The Virtuous City Vision: A National Platform for Gaza’s Governance and Renewal
An Civilizational Endgame to the Israel-Hamas War
Preamble
We are in the endgame of the endgame of the Israel–Hamas war — with no civilizational endgame. The Virtuous City Vision for Gaza is not an alternative peace plan, but a civilizational augmentation to the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict: an effort to supply the moral, philosophical, and intellectual architecture that technocratic agreements alone cannot sustain.
Where the Comprehensive Plan focuses—correctly—on security arrangements, demilitarization, governance transitions, and reconstruction sequencing, the Virtuous City Vision addresses the deeper failure beneath every collapsed ceasefire: the absence of a shared telos and a reciprocal moral horizon. It provides the cultural and civic logic that allows an otherwise sound technical framework to endure—functioning as the civilizational operating system beneath the plan’s operational code.
This vision is reciprocal by design. Its success depends not only on Palestinian transformation, but on parallel Israeli commitments that make such transformation rational and credible. These include: acceptance of a permanent cessation of large-scale military operations in Gaza once demilitarization benchmarks are met; meaningful facilitation of Gaza’s reconstruction and external access under international auspices; bridging mechanisms to restrain West Bank settlement expansion; and recognition that Palestinian renewal requires a genuine horizon of sovereignty, dignity, and continuity of life. Without these reciprocal constraints, no stable Palestinian polity can hold.
The Virtuous City Vision derives its strength from synthesis—the disciplined integration of geopolitical realism with moral philosophy, social contract theory, and lived dialogue. It builds atop existing diplomatic scaffolding, binding security, reconstruction, governance, and human flourishing into a coherent moral and institutional order, inspired by Al-Farabi’s concept of the Virtuous City: a society in which political order and collective flourishing reinforce one another.
If the Comprehensive Plan defines what must be done, the Virtuous City Vision defines what both peoples must become for peace to hold—Palestinians through civic and moral renewal, and Israelis through restraint, reciprocity, and the disciplined acceptance that security cannot be sustained by domination alone.
I. Foundational Vision
Gaza’s New Telos
The old telos of Gaza was forged in resistance. For generations, the strip carried the weight of a nation denied its rights, absorbing the blows of occupation while serving as the anchor of Palestinian steadfastness. Armed resistance was not a whim; it was the instrument a stateless people used to assert existence, dignity, and a national claim in a world that offered them no political horizon beyond imperial domination.
The planetary devastation of the Israel–Hamas war has altered that landscape. The losses are vast, the wounds generational, and the political horizon for armed struggle has narrowed beyond recognition. The task before the Palestinian nation now is immense. A people with a right to defend themselves against dispossession must also secure a future in which their children can live beyond perpetual sacrifice and the misery of the greatest humanitarian catastrophe to befall the Palestinian people.
Rebuilding Gaza now demands a new Telos. Instead, Gaza will be rebuilt as the Virtuous City of Gaza: a place of intellectual, spiritual, and moral renewal, where suffering gives way to shared learning, civic participation, and collective flourishing. It will be the crown jewel of Palestinian nation-building, rising from the ruins of war into a living symbol of renewal — a society where every individual, like the constellation of organs in a living body, contributes to the health and harmony of the Gaza Strip, ensuring it becomes a developed, prosperous, and secure home for the Palestinian people.
This platform builds upon the scaffolding of the current ceasefire and reconstruction agreement by defining a moral, civic, and institutional architecture for Gaza’s post-war governance. Where existing frameworks stop at demilitarization and aid logistics, the Virtuous City Vision sets out a comprehensive model for self-rule, education, and long-term regional integration — a blueprint that marginalizes militant governance while preserving Palestinian dignity and national identity.
This transformation will be guided by a new social contract for Gaza, affirming that citizenship entails moral responsibility, civic virtue, and a shared duty to sustain peace. The Palestinian people will be empowered and uplifted from the ashes of destruction to build a Gaza worthy of its martyrs.
II. Institutional Framework
Coalition for Canaan
The Coalition for Canaan shall be established by the Board of Peace as a subsidiary coalition of the willing, serving as the dedicated security and civilizational security architecture for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Coalition is conceived as a problem-specific instrument through which willing states assume shared responsibility for stabilizing Gaza, securing the postwar transition, and constructing a durable pathway toward resolving one of the Middle East’s most persistent sources of instability.
The Coalition functions within the broader Virtuous City Vision, which serves as the civilizational, geopolitical, and security architecture for the Middle East. Within this framework, Gaza operates as a primary pilot zone, while the Coalition for Canaan serves as the Israeli–Palestinian execution layer—integrating hard security arrangements, political stabilization, reconstruction discipline, and long-horizon civilizational repair into a single operational system.
Operationally, the Coalition shall act as the principal multilateral vehicle through which Board-authorized stabilization, reconstruction, and governance-transition efforts are implemented and sustained. Its core functions shall include providing security guarantees, coordinating and enforcing reconstruction commitments, aligning political responsibilities among participating states, and ensuring that Gaza’s recovery is durable, insulated from renewed conflict, and embedded within a credible political endgame.
For purposes of geopolitical architecture and civilizational framing, the Board of Peace shall also be referred to as the Board of Wisdom and Peace, reflecting its stewardship of the House of Wisdom and Peace—the peace-building education and doctrine body within the Virtuous City Vision—while retaining its function as the executive authority overseeing stabilization and long-term strategic coherence. This designation is informal and descriptive only, and does not create a separate institution or alter the Board’s legal authority, composition, or mandate.
Core members of the Coalition shall include Israel, the future State of Palestine, and the principal mediator states—namely the United States, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey—with additional states admitted by mutual agreement under the auspices of the Board. Additional participants may include, but are not limited to, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Participation reflects demonstrated willingness to assume political responsibility, provide material support, and uphold the Coalition’s governing mandate.
The Coalition for Canaan shall operate across a defined, time-bound horizon aligned with the objectives of stabilization, political transition, and regional integration. Its initial mandate shall not exceed ten years, with continuation or renewal contingent on measurable progress toward security normalization, institutional reform, and sustained regional cooperation. Decision-making will be grounded in broad consensus, supported by mechanisms designed to reconcile divergent interests, prevent paralysis, and enable timely and effective action during periods of crisis.
The Five-Point Mandate of the Coalition for Canaan
The Coalition for Canaan operates under a unified mandate composed of five governing mandates. These mandates function as binding constraints on political action, security provision, and postwar governance, designed to prevent recurrence of mass violence and to discipline the exercise of power in the region.
1. Moral Mandate: Break the Cycle of Genocide
Coalition members formally pledge to acknowledge and end the cycle of genocidal violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and to prevent a recurrence of planetary devastation such as the Israel–Hamas war. This obligation requires confronting incitement, protecting civilians, and institutionalizing mechanisms of restraint that prevent either society from reverting to policies of annihilation. Civilian life is affirmed as a non-negotiable foundation of legitimacy.
2. Political Mandate: Establish a Time-bound Pathway to Two States
The Coalition commits to advancing a credible, time-bound political transition aligned with the two-state framework. Stabilization efforts in Gaza must not become substitutes for political resolution. Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel will be anchored within a single diplomatic horizon that prevents indefinite delay, strategic ambiguity, or unilateral alteration of final-status outcomes.
3. Practical Mandate: Stabilize, Rebuild, and Guarantee
The Coalition coordinates Gaza’s reconstruction through defined responsibilities for funding, security provision, institutional oversight, and long-term guarantees. Member states explicitly commit resources and personnel, transforming reconstruction from ad hoc assistance into enforceable burden-sharing. This mandate exists to reduce uncertainty, deter escalation, and ensure that reconstruction translates into durable stability.
4. Civilizational Mandate: Heal the Western–Arab/Islamic Divide
Recognizing the conflict’s capacity to escalate into broader civilizational confrontation, the Coalition treats the Western–Islamic divide as a strategic liability requiring active management. Through institutionalized cooperation and shared responsibility, the Coalition works to decouple the Israeli–Palestinian conflict from global identity warfare and to prevent the Holy Land from functioning as a permanent fault line in the international system.
5. Spiritual Mandate: Covenant the Sanctity of Peace in the Holy Land
The Coalition affirms peace itself as a sacred obligation in the Land of Canaan. This mandate does not impose theology, but establishes a shared ceiling on violence by protecting holy sites, shared inheritance, and the moral gravity of the land. Peace is treated as a covenantal responsibility, restraining power where law alone has repeatedly failed.
Dual Transformation and Regional Integration
Taken together, the Five-Point Mandate defines the dual transformation required for a durable postwar order in the Land of Canaan. Gaza’s reconstruction and political renewal demand an internal telos oriented toward civic virtue, education, and human flourishing beyond perpetual resistance. Israel’s long-term security and legitimacy, by contrast, require external constraints that discipline the exercise of power and convert military dominance into regional membership. These are not parallel demands, but complementary necessities shaped by radically different positions of vulnerability and strength. Only when Gaza adopts a future-oriented purpose capable of sustaining life, and Israel accepts binding guardrails that enable its full integration into the Middle East, can stabilization mature into settlement and survival give way to permanence. The Five-Point Mandate exists to bind these transformations together—ensuring that renewal in Gaza and restraint by Israel converge into a single, enforceable regional order rather than diverging into another cycle of catastrophe.
III. Post-Conflict Transition, Stabilization, and Security
The Covenant of the Virtuous City
The Virtuous City Platform assumes a ceasefire and phased Israeli withdrawal completed under international supervision. Its purpose is to guide Gaza’s stabilization and governance during the post-war transition — ensuring security, reconstruction, and a narrative shift toward civic and intellectual renewal.
This transition is governed by The Covenant of the Virtuous City, a binding political and security agreement (hudna) that codifies the cessation of offensive operations, demilitarization commitments, verification procedures, and the structured pathway from armed struggle to lawful political integration.
The Covenant of the Virtuous City is not another Israeli-Palestinian truce. It is a constitutional bridge between genocidal violence and civilizational renewal — anchoring restraint, legitimacy, and governance where perpetual war once stood.
International Stabilization Force (ISF)
Upon invitation by the Palestinian Authority, an International Stabilization Force (ISF) shall be deployed under the auspices of the Board of Wisdom and Peace and the Coalition for Canaan to maintain internal stability, enforce demilitarization, and secure Gaza’s borders.
Its operational mandate will include:
Training and equipping vetted Palestinian police forces, in coordination with Coalition security institutions.
Preventing rearmament and illicit smuggling through sustained monitoring of Gaza’s land and maritime boundaries.
Guaranteeing the safe movement of humanitarian aid, goods, and people, while enabling the gradual reopening of Gaza’s crossings under international supervision.
Assisting with border management, reconstruction security, and civilian protection during the transitional period.
Maintaining a unified command structure under the Coalition for Canaan to coordinate deconfliction between Palestinian forces, Israel, Egypt, and international partners.
Coalition members will collectively guarantee compliance with demilitarization terms and protect Gaza from renewed destruction during the lifetime of this security architecture. This mutual guarantee will extend to the enforcement of the Hudna Agreement, ensuring that no armed faction — internal or external — can undermine the transition to the Virtuous City geopolitical architecture.
Coalition forces will also maintain a joint rapid-response mechanism to address violations, mediate flashpoints, and prevent escalation through direct coordination with the UN Security Council and the Virtuous City Council.
Over time, as Gaza’s reformed police and civil institutions demonstrate capacity and trust, the ISF will scale down its presence in phases, transferring full security control to Palestinian authorities operating within the framework of the Coalition for Canaan and the long-term Hudna.
Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) as a Political Process
All military infrastructure and weaponry in Gaza will be frozen, decommissioned, or dismantled under Coalition supervision, with verification procedures embedded directly into the hudna agreement. These procedures are designed to be predictable, discreet, and free from humiliating intrusions.
As part of this arrangement, the Palestinian right to self-defense against indefinite occupation will be formally recognized within the hudna framework1, with the understanding that this right is exercised only in service of an eventual negotiated settlement grounded in the Virtuous City Vision and anchored in the principle of national self-determination within the pre-1967 armistice lines.
Former members of Hamas and other militant factions who commit to the Virtuous City Vision will be integrated into civilian life under a structured amnesty program guaranteed by the Coalition for Canaan. This process includes counseling, education, and economic reintegration pathways designed to redirect Gaza’s social energy toward community service, entrepreneurship, and large-scale reconstruction.
To accommodate the internal diversity of the factions and avoid coercive, one-size-fits-all outcomes, this reintegration process is organized through a four-lane Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) framework, providing distinct, dignified off-ramps:
• Civilian Reintegration — education, employment, and reconstruction service
• Security Integration — non-ideological personnel absorbed into lawful public-order roles
• Political Franchisement — conditional transition from armed struggle to representation through PLO reform and elections
• External Safe-Passage — voluntary relocation under Coalition-guaranteed protections
Individuals unwilling to participate in Gaza’s post-war civic order may pursue the external safe-passage option under guarantees negotiated through The Covenant of the Virtuous City and overseen by the Coalition.
To stabilize the post-war environment while preserving full Palestinian agency, all armed factions operating in Gaza will adopt a temporary ceiling on the size of their military wings. This manpower cap functions as an interim measure pending national negotiations on the political integration of all resistance factions into the PLO under the Ballot or the Bullet Doctrine2, which holds that meaningful enfranchisement is the only viable pathway to de-escalation.
The cap will be embedded directly into the hudna, ensuring that armed capacity remains finite, predictable, and subordinate to the emerging political process. Verification of compliance will be conducted discreetly through the Coalition’s regional intelligence partners—principally Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt—whose longstanding channels with Palestinian factions enable quiet, credible monitoring. This mechanism avoids the dangers of coercive disarmament while providing the core security guarantee of the entire framework: factions retain their identity, Palestinians retain ownership of their political and security trajectory, and the Coalition gains confidence that armed formations will not expand unchecked during Gaza’s reconstruction and transition toward unified political representation.
IV. Governance and Administration
Interim Governance Framework
Gaza will be governed under a temporary technocratic Palestinian Unity Government known as the Virtuous City Council, responsible for municipal services, infrastructure, and public administration. This interim authority will ensure that day-to-day governance remains Palestinian-led and accountable, while laying the groundwork for a reformed, representative administration capable of sustaining long-term self-governance.
Oversight of the Virtuous City Council will be provided by the Board of Wisdom and Peace and expanded under the Coalition for Canaan framework to include both regional and international partners. The Board will guide the Council’s priorities, coordinate reconstruction funding, set performance benchmarks for Palestinian Authority reform, and ensure adherence to international governance standards throughout the transition.
Together, the Board and the Council form a dual governance architecture: Palestinian executive leadership paired with international guarantees. This structure anchors Gaza’s stabilization and reconstruction in U.S. diplomatic leadership, Arab partnership, and multilateral legitimacy, advancing the Virtuous City Vision of justice, dignity, and human flourishing for all Palestinians.
Palestinian-Authorized Security Coordinator and Reconstruction Custodianship
To safeguard stability during Gaza’s post-war transition, the Palestinian Authority (PA) may—by consensus with the Coalition for Canaan—appoint a Security Coordinator and/or a Reconstruction Custodian from among participating Coalition nations for a period not exceeding ten years. These designations are designed to ensure continuity of governance, accelerate reconstruction, and uphold Palestinian sovereignty throughout the transition.
If a Security Coordination Framework is established, the appointed nation will assume primary responsibility for border integrity, ceasefire enforcement, and internal security coordination, operating strictly under Palestinian authorization and in partnership with the Coalition. The Coordinator’s mandate is to stabilize the security environment in which the Transitional Gaza Technocratic Government can function effectively, support the reintegration of civil institutions, and ensure a peaceful transfer of authority to a reformed Palestinian government once stability is achieved.
Within this framework, Egypt stands as the natural candidate for Security Coordinator, given its geographic proximity, longstanding mediation role, and established border-management capacity.
If a Reconstruction Custodianship is adopted, the designated nation or institution will focus exclusively on Gaza’s humanitarian, educational, and economic renewal—acting as a developmental and moral steward of recovery while exercising no direct administrative control. The custodian’s mandate is to mobilize resources, ensure transparency in aid delivery, and advance the Virtuous City Vision by rebuilding not only physical infrastructure but also civic institutions and social resilience.
In this role, the United Arab Emirates is envisioned as a leading Reconstruction Custodian, leveraging its financial capacity, modernization expertise, and regional credibility. Saudi Arabia may likewise serve as a Custodian, contributing unparalleled financial scale, religious legitimacy, and growing experience in post-conflict development—anchoring Gaza’s reconstruction within a broader Arab and Islamic consensus.
This pairing—Egypt as Security Coordinator, with the UAE or Saudi Arabia as Reconstruction Custodian—offers a balanced and synergistic arrangement. Together, these states provide the regional legitimacy, financial depth, and operational cohesion required to ensure that stabilization and reconstruction proceed in tandem.
Across all configurations, a single principle governs: governance in Gaza remains Palestinian-led at the local level, internationally supported at the strategic level, and strictly time-limited in its external guarantees. This structure safeguards accountability, legitimacy, and sovereignty while minimizing the risk of relapse into conflict.
Should neither framework be enacted, the Palestinian Authority will assume full security and administrative responsibility for Gaza following a transitional period as per the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict. While this fallback preserves Palestinian sovereignty, it may limit international investment and slow implementation of the Virtuous City Vision by reducing access to Coalition resources, diluting the underlying geopolitical architecture, and oversight mechanisms.
The Virtuous City Convention
To ensure that Gaza’s future governance is authentically Palestinian and grounded in civic legitimacy—while aligned with a durable resolution to the wider Israeli–Palestinian conflict—a Virtuous City Convention shall be convened at a neutral venue under the auspices of the Board of Wisdom and Peace and the United Nations.
The Convention will debate, amend, and ratify the Virtuous City National Platform as both Gaza’s transitional governance framework and a civilizational pillar of a broader Israeli–Palestinian endgame. It will convene representatives of the Palestinian Authority, Gazan municipal leadership, independent civil society, Palestinian factions willing to engage in good faith, and participating Coalition for Canaan member states.
The Convention’s outcomes shall include:
• Ratification of the Virtuous City National Platform as Gaza’s transitional roadmap and a contribution to the wider conflict-resolution architecture;
• Agreement on the structure and timeline of international support and custodial arrangements assisting Gaza’s recovery within the Coalition framework;
• Endorsement of the Hudna framework defining demilitarization, reconstruction priorities, and a pathway toward Palestinian unity and regional stabilization.
Participation will be open to all parties committed to advancing this vision through civic, non-militant means. The Convention’s final declaration shall be transmitted to the United Nations Security Council and the Coalition for Canaan as a formal Palestinian–international mandate for implementing the Virtuous City Vision within the broader Israeli–Palestinian settlement process
V. Humanitarian Relief, Reconstruction, and Development
Right to Stay. Right to Resettle. Recognition of Displacement.
No one shall be forced to leave Gaza. Gazans retain the right to remain and participate fully in the rebuilding of the Virtuous City.
Those who choose to depart may do so freely. Such a departure is recognized as an act undertaken under conditions shaped by the cycle of genocidal violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Individuals who leave Gaza shall be formally recognized as displaced persons, displaced by this cycle, and their status shall be recorded accordingly.
The right to return shall be preserved in principle and safeguarded under international law. At the same time, it is acknowledged that for some, departure may constitute a permanent resettlement, whether by choice or circumstance. No person shall be penalized, stigmatized, or deprived of recognition for electing to rebuild their life outside Gaza.
Gaza’s reconstruction is undertaken first and foremost for those who remain, while honoring the dignity, legal status, and historical truth of those whose lives have been irreversibly shaped by displacement.
Economic Redevelopment of Gaza, For Gazans, By Gazans
Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of its people, who have suffered more than enough under blockade and conflict, and for its integration with the wider Levant.
The Palestinian People’s Labor Movement
To ensure that Gaza’s reconstruction is genuinely for Gazans and by Gazans, a revived Palestinian labor movement will serve as a clean, inclusive, and representative civic body of Gaza’s native workforce. During the transitional period following the removal of Hamas from political control, this body will operate explicitly as a non-electoral labor and civic institution, focused on stabilization, reconstruction, and institutional continuity. Its evolution into a formal political party will occur only after basic governance, security, and civic normalization have been achieved.
This initiative does not emerge in isolation. It consciously builds upon Palestine’s existing labor traditions and institutions, including the historic role of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and the worker-organizing legacy of the Palestinian People’s Party. These institutions once provided an essential civic counterweight within Palestinian society, organizing workers, defending livelihoods, and anchoring social solidarity amid prolonged political struggle. Over time, however, labor institutions became fragmented by factional competition, geographic division between Gaza and the West Bank, donor dependency, and the distortions introduced by prolonged occupation and militant governance. The transitional labor movement seeks neither to erase nor to supplant these bodies, but to reactivate, federate, and civilianize their remaining human and organizational capital under post-militant conditions.
The long-standing divisions between Hamas and Fatah render premature political unification or joint governance both unrealistic and destabilizing. Gaza therefore requires a civilian labor anchor positioned outside factional competition, capable of absorbing human capital from the militant era without reproducing militant politics. The labor movement provides this civic center: rooted in Palestinian society, grounded in worker dignity, and insulated from the corruption, ideological polarization, and command structures that defined prior systems of rule.
This model intentionally avoids the catastrophic errors of de-Ba’athification. Rather than purging ordinary workers or dismantling Gaza’s civilian bureaucracy, the labor movement will integrate existing civil servants, municipal employees, and technical professionals — preserving essential institutional capacity while excluding senior militant, security, or partisan leadership. Human capital accumulated under militant governance will be recycled into a civilian reconstruction framework, not discarded, criminalized, or collectively punished.
Former members of Gaza’s police and internal service structures may participate in this labor framework subject to vetting, civilian oversight, and retraining, provided they renounce armed political violence and accept pluralist civilian governance. Skills once used to enforce factional order will be redirected toward rebuilding neighborhoods, restoring services, maintaining public safety, and protecting vulnerable populations under a civilian mandate.
The labor movement will unify teachers, engineers, healthcare workers, builders, farmers, municipal staff, and civil servants — the backbone of Gaza’s social and material infrastructure — as equal partners in reconstruction. These professionals will lead education, public health, agricultural revitalization, urban rebuilding, and civic administration, ensuring that Gaza’s physical reconstruction is matched by institutional renewal, ethical restoration, and collective well-being.
The movement will also champion the restoration of lawful Palestinian labor access to Israel under regulated and reciprocal conditions. Prior to October 7th, tens of thousands of Palestinians relied on employment in Israel, sustaining livelihoods and maintaining quiet economic interdependence between the societies. Reestablishing this lawful employment channel will be essential for mitigating unemployment shocks, rebuilding trust, restoring skills, and re-knitting a shared economic fabric that underwrites long-term stability.
As reconstruction progresses and civilian governance stabilizes, the labor movement may — in later phases — evolve into a formal political party or serve as the core of a broader civic electoral coalition. Any such transition will be contingent upon demilitarization, institutional reform, and the establishment of conditions under which elections can occur without reproducing factional coercion or armed political capture.
Throughout all phases, the labor movement will serve as a guardian of Palestinian agency within the emerging geopolitical architecture, ensuring that international support empowers Palestinian self-determination rather than substituting for it. Reconstruction is treated not merely as material recovery, but as a civic and moral project grounded in dignity, work, and collective responsibility.
Above all, the labor movement will adopt the Virtuous City Vision as its guiding ethical and civic framework — treating reconstruction not merely as material recovery, but as a moral and institutional project.
In its later evolution into a formal political party, this framework will guide the translation of the Virtuous City’s principles into public institutions, education, economic policy, and social life, ensuring that Gaza’s rebuilding becomes the foundation for a just, humane, and flourishing society.
In this framework, labor is understood not simply as economic activity, but as civic virtue — the means through which personal effort contributes to collective flourishing, social dignity, and the moral renewal of Palestinian society.
The Virtuous City Economic Development Program and Social Contract
A Virtuous City Economic Development Program will rebuild Gaza through infrastructure, commerce, and regional integration — fostering a community grounded in education, justice, and civic responsibility. Gaza’s reconstruction will focus on long-term self-sufficiency and integration with the Levantine and Mediterranean economies, ensuring that Gazans evolve from aid dependency to self-reliant contributors to regional prosperity.
The program incorporates the PA’s 56-program Gaza Recovery & Reconstruction Program3 as a technical foundation for sectoral redevelopment, while embedding those initiatives within a broader political, philosophical, and economic architecture designed to deliver durable stability.
This program will serve as the economic foundation of a new social contract in Gaza — one in which work, dignity, and shared purpose replace dependency, factionalism, and despair. Investments will prioritize industries and institutions that create dignified work, cultivate intellectual growth, and reestablish Gaza as a regional center of learning, innovation, and human capital.
A new humanitarian airport and seaport will be constructed from war rubble, providing Gaza with its first independent, secure link to the outside world. This project will stand as both a physical and symbolic reconstruction of Gaza — transforming the ruins of war into gateways for commerce, travel, and exchange. Security will be guaranteed by the Coalition for Canaan, ensuring that illicit smuggling does not occur.
The initiative will complement the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor (IMEC), positioning Gaza as a vital node in regional trade and logistics, linking South Asia, the Gulf, and the Mediterranean through a cooperative network of ports, rail, and energy corridors.
To achieve this transition responsibly, clear expectations will be set for continued economic aid and technical assistance throughout the reconstruction period. Coalition members and donor nations will commit to multi-year financing frameworks tied to measurable progress in infrastructure, governance, and education — ensuring Gaza’s recovery remains stable, predictable, and insulated from political disruption.
Beyond reconstruction, Gaza will function as the economic gateway between Israel and the Arab world — the connective hinge linking IMEC, the Gulf, the Levant, and the Mediterranean. By routing regional trade, logistics, aviation, and digital infrastructure through Palestinian territory, the Virtuous City Economic Development Program converts Palestine from an aid recipient into an indispensable corridor state. This structural role anchors Palestinian sovereignty in the architecture of regional commerce and creates a shared economic destiny in which Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab prosperity become mutually reinforcing. Peace becomes not a moral aspiration but an economic necessity.
US-Palestine COFA Framework
A highly customized Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the United States — initially concluded with a reformed Palestinian governance entity and designed to convert into a full U.S.–Palestine COFA when sovereignty is achieved — will establish a Gaza-wide economic zone, ensuring duty-free access to U.S. markets, educational resources, and development assistance.
The COFA framework will serve as Gaza’s gateway into the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor (IMEC), integrating the Strip into regional and global supply chains through investments in logistics, technology, and clean infrastructure.
To guarantee sustained progress, long-term economic aid commitments and expectations will be formalized within the COFA structure. These commitments will provide predictable financing, technical expertise, and market access — helping Gaza transition from dependency toward self-sustaining growth while maintaining macroeconomic stability during the reconstruction period.
Through this arrangement, Gaza will become both a partner in global commerce and a model for cooperative development — linking the moral vision of the Virtuous City with the pragmatic economics of interdependence and shared prosperity.
VII. Cultural, Educational, and Civic Renewal, Moral and Religious Reconciliation
Ending the cycle of Israeli–Palestinian extermination requires more than governance reforms or security arrangements. It requires a shared conceptual framework — one that gives both societies a coherent way to understand each other’s origins, culture, and place in the region.
To provide that foundation, the Coalition for Canaan will formalize three interlocking traditions: a historical, an intellectual, and a religious. Each clarifies a different dimension of the relationship between the two nations.
New Canaanism
To institutionalize this understanding, the Coalition will define a shared intellectual, educational, and Rehumanization curriculum — provisionally referred to as New Canaanism.
This framework acknowledges the intertwined ethnogenesis of Israelis and Palestinians, emphasizing that both peoples draw from the same Bronze Age roots of the Land of Canaan. In doing so, it deliberately distinguishes itself from the Old Canaanite movement of early Hebrew nationalism — an illiberal literary project that sought to reject the Diaspora, sever Jewish identity from Judaism, and assert a narrow, ethno-civilizational narrative.
New Canaanism is the opposite: it expands identity rather than restricts it, and uses shared ancestry to build mutual recognition, not exclusion.
At the same time, any ancestral framework must recognize the identity-based dispute that surrounds this topic. Israelis and Palestinians hold deeply rooted, often incompatible historical narratives shaped by trauma, scripture, cultural memory, and national formation. For many Israelis, the Hebrew story is anchored in covenant and peoplehood rather than Bronze Age anthropology; for many Palestinians, national identity is grounded in uninterrupted presence and the lived experience of dispossession, not ancient ethnogenesis.
The Canaanite framing interacts with these truths unevenly. Some find it illuminating, others see it as reductive or politically charged, and many regard it as peripheral to their core identity. This diversity of interpretation is legitimate. New Canaanism does not seek to overwrite or adjudicate national narratives, but to offer an additional lens that future generations may adapt, reinterpret, or decline as they see fit.
Member states will commit to integrating this curriculum into their education systems, establishing programs grounded in civic virtue, mutual recognition, and resistance to dehumanization. The goal is to cultivate a generation that views the Other not as an adversary but as a relative — a fellow inheritor of the same ancient land and story.
This initiative will raise and exceed UNESCO standards for peace education and cultural preservation, embedding reconciliation into schools, universities, and cultural institutions across the region. Though the name New Canaanism is provisional and will evolve through consultation among future educators, historians, and theologians, its purpose is to give a moral and intellectual direction to reconciliation — offering language to bridge fault lines without claiming to resolve them overnight.
Defining the Judeo-Islamic Tradition
Parallel to New Canaanism, the Coalition will define and promote a curriculum centered on the shared cultural, intellectual, and spiritual heritage of Jews and Muslims. Across centuries, these communities lived, learned, and created side by side — shaping philosophy, science, law, and art in ways that transcended religious boundaries.
To name and honor this intertwined legacy, the Coalition will adopt the term “Judeo-Islamic Tradition.” This phrase refers not to a theological merger but to a civilizational relationship that once bound Jewish and Muslim life in shared inquiry, moral exchange, and coexistence.
Formalizing the Abrahamic Tradition
The Abrahamic Tradition will be formally established as a framework for coexistence among Muslims, Jews, and Christians — enshrining covenants at all sacred sites, mutual recognition of each community’s ties to the Holy Land, and a shared duty to safeguard the dignity of worship.
The starting point for this framework draws inspiration from Rabbi Menachem Froman and Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who together sought to develop a peace rooted in both Halakha and Sharia — a sacred covenantal language shared across their respective faiths. Their dialogue represented one of the rare moments in modern history when a rabbi and a Muslim leader attempted to reconcile the divine imperatives of justice and mercy across religious lines. Building upon their unfinished work, the Abrahamic Tradition will formalize this spiritual foundation into modern covenants — including those tied to the Temple Mount — transforming their vision of religious peace into a durable architecture for coexistence.
This is not an attempt to create a new syncretic faith, but a recognition of the shared lineage of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Whatever form the formal tradition ultimately takes, it will only be innovative enough to stop the bloodshed in the Holy Land — a binding tradition anchored in the spiritual inheritance of the Children of Abraham.
English as the Operational Language of the Three Reconciliation Frameworks
To ensure clarity, neutrality, and ease of cooperation, the Coalition will formally designate English as the primary operational language for the three reconciliation frameworks. This reflects existing practice: throughout the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the Israel–Hamas war, English served as the principal medium for information exchange, humanitarian coordination, and diplomatic engagement. The designation, therefore, formalizes what is already a de facto reality, providing a neutral linguistic platform that avoids privileging Hebrew or Arabic in joint settings.
This measure does not alter national language policies or diminish the centrality of Hebrew or Arabic within their respective nations. Instead, it ensures that all educational materials, interfaith programs, cross-border curricula, joint university initiatives, and coalition governance structures operate through a common and nonpolitical linguistic interface. English becomes the shared working language of the frameworks themselves, enabling Israelis and Palestinians to engage in collaborative institutions without linguistic asymmetry or cultural tension.
Purpose and Scope
The purpose here is definition, not conclusion: to name and describe these traditions so that future educators and scholars can develop them into full curricula. This plan has no illusions about the state of emotions and hardened attitudes in each nation. The hope is that, over time, these programs will document and teach the common ethical, philosophical, and aesthetic heritage of the peoples of the Levant, fostering renewed understanding among their modern descendants.
Taken together, New Canaanism, the Judeo-Islamic Tradition, and the Abrahamic Tradition form the intellectual and moral architecture of the Coalition’s reconciliation project — offering the vocabulary, concepts, and shared reference points through which coexistence can be taught, practiced, and eventually lived.
House of Wisdom and Peace
A House of Wisdom and Peace will be established in the rebuilt Gaza Strip as the regional anchor and keystone of the Virtuous City of Gaza — the central institution for dialogue, reconciliation, and intellectual renewal, and the cornerstone of the Abrahamic Tradition.
Despite decades of blockade and devastation, Gazans possess one of the highest per-capita rates of advanced degrees in the Arab world—a testament to how deeply the pursuit of knowledge has become an act of resistance and identity. The House of Wisdom and Peace will honor this tradition of education amongst the Palestinian people.
It will convene scholars, community leaders, educators, and youth from across Israeli and Palestinian society, as well as the Levant, to cultivate civic education, interreligious understanding, and a shared culture of restraint and coexistence.
The House will operate under the principle of Multiple Truths and Reconciliation, recognizing that peace cannot emerge from a single narrative imposed by force, but through the honest coexistence of differing memories, identities, and interpretations of history. Through this process, Gaza’s people will learn to confront their own pain and that of others — not to erase guilt, but to transform it into moral responsibility.
As an immediate confidence-building project, coalition sponsors of the House of Wisdom and Peace Initiative will guarantee every child's right to access education within one year, symbolizing the renewal of learning and dignity as the foundation of renewal. Every screen and every meal will represent a commitment to knowledge over violence, and to building a generation whose nourishment is both intellectual and human.
As part of this cultural renewal, the House will also create a new civic media platform — Voices of the Virtuous City — amplifying the full spectrum of Palestinian voices committed to truth, reason, and the future of the Palestinian nation. This public forum will nurture a culture of accountability, empathy, and creative expression, where disagreement becomes a form of education rather than enmity.
In this way, the House of Wisdom and Peace will serve as Gaza’s moral mirror — a place for atonement and renewal — ensuring that the rebuilding of the Strip is not only a matter of concrete and steel, but of conscience and truth.
VIII. Territorial Integrity
West Bank Territorial Integrity
A land lease scheme shall be implemented for all Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank—guaranteed by the United States—as a necessary collective countermeasure for operationalizing the binding duty of non-recognition arising from the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of population into occupied territory, and whose violation was unambiguously affirmed by UN Security Council Resolution 2334 and the 2024 International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion. Lease payments will be collected and held in a trust established by the Coalition for Canaan, creating a binding mechanism to safeguard the viability of the two-state solution.
To ensure accountability and slow unauthorized expansion, all future construction and development within West Bank settlements will be required to undergo the same permitting and regulatory process that applies inside Israel proper. This harmonization of standards will end the fast-track system that has enabled unchecked growth in Area C, subjecting new projects to Israel’s normal environmental, zoning, and judicial review mechanisms.4
This framework does not constitute annexation or recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank. It is a regulatory and financial mechanism designed to impose parity, transparency, and legal restraint while maintaining the political status quo pending a final peace agreement.
Distribution from the Trust to the benefit of Palestine will be managed by a member of the Coalition for Canaan, the Reconstruction Custodian, if selected, once expectations set by the coalition are met by a reformed Palestinian Authority.
IX. Coalition Continuity And Pathway to a Two-State Solution
Path to Statehood and Normalization
As Gaza’s redevelopment advances and meaningful reform of the Palestinian Authority is carried out, the conditions will be created for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, in accordance with the two-state solution. The Coalition for Canaan will assist and provide services to both the Palestinian and Israeli nations during this transition, ensuring stability, reconstruction, and regional integration as both peoples move toward peaceful coexistence.
Coalition Continuity and Evolution
The Coalition for Canaan is not conceived as a one-off intervention, but as a durable peace table and support architecture capable of adapting to the evolving needs of the Israeli and Palestinian nations. Even after Gaza’s immediate stabilization, the Coalition may remain in place to provide continuity across education, interfaith dialogue, mediation, external guarantees, economic integration, security coordination, and reconstruction—while actively supporting the expansion of bilateral normalization between Israel and Arab and Islamic states and the formal international recognition of the Palestinian State.
As trust deepens and regional cooperation matures, the Coalition may optionally evolve through structured, time-bound phases, each tied to concrete responsibilities and reciprocal actions rather than abstract promises:
Phase I: Coalition of the Willing
This phase focuses on consolidating the post-war order. Core objectives include the full reconstruction of Gaza, sustained support for Palestinian Authority reform toward viable statehood, and the completion of Israeli military disengagement from Gaza. During this period, the Coalition functions as a stabilizing alliance—enforcing ceasefire terms, underwriting reconstruction, and ensuring that political transition remains anchored to a credible two-state horizon.
Phase II: Alliance Model
As stability holds, the Coalition may mature into a broader regional alliance for peace and shared prosperity. This phase emphasizes continued international support for Palestinian state recognition, expansion of the Abraham Accords and related normalization tracks, development of long-term reconciliation frameworks, easing of movement restrictions, and the initiation of phased Israeli disengagement from the West Bank under international coordination.
Phase III: Voluntary Confederation
Should participating states consent, the Coalition could lay the groundwork for a voluntary confederation of sovereign states, with Israel and Palestine serving as the core. This phase would be defined by full mutual state recognition, deep regional economic and infrastructural integration, comprehensive implementation of reconciliation frameworks, freedom of movement, and the completion of Israeli disengagement from the West Bank. The confederative horizon is explicitly voluntary and grounded in mutual restraint rather than uniformity.
Participation in any phase beyond the initial mandate remains entirely voluntary. By consensus, the Coalition may instead choose to dissolve gracefully once its founding mission is fulfilled, or to retain its existing structure as a permanent forum for dialogue, mediation, and regional stability.
This long-horizon vision echoes the early aspiration of David Ben-Gurion for a Jewish–Arab federation—a region bound not by domination or enforced harmony, but by cooperation, shared responsibility, and respect for the sovereignty and dignity of every nation.
In all outcomes, the Coalition for Canaan serves as a moral and diplomatic keystone—supporting Israelis and Palestinians as they move forward under the two-state paradigm, while accepting the deeper task no agreement can resolve once and for all: the continuous reconciliation of two profoundly different nations determined to live side by side rather than return to cycles of extermination.
X. Conclusion
This war cannot be finished by force alone, nor by ceasefire terms that lack a political horizon. Gaza can be shattered, occupied, blockaded, or intermittently rebuilt, but without a durable settlement, the conflict will simply revert—on a new timetable—back into the same logic that produced October 7th and the planetary devastation that followed. The central problem is not the absence of plans; it is the absence of an end state that is credible enough to discipline power, dignify the defeated, and survive the next crisis.
A workable endgame must therefore do something deceptively simple: it must give the Israeli and Palestinian nations—and their allies, patrons, rivals, and enemies—a shared political framework within which they can contend without returning to existential war. Movements rooted in regional resistance traditions will continue to agitate. Israeli hardliners will continue to agitate. Outside states will continue to interfere. None of that ends because a document is signed. What can end is the default outcome of that agitation: the reflexive slide from political struggle into cycles of extermination.
The Virtuous City Vision is offered as that framework. It is not a substitute for the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, but its civilizational completion: a moral and institutional architecture that makes security arrangements durable by giving Gaza a future worth defending and giving Israel a form of restraint worth choosing. It asks Palestinians to trade the telos of permanent armed resistance for a telos of civic virtue, education, and national reconstruction. It asks Israelis to accept enforceable constraints that convert military dominance into regional legitimacy and make Palestinian renewal rational, credible, and survivable. Without reciprocal obligations, no transformation can hold. Without a coherent telos, no reconstruction can last.
The end goal is straightforward, even if the path is not: a stable polity of a Palestinian state and an Israeli state living side by side, protected by a Coalition capable of enforcing restraint, underwriting reconstruction, and sustaining a long diplomatic horizon. Beyond that, the deeper work begins—continuous reconciliation between two nations with vastly different histories, theologies, traumas, and self-understandings. This platform does not pretend those differences will dissolve. It is designed to manage them, civilize them, and prevent them from being resolved through annihilation.
This is why the framework is time-bound yet long-horizon: the Coalition for Canaan exists to carry the political settlement across the dangerous decades when spoilers, grief, and distrust are strongest. It may evolve. It may dissolve. But it must—at minimum—buy history the one thing it has never been granted in this conflict: time under enforceable restraint.
If there is any lesson left to learn, it is that the Holy Land will not be saved by sentiment, nor by domination, nor by rhetoric about peace that refuses to name the constraints required to secure it. It will be saved—if it can be saved at all—by a settlement that is hard enough to deter violence, dignifying enough to be accepted, and wise enough to outlast the passions of the moment. The Virtuous City Vision is a bid to make that settlement imaginable, actionable, and survivable—so the next generation inherits a framework for building, arguing, and reconciling, instead of a framework for killing.
Annex A: Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reintegration (DDR) Framework
Overview
This framework establishes a multi-pathway, phased demobilization process for Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions. The goal is to provide a viable political and security off-ramp that preserves dignity, minimizes fragmentation, protects the civilian population, and enables Gaza’s transition into the Virtuous City governance model. The framework balances the political requirements of the Palestinian factions, the security requirements of Israel and regional states, and the operational requirements of the Coalition for Canaan.
1. Multi-Lane DDR Architecture
A successful DDR process requires multiple tailored pathways due to the internal diversity of Hamas and the other resistance factions. The four-lane approach aligns each category of personnel with an appropriate demobilization outcome, while supporting the broader political transformation required for PLO reform and national integration of all Palestinian factions.
A successful DDR process requires multiple tailored pathways due to the internal diversity of Hamas and the other resistance factions. The three-lane approach aligns each category of personnel with an appropriate demobilization outcome.
Lane A: External Safe-Passage Track
This pathway accommodates ideological fighters, senior Al-Qassam commanders, and individuals who refuse to integrate into the Virtuous City Vision’s new institutions.
Objectives:
Remove high-risk actors from Gaza without humiliation or mass arrest.
Provide safety guarantees through Coalition member states.
Prevent militant sabotage of the transition.
Mechanisms:
Safe-passage corridors negotiated by Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the United States.
Structured, monitored residency in selected Coalition states.
Non-extradition guarantees.
Prohibition on command-and-control activities.
Lane B: Security Integration Track
This includes personnel in Hamas-run policing structures, civil defense units, and non-ideological security roles.
Objectives:
Preserve public order during transition.
Redirect existing security manpower into the new Gaza police force.
Prevent the emergence of fragmented militias.
Ensure that all integrated personnel are ideologically aligned with the Virtuous City governance framework.
Mechanisms:
Vetting and retraining by Egypt and Jordan.
Integration under the authority of the Palestinian Authority and the Coalition Security Coordinator.
Purging of individuals linked to severe abuses or extremist activities.
Lane C: Civilian Reintegration Track
This applies to the majority of fighters recruited for income, status, or basic security functions.
Objectives:
Provide employment, stability, and status without continued militarization.
Use manpower for Gaza’s reconstruction and state-building.
Prevent economic desperation from fueling insurgency.
Mechanisms:
Absorption into the Palestinian People’s Labor Party and Reconstruction Corps.
Employment in education, construction, public sanitation, engineering, and civic work.
Blended teams to prevent partisan capture of labor institutions.
Lane D: Political Integration & PLO Reform Track
This lane establishes the long-term political horizon for the resistance factions, recognizing that sustainable demobilization requires a credible pathway into national political institutions.
Objectives:
Support integration of resistance factions into a reformed PLO.
Replace armed struggle with political representation and electoral legitimacy.
Anchor the hudna and DDR process within a national political settlement.
Doctrinal Basis:
As Malcolm X warned in The Ballot or the Bullet, denying political inclusion ensures the persistence of armed struggle. The Virtuous City Vision restores the choice: a political home for every Palestinian faction so the ballot can replace the bullet.
Mechanisms:
National dialogue facilitated by Egypt, Qatar, and the PA.
Structured negotiations on PLO reform.
Temporary manpower caps embedded directly into this lane to prevent re-militarization while political integration is negotiated.
Caps are jointly negotiated by PA, resistance factions, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and ISF partners, and strictly monitored by the Coalition for Canaan.
Caps serve as a transitional mechanism pending agreement on full integration into a reformed PLO.
Demilitarization Linkage:
Phased deactivation of armed structures occurs in parallel: UXO clearance, dismantling of rocket capabilities, and dissolution of command networks.
Internal security responsibilities shift to vetted PA-led forces.
The political lane becomes the ultimate destination for factions as arms are relinquished.
Security Coordinator Role:
All operational ambiguities, enforcement challenges, and risks within this lane are addressed by the Security Coordinator (Egypt), acting on behalf of the Coalition for Canaan to ensure compliance and stability.
A political track synchronized with the temporary manpower caps to ensure orderly transition.
Only by countries participating in the ISF force overseeing disarmament, as Israel cannot be expected to agree.
https://ammannet.net/sites/default/files/2025-11/MoPIC%20-%20Gaza%20Recovery%20%26%20Reconstruction%20Implementation%20Program-15_0.pdf
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-dilemma-becomes-smotrichs-as-trumps-21-point-plan-nears-decision/
What a great contribution to help end the conflict. An oasis of common sense in a desert of hate and empty rhetoric. Keep up the good work!