You’ve probably never heard of Yasser Arafat International Airport, and the very words may make you laugh. Yet it existed, briefly, under the Oslo Accords. It opened in late 1998 as Gaza International Airport and was renamed for Arafat when the terrorist leader died in 2004. Israel destroyed its radar and control tower and bulldozed its runway in 2001, in reaction to the Second Intifada. Rebuilding was under way in 2006, when Hamas took over Gaza, but obviously Israel wasn’t going to permit Hamas to have an airfield. The site was bombed and shelled by the Israel Defense Forces and then looted by Palestinians.
It has existed only in memory for the past two decades — until now. The creation of an airport for Gaza is part of a 100-page Arab plan, drafted by the Egyptians and adopted on March 4 at an Arab summit in Cairo as an alternative to the Trump proposal. Those who think that Trump’s idea — to empty the “demolition site” of today’s Gaza of all its residents and rebuild it from the ground up — is unrealistic should take a look at the Arab plan, which might work on another planet but certainly not in Gaza. The proposal for a new Gaza international airport is typical of the Arab plan: It makes sense only if you leave behind any notion of history or reality. It is useless as a guide to what comes next for Gaza.
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