pools on the roofs of the penthouses, let us take a moment to contemplate the cost of rebuilding Ukraine. As a quick aside, maybe we need a diving board for each swimming pool too!!!

    • @dreuveni By the way, Did you hear about the Ukrainian oligarch who, in building his new mansion, wanted to build swimming facilities to accommodate any possible swimming needs his guests might have ?

      So, he built 3 pools.

      One with cold water for people who like
      to swim in cold water.

      One with warm water for
      people who like to swim in warm water.

      And one with no water
      for people who don’t
      like to swim.

      1

  4. Sounds like:

    Shimon Peres was a proponent of a visionary but unbuilt plan to construct an artificial island off the coast of Gaza that would feature a seaport, an airport, and industrial zones. This plan was part of his broader “New Middle East” concept to foster economic development and peace in the region, often encapsulated in his phrase, “making Gaza Singapore”.
    Details of the Proposed Island
    Purpose: The island was intended to provide Gaza with an independent, internationally supervised access point for trade and travel, potentially allowing Israel to secede from obligations related to commercial trading while maintaining security control over the coastal siege to prevent arms smuggling. It was also aimed at creating a self-sustaining economy for Palestinians.
    Logistics: The projected budget for the project was estimated at between $5 billion and $10 billion, with a construction timeline of six to 10 years. The proposal suggested international forces could control the island for at least 100 years.
    Status: The “fantasy island” project was discussed at various levels, including with Palestinian Authority officials and other international partners like Turkey, but it never received final government approval or came to fruition.
    Context of Peres’s Vision
    Peres consistently advocated for using economic cooperation and infrastructure development as a means to achieve peace, a concept sometimes referred to as “privatizing the peace process”. His vision was met with both support for its potential to transform Gaza into a prosperous hub and criticism for the significant political, security, and humanitarian challenges that ultimately prevented its implementation.”

    AI Overview

    It’s the Concepzia reformulated.

    1

    • To which a Hamas leader said, “If we wanted to turn Gaza into Singapore, we would have done it ourselves.”

      When will the West get it. It’s not about economics for these people. It’s not about prosperity, human rights, self-determination, etc. These are Western concepts. For them, this is a religious war. That’s it. We retreat, they advance. They advance, we retreat. There really isn’t anything else going on in the real world.

      1

    • Before we go into details about those swimming pools on the roofs of the penthouses, let us take a moment to contemplate the cost of rebuilding Ukraine. As a quick aside, maybe we need a diving board for each swimming pool too!!!

    • The fact that a peace-keeping force is needed for the next 100 years is a sign that this plan is DOA. There is no way that an arms embargo can be kept actively for years to come.

    • Laura, I don’t know if you know this, but I have watched my psyche changing over time, and I am now proud to say that my attitude is now well to the right of Attila the Hun.

      They want to pick a fight with us (starting with our children)? Then we will help send them all to the Hell to which they rightly belong.

      1

      • @Keelie 😀 Just for fun, I queried: Was Attila the Hun a socialist? and this is one of the things that came up on Reddit. Don’t know if the author is joking but its hilarious.

        Attila the Hun is not a right winger, he is a neoliberal reformer

        There is a common saying that someone is “to the right of Attila the Hun”. This statement is often used to describe someone as far right, with the assumption that Attila the Hun is extremely right wing. This assumption is factually inaccurate, as a close examination of Attila shows that he adheres to neoliberal principals more than any traditional right-wing school of thought.

        ​

        One can even argue that Attila’s policies are closer to modern mainstream left-wing positions than right wing ones, and dare I say, Attila is to the left of many prominent left wing politicians on many important aspects. Attila is a liberal through and through, and anyone who believes in examining a politician’s record should see that Attila is far from the right.

        ​

        Let’s take a look at the neoliberal position shall we? According to the sidebar at /r/neoliberal, neoliberals support five major positions: Free Trade, Open Borders, Occupational Licensing Reform, Zoning Reform and Carbon Pricing. I will now demonstrate that Attila’s policies are in line with the neoliberal platform on all five, and therefore, should not be considered far right.

        ​

        **Free Trade**

        In 435, Attila concluded the Treaty of Margus with the Romans. Among other things, this treaty included trading provisions that allowed the Hunnic Empire and the Roman Empire to trade. By doing so, Attila cemented his status as one of the most pro-trade politicians in history.

        After all, the European Union is often described as one of the greatest trade blocs of all time. The EU is 4.476 million km². Attila created a trade bloc that is nearly 9 million km² (sum of the land mass of the Hunnic and Roman empires), so he is obviously one of the most pro-free trade politicians of all time.

        ​

        **Open Borders**

        Attila triggered an event called the great migration, where the Franks, Goths, and other groups xenophobically referred to as “barbarians” migrated into the Roman Empire. By encouraging such migrations, Attila strongly stimulated immigration and cultural exchange.

        You see, before Attila, Rome was a xenophobic empire, who built walls to keep people out (see: Hadrian). But due to Attila, Rome gave a chance to refugees and immigrants, even introducing jobs and occupational training for them in a program known as the Foderati.

        ​

        **Occupational licensing reform**

        During the late antiquity period, the Romans created one of the strictest occupational licensing regimes known as the collegia. These were associations where membership was strongly controlled by the government and that members were not free to join or leave. By eroding Roman authority in the west, Attila delivered a strong blow to occupational licensing practices and ushered in increased economic freedom.

        ​

        **Zoning Reform**

        Ancient Roman cities were often strictly zoned and centrally planned. The Romans were also known to use exploitative zoning practices to control what could or could not be built (see: Nero, Fiddle). Attila on the other hand, used the power of combustion to completely rezone Roman cities. No longer was land use centrally controlled, individuals in a post-Attila society had significant rights to decide what they could build on their own land.

        Additionally, as a nomad, Attila is an example of someone who took advantage of alternative living practices. He is a globe trotting internationalist who is not tied down to a specific home. Therefore, Attila is a good embodiment of neoliberal living principles.

        ​

        **Carbon Pricing**

        Attila did not directly create a carbon tax, however, as the evidence demonstrates, Attila did use economic incentives to reduce carbon emissions. After all, as research shows, nomadic invaders encourage reforestation and reduce the human carbon footprint.

        Attila did not directly pay the armies that contributed to fighting carbon emissions. His soldiers were motivated by the possibility of plunder. This means that although Attila did not directly create a tax on carbon, he did execute policies that economically incentivized the reduction of the human carbon footprint. We can thus conclude that he generally followed the neoliberal ideas of reducing emissions.

        ​

        **Conclusion**

        As we can see, Attila is truly ahead of his time. /r/neoliberal was created in 2012, but Attila was pushing for neoliberal policies since the 5th century. It is unfair and inaccurate to therefore categorize Attila as a right winger. He is a reformer, a visionary, and one of the earliest politicians who supported evidence based policies to solve the challenges facing the world.

        ​

        **Sources**

        [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618218302933](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618218302933)

        [https://schoolhistory.co.uk/notes/medieval-guild/](https://schoolhistory.co.uk/notes/medieval-guild/)

        [https://www.primidi.com/huns/before\_attila/under\_attila\_and\_bleda](https://www.primidi.com/huns/before_attila/under_attila_and_bleda)