Bill Ackman wants to rebuild Gaza as NEOM

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We explain why this is a very bad idea.

For over a year, Gaza has been subject to widespread and indiscriminate bombings and military campaigns. A result of the Israeli government’s retaliation after the horrific attacks of October 7th, the action has seen over 40,000 civilians killed including countless children. Many public services have been wiped from the region along with housing, schools and hospitals in a campaign that can only be described as urbicide: the act of “city killing”.

The extent of the damage has been the focus of widespread outrage and during this period, prominent figures have pitched visions for how the region will be rebuilt with one of the most vocal being Bill Ackman.

Who is Bill Ackman?

Ackman is a billionaire hedge fund manager and the CEO of Pershing Square Capital. He rose to prominence with a series of high profile bets such as shorting (betting against) nutrition company Herbalife and more recently, a trade in March 2020 that yielded $2.6bn in under 30 days as the world markets shuttered during COVID-19.

Ackman has previously made headlines within the architectural world with the contentious planning battle for a Foster + Partners designed NYC penthouse for himself and his wife, Israeli-American designer Neri Oxman.

In recent months, Ackman has been vocal on social media about a range of issues related to the war in Gaza. He has denounced the campus protests that have swept across America and made efforts to blacklist any students who signed petitions denouncing the offensive on Gaza. In September, he claimed that protesters in Israel are rewarding Hamas’ acts. The comments come amidst a wave of discontent within Israel with the government’s failure to rescue multiple hostages still captured by Hamas.

What did he say?

On 6th April 2024, Ackman tweeted a framework for how Gaza could be rebuilt.
Below is the entire tweet posted by Ackman:

“A few high-level thoughts on a potential solution in Gaza:

Step one:

Give Gazan residents something to look forward to. Without hope, there is only despair, anger, and violence.
Hope comes from Israel’s and United States’ commitment that once Hamas is destroyed, Israel and the U.S. will support the creation of New Gaza subject to security commitments from the U.S. and Gulf states.
New Gaza is completely rebuilt with modern infrastructure, sustainable energy and clean water, world-class architecture, technology, healthcare, education, favorable taxation, thoughtfully designed business creation incentives, and world class resorts on the Mediterranean.
The design of New Gaza begins immediately with a global competition where master planners, architects, technologists, form consortiums to compete for large financial awards and the opportunity to build a new city from a blank sheet of paper.
New Gaza is a model city. Think the Saudi NEOM.com but on the Mediterranean. New Gaza is rebuilt and governed by a consortium of Gulf states and the U.S.
Economic and tax incentives are designed to encourage private foreign investment so private sector investors have a vested long term interest in Gaza and businesses are incentivized to locate in Gaza.

Step two:
Civilians in Rafa are moved to a refugee camp safe zone built in the Negev desert adjoining Gaza.

Step three:
IDF destroys Hamas.

Step four:
The reconstruction of Gaza begins.

Step five:
Civilians return as the city is rebuilt.

As always, I welcome your feedback. If you have nothing constructive to say, please keep it to yourself. Flame throwing accomplishes nothing. If you think this is a bad approach, please share your better ideas.”

Why is this a bad idea?

While high level, the proposal makes troubling assumptions. Examining Ackman’s ideas show how a NEOM like construction strategy is not only ill suited to a warzone but in many ways may make it worse for those at its heart, Gazans.

The idea of “New Gaza” being a “NEOM on the Mediterranean” stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the project actually is. The following article will attempt to dissect his thoughts for the future of Gaza.

What is NEOM?

NEOM is a gigaproject under construction in Saudi Arabia near the northern tip of the Red Sea. A $500 billion endeavour, it is scattered across various proposed regions ranging from an outdoor ski resort to the widely publicised “The Line”, a 105 mile linear city.

The subject of much publicity, admiration and outcry, NEOM is one of the largest construction projects underway in the world. Its branding depicts a utopian world of gravity defying engineering and near impossible ideas. In order to truly uncover its aims, NEOM has to be seen from the lens of global affairs.

After decades of being covered as a repressive and autocratic regime, in recent years, Saudi Arabia has implemented multiple schemes to rehabilitate its global image. These include the annual six month long “Riyadh Season” cultural festival and other projects that fall within its Saudi Vision 2030 program, a sweeping effort to socially and economically diversify the country. Some of Saudi Arabia’s key diplomatic tactics have been global sporting events and big ticket construction projects. From bidding for the 2034 men’s football world cup and the LIV Golf tournament to attempting to build the new tallest building in the world.

Saudi Arabia’s need to diversify comes from a singular challenge, its dependence on oil. The International Energy Agency predicts that the world will hit ‘peak oil’ around 2030 after which we will see a terminal decline in production. This would pose a significant threat to the world's largest oil exporter, whose government revenues rely on oil for 75% of its income.

NEOM is therefore the keystone to a much larger strategy of future proofing Saudi Arabia. Its primary purpose is not to create the infrastructure of the future or become a beacon of sustainable development. It is an attempt at rehabilitation and designed to be a profitable addition to the Saudi diplomatic toolkit.

By design, NEOM’s aim is to create the most audacious proposals in order to excite investors and generate tourism. Despite Ackman specifying “world class resorts” as a key element of his proposal, using this as a model to rebuild a warzone would ensure misplaced priorities.

Of all of the priorities that may come to mind when rebuilding a warzone, resorts for foreign travellers seems a perverse proposal. The links between an over reliance on tourism and the sidelining of locals is an age old concern. From exploitative holiday rentals, traffic and the detriment to local culture, demonstrations across the world have been calling for a greater management of the holidaymaker. Catering to short stays and international tastes would ensure that Gazan culture is placed under more strain and not given the space it would need to thrive.

Above all, Gaza should be rebuilt as a home to those who have been displaced and should allow a life of health, safety and dignity. A focus on tourism and external stakeholders would shift focus away from those who need it most.

NEOM is designed to be an escapist paradise, its very selling point is that it is not like the mainstream perception of Saudi Arabia. It relies on a very deliberate disconnect from the environmental, social and political history of its home nation in order to make it attractive. It would then go without saying that ignoring the complicated and nuanced history of one of the most contentious parts of the world is not the correct answer.

“If Israeli bombardment continues as it is currently, who will be left to return?”

A matter of site

NEOM also benefits from the fact that the locations of its projects have been selectively chosen and developed. By having little to no built context for any of the planned projects, NEOM can be made as audacious and often improbable as computer renderings would allow as this is a strategy to attract investment into Saudi Arabia.

The prospectus futuristic sites are something from science fiction. It prioritises an uber-interventionist design philosophy of modifying the desert mountain landscapes with seemingly little respect for the environmental context.

Using this approach on Gaza would be far from the ‘blank sheet of paper’ that Ackman makes it out to be. Gaza was not an empty swathe of land before today but one of the most densely populated parts of the Middle East. While living conditions were marred by years of exploitative treatment by the Israeli government, Gaza still carries a deep Palestinian culture within its borders. It is home to many and has been for centuries. Portraying the loss of life, history and infrastructure as a ‘blank sheet of paper’ for redevelopment is not simply a false parallel with the NEOM project but a deeply offensive characterisation.

Forceful development

One of the most damning revelations about the NEOM project is that Saudi Arabia had issued kill orders on local tribes that lived on the proposed site. Some 20,000 members of the Huwaitat tribe on the site face eviction with no certainty on where to go. An April 2020 order authorised the use of lethal force against all who resisted the eviction process*. Perhaps the most significant parallel here is that Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman has also described the NEOM development opportunity as a “blank canvas”.

*The kill order was reported on by the BBC one month after Ackman’s tweet, however, there had been multiple accounts of forceful displacement prior to April 2024.

Architecture’s ego

Ackman’s description of the design process emphasises a global competition where the architects, planners and technologists compete for large financial rewards. The importance is not placed on building a safe home for the displaced but simply the monetary reward.

Building a community requires thorough and extensive involvement from locals as they understand their needs best. Outsourcing this to a global competition increases the possibility of out of touch proposals by individuals more concerned about a project’s PR potential as opposed to genuine impact.

This is by no means a new phenomenon. Architects have regularly been parachuted into such high profile projects only to produce designs which, upon further inspection, reveal a net detriment to the local community. A previous DA article examined the effects of building a large Hindu temple at the heart of a pilgrimage site in India. A flagship of India’s ruling party, the BJP, its ambition was to serve as the centrepiece of the city’s redevelopment. Along with a new airport and various cultural sites, the sweeping changes were highly publicised in the run up to the 2024 election. However, displacement of locals and stunted community engagement resulted in a voter backlash which eventually led to the BJP losing the city’s prized constituency.

“Palestinian data shows that around 80,000 homes have been destroyed”

Rebuilding is not straightforward

While undeveloped, points four and five of Ackman’s tweets oversimplify the rebuilding process to a considerable extent. It is worth remembering that for the duration of the rebuilding time, Ackman is proposing that displaced residents live within a desert refugee camp. This would be on top of the time they spend within refugee camps until the war is over.

Clearing the rubble:
Before any rebuilding can begin, rubble must be cleared from the existing sites. UN estimates place the volume at approximately 40 million tonnes, all of which could take 15 years to clear at a price tag of $500-600mn. This rubble would contain contaminants, unexploded ordnance as well as the remains of almost 10,000 missing bodies.

Homes:
Palestinian data shows that around 80,000 homes have been destroyed in the war. Rebuilding just the homes could take up to 2040 but is likely to draw on for much longer. This would require repatriation of individuals, with estimates suggesting 1.9mn out of a pre-war population of 2.3mn having been displaced.

Infrastructure:
The infrastructure damage to Gaza is placed at $18.5bn. An Oxfam report suggests almost 90% of water wells have been destroyed and 100% of desalination plants. The infrastructure to be rebuilt will include roads, services, healthcare and industrial developments. Gaza’s capacity to feed itself has also been all but eliminated after UN data reveals the catastrophic impact on farms and orchards. While much of the agricultural land has been destroyed, it should be noted that contaminants from the bombardment would also result in increasing the proportion of infertile land.

Public facilities:
Over 120 schools and universities, 600 mosques and 200 government facilities have been eliminated during the bombardment. According to satellite data analysis by the UN, two thirds of all buildings in Gaza have sustained some form of damage while in May, it was reported that over 90% of buildings on Gaza’s eastern border were destroyed.

It is clear from reported data that rebuilding Gaza will be one of the biggest challenges in the coming years. While these are estimates taken over different periods in the war, it is a bleak thought to expect any time scales to decrease when the destruction shows no sign of relenting.

Ackman states simplistically that “citizens return as the city is rebuilt” without acknowledging the simple notion that if Israeli bombardment continues as it is currently, who will be left to return?

Almost half of Gaza’s pre-war population was under the age of 18. A decades-long Israeli blockade of medical supplies and other essentials into the strip has meant that individuals simply do not get the chance to grow old. The confinement of Gaza has been an active policy to suffocate a struggling region. If these were the existing conditions, how realistic is the possibility that a child that survives today’s war, living in the proposed refugee camp, will actually outlive the rebuilding process?

The rebuilding of warzones is a process fraught with sensitivity and volatility. It requires a clear focus on the critical needs of the population and a prioritisation of work that can ensure the safety and wellbeing of survivors. By sapping proposals of any cultural and historical context, it is bound to propose a form of construction that serves only one client, the bottom line. Oversimplification achieves nothing and lends itself to the trivialisation of the Gazan population and the war at large. When the Gaza strip is still being actively destroyed with little to no hope for a ceasefire in the immediate future, proposing to turn it into a waterfront haven is an idea not worth entertaining.

DECOLONISE ARCHITECTURE