Neocolonialism Rebranded: Kushner, Witkoff, And Trump’s Gaza Blueprint

By Uriel Araujo

As Trump expands US involvement in Gaza’s postwar future, his son-in-law Kushner and his associate Witkoff are thrust into central roles, with Blair lingering on the margins. The project is a modern mandate-like structure that angers both Israel and Arabs.

The latest development in Washington’s growing involvement in the Middle East came with the announcement that Jared Kushner (Donald Trump’s son-in-law) and real-estate magnate Steve Witkoff will help “run” and “rebuild” Gaza under Trump’s new “board of peace,” an executive structure ostensibly designed to stabilize the region after nearly two years of devastation.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair was initially presented as part of this arrangement, but, according to The Financial Times, objections from the Arab and Muslim world have pushed Blair out of the top job, sidelining him from chairing the body. According to Israeli and Arab media, he may still join a smaller executive committee in a reduced role. Be as it may, the symbolism is clear enough: Washington is reviving familiar faces from the Iraq era while trying to rebrand interventionist governance as a peacebuilding venture.

Blair’s name of course is inseparably tied to the occupation of Iraq, a $2 trillion catastrophe that has largely discredited Western claims of “liberation.” Bringing him back into a project aimed at governing Palestinians gives one the impression it is a repackaged version of the same interventionism. It certainly does not look good. No wonder Arab states have objected quite vocally.

But the new Washington script is even more ambitious. Interestingly, Trump has handpicked and tasked his son-in-law Kushner and his long-time business associate Witkoff (incidentally, two militantly pro-Israel American Jews) not only with Gaza’s reconstruction but also with a role in US diplomatic efforts related to the Ukraine war.

The United States is thereby overextending its diplomatic bandwidth, trying to micromanage two major geopolitical crises with a team that blends real-estate, political dynastic ties, and, apparently, neocon Iraq-era nostalgia. So much for “America First”. But things get further complicated.

I’ve written before about how Trump’s September 20-point plan directly collides with Israel’s own “Greater Israel” ambitions. The proposal promised demilitarization, hostage exchanges, and transitional governance under a Trump-chaired board, with Blair originally cast as a pivotal figure.

It did elicit cautious applause in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Cairo, all longing for some stability. Yet the deeper logic behind it remained unmistakably American: it was about securing Gaza Marine’s offshore gas fields, controlling the narrative around the Jewish State’s overreach, and ensuring any reconstruction effort aligns with Washington’s strategic and energy interests.

One may recall that Zionist resistance to foreign oversight runs deep, exemplified by the anti-British 1946 King David Hotel bombing. Today, Israel’s far-right rejects any Western role in Gaza, with Minister Smotrich repeatedly warning against foreign control and Netanyahu vowing to “finish the job” if Hamas refuses to disarm. In fact, as of today, Tel Aviv still claims the military upper hand.

In this context, Washington continues to pressure its closest ally. Leveraging Israel’s UN vote on Ukraine funding and sidelining Netanyahu at key moments, including Trump skipping Israel on his spring tour, made clear that American support (decisive as it is) is not unconditional, or at least is not without a price.

Arab partners, meanwhile, remain wary. The US President refusal to firmly condemn Israel’s siege tactics in Gaza, despite pressure from the Gulf, has angered key players. Saudi Arabia and Qatar insist that Palestinian statehood remain non-negotiable, even as Washington pursues economic deals in AI, rare earths, and arms. The Gaza plan thus sits at the intersection of American leverage politics and regional exhaustion.

Beth Oppenheim, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, argues that without Israel’s cooperation, Trump’s plan is doomed to fail. For her, Europeans and Arab partners must shape the process, pressuring the Jewish nation to commit to concrete steps toward a two-state solution and monitoring the West Bank to curb destabilizing activity.

She suggests suspending the EU-Israel association agreement should Tel Aviv become obstructive. It remains unclear whether European powers would also be willing to acknowledge that they too have leverage — and whether they would be willing to use it.

In any case, Washington’s tendency to bypass Palestinian authorities, coupled with Blair’s attempted revival, is exactly what fuels the perception of neocolonial meddling. The PA has already insisted that any governing body for Gaza must be tied to it, not to external committees staffed by American real-estate moguls and retired Western statesmen.

Trump’s defenders argue that the US is simply filling a vacuum created by Hamas’s collapse and the PA’s supposed dysfunction.

But framing Gaza as a managerial problem that can be outsourced to Kushner, Witkoff, or Blair is a profoundly colonial mindset, to say the list. It inevitably echoes the provisional authorities of Iraq and Afghanistan, where Western administrators promised stability but delivered protracted chaos. The Gaza blueprint, by sidelining indigenous political actors and privileging Western oversight is doomed to reproducing those same dynamics.

The US Gaza plan, simply put, is pitched as a pragmatic initiative, yet it is blatantly interventionist. It aims to manage Gaza’s resources, geopolitics, and governance from afar, while containing Tel Aviv’s maximalist impulses (amid a genocide) without confronting them directly.

It is, in short, an attempt to “govern” the Holy Land through Anglo-American committees and envoys rather than through genuine diplomacy rooted in local agency. It alienates Arabs and also enrages the Israelis, who claim sovereignty in the same area (especially the Israeli far-right). It is thus hard to see how such a 21st-century “mandate” could work.

Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.

Categories: Analysis, Geopolitics, Palestine

Tags: Donald Trump, EU, Europe, Geopolitics, Israel, Palestine, USA