MADRID - The aim of this article is to analyze the U.S. plan for the "reconstruction of Gaza," a plan conceived by many of the same individuals who designed the U.S. invasion of Iraq over 20 years ago.

The document, jointly published by the neoconservative think tanks, the Jewish Foundation for National Security Affairs and the Vandenberg Coalition, led by Elliot Abrams, proposes the creation of a private entity, the "International Fund for Relief and Reconstruction of Gaza," to be led by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and particularly by Saudi Arabia. 

The U.S. document aims to grant Saudi Arabia a leading role in the Palestinian scenario, which would result in Saudi guardianship over the Palestinian Authority, both economically and in terms of supervising all religious, social, and political aspects. 

The plan aims to achieve, through this Saudi supervision, the enactment of laws that halt economic assistance to the families of Palestinian prisoners, as well as to change the curriculum. The latter measure has long been an Israeli demand aimed at prohibiting any teaching of the Nakba (the large-scale displacement of Palestinians caused by Zionist colonization in 1948). 

It is evident that this plan, in the discursive realm, follows the lines of what is known as the division between good Muslim and bad Muslim. This discourse seeks to divide Muslims by sanctioning some practices as acceptable and others as threats. In general terms, it can be said that a good Muslim is one who conforms to the logic of modernity, liberalism, and Westernization. 

This same discourse is what allows the Saudis, portrayed as "good Muslims," to benefit from the Zionist colonial occupation in Palestine. Saudi Arabia thus becomes, by virtue of this discourse, a rational and modern actor in which one can trust to discipline the Palestinians. This implies that the Saudi horizon in Palestine is the same as the American and Israeli one: the absence of autonomy for the population and the continuation of the colonial status quo. 

The plan for Palestine also includes the creation of a new government, albeit without any real form of sovereignty over the territory, which would include ministers from both Gaza and the West Bank. In terms of legislation, a committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization would temporarily assume legislative functions until elections are held. Regarding security, the Palestinian Authority would take charge of Gaza's management while an agreement is negotiated with Israel and an international entity represented by Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. 

In other words, the aim is for the population to relinquish its agency and political capacity to a Palestinian Authority that lacks any form of legitimacy in the territory, and to a set of countries that have openly expressed their willingness to recognize and/or collaborate in some aspects with the Zionist colonial entity. 

The role that the "International Fund for the Relief and Reconstruction of Gaza" has for Hamas exemplifies the ultimate intention of breaking the bond that makes the group the legitimate representative of Palestinian anti-colonial resistance. The document aims to integrate Hamas into the Palestine Liberation Organization, provided that the group "clearly and unambiguously accepts" the organization's conditions; that is, that the group renounces its anti-colonial resistance and accepts the colonial status quo. The document adds that Hamas could continue as a political faction as long as it disarms and "stops violent resistance." 

Those Hamas leaders who do not accept this program could be deported to Algeria, something that the country has not confirmed at the moment. 

At the same time, the document for Palestine also serves as a roadmap for "normalization" between Israel and Saudi Arabia, something that is currently stalled due to the rejection of this diplomatic approach by the vast majority of the Saudi population. 

From a discursive standpoint, both the document and the role assigned to certain countries like Saudi Arabia and the Emirates operate within a fundamentalist liberalism that aims to criminalize the option represented by the Palestinian Resistance in its anti-colonial and anti-hegemonic form. This discourse views a political identity rooted in Islam, which perceives politics as an ongoing pursuit (and an unattainable one) of a horizon of justice, as a threat to its own existence. 

The discourse laid out in the document maintains an unjust hierarchy. In other words, the document for the "reconstruction of Gaza" aims to establish, after causing one of the greatest tragedies in history, a political framework that does not jeopardize either the Zionist colonial project or foreign presence, particularly that of the United States, in the region. 

The only solution to avoid this discursive "reconstruction" is to follow the path outlined by the "bad Muslims," those who seek to recentralize Islam within the public sphere of the Muslim community and, in doing so, reject the colonial discursive occupation proposed by the document. 

In other words, the document seeks to legitimize the Zionist colonial occupation while the United States and other countries in the region help cushion the repercussions of that same occupation by offering meager assistance and complete depoliticization to the Palestinian people. 

Liberal fundamentalists, including Saudi Arabia (politically, Saudi Arabia is an anti-Ummatic force seeking to depoliticize Islam and adopt the Western hegemonic discourse), seek to shape the Palestinian people in their own image. Failing to achieve this, they aim to discipline them.