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The Oasis Plan — LaRouche’s Solution for the Middle East
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EIR Editorial Board member Marcia Merry Baker briefed the 94th weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition March 21, 2025, on projects and technologies in use against the desert from North Africa through to China, bearing on reconstruction in Gaza. The following is an adapted transcript of her remarks.

(See transcript below)

March 21—I have a short, illustrated briefing on some of the economic geography of the region at large, with a focus on the kinds of projects relevant to reconstruction in Gaza and throughout the area, given the devastation and genocide there.  

  

We start with a world map from NASA Earth, showing desert regions. Gaza and the Trans-Jordan are right in the middle of the vast desert stretching from West Africa all the way into China, into the Taklamakan and Gobi Deserts.

We can focus in on the Eastern Mediterranean, with this NASA satellite map. You see some of the Trans-Jordan on the right; the Dead Sea is visible; clouds cover the part of the West Bank shown. The Negev Desert is clear, along with the Gulf of Aqaba, and part of the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.
Look at Egypt. The outstanding feature is the Delta of the Nile River, and the lower course of the river. The historic, triangular Delta shows up green for vegetation.
It’s right that we start with Egypt, given its significance in many respects. Earlier in March Egypt released its plan for reconstruction in Gaza. This has been approved by the Arab League and a multi-nation conference is in the works. The Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, the famous Palestinian hydrologists have had excellent plans for decades. But they have been thwarted.
Egypt is at work on reclaiming the desert and creating new cities. You can see what is going on, that can be brought to bear throughout the region. Beyond what you see of the Delta and the Nile itself, a team of Egyptian experts, working with some young researchers in Boston, has mapped the entire land area of Egypt to determine its potentials for transformation into cropland. I believe they have worked under the tutelage—indirectly if not directly– of Dr. Farouk El-Baz, the Egyptian-American who is a remoting-sensing expert, who worked on the Apollo Project. He is an expert on the Moon, as well as deserts. And they figured out, where are the best areas for transformation, if you can bring water to them. This is vital, because Egypt is so import-dependent on wheat, and so crowded together along the Nile. So there are many parts underway in Egypt

We zoom in on the area west of the Nile Delta to a wonderful infrastructure-building program called the New Delta Project. These side-by-side satellite photos show the desert in the New Delta Project. The left photo is from 2018, showing unrelieved desert. No vegetation. On the right is a satellite photo from November 2024, showing new farmlands with vegetation.
Over that period of time, what was brought to bear, is putting in infrastructure of pipes, barrages, and all means to control and direct limited water, to apply it to the desert sands, that have potential to become soil. It is not hopeless sand. Look at the green fields that are now growing things.
The water came a little from the Nile flow, which is scarce, but occasionally has surplus, some desalination and other sources. The most exciting thing is that there is successful use of treated wastewater.
Last year the biggest wastewater treatment plant in the world opened near Alexandria. It has many kilometers of pipes going in to serve new farmland.

The next images show artists’ designs of the plans for the New Delta WasteWater treatment plant, that now have been realized. They are from the photo gallery of The Arab Contractors, one of the building companies, which in fact, is constructing important infrastructure of all kinds throughout Egypt. The New Delta Wastewater Treatment plant also treats run-off of water that has already been applied to fields. The Arab Contractors company notes that one of their clients for water projects is the Defense Ministry of Egypt. This is in the tradition of military engineering for real defense of nations around the world, like the West Point tradition in the U.S., or the Ecole Polytechnique in France. Build the basis for peace .This all makes clear what is going on, with what technologies in Egypt. So whatever may be undertaken in Gaza—over how many years, over how many phases in Gaza, there is no technology problem. The challenge is entirely to act with the political will in the spirit of the common interest.

Before leaving Africa, keeping in mind the map of deserts, and there are other things to note. Look at Tunisia, for example. The Tunisians are very proud that there is “precision agriculture” in the southern highland area, where water can be scarce. But if you use water with absolute GPS precision, and use fertilizer the same way, and test all the time, then you make use of your limited resources in a very high-tech way, in addition building infrastructure to provide plentiful supplies of water.

Here is a young man in a wheatfield, collecting data. Now go eastward, across the Arabian Desert, across Iran, into what has become a desert east of the Aral Sea where, for certain reasons over time, the feeder rivers coming down from the Himalayas—the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya–have become insufficient for the people.

Look here at terra-forming, in other words, intervening to create a new “natural” environment. This scene is in northern Afghanistan. Notice the little map graphic in the upper right corner of the image. What is shown is the Qush Tepa Canal. It is in the Amy Darya River Basin. Its construction began in 2022, under circumstances of terrible lack of resources because of the fierce economic warfare against Afghanistan after 2021. The U.S. and cohorts have imposed sanctions, blocked trade, and seized the assets of the central bank of Afghanistan.

Here are photos from the website gallery of the National Development Corporation of Afghanistan. This state-owned company is building the Qush Tepa Canal, and many other water works, transportation, hospital and other projects. You see a scene of the fleet of trucks put together to start work on the canal. It will be 285 km long. It goes across three provinces. They requisitioned pick ups and dump trucks and anything else that could work, and started work. It’s about a third to a half finished. Fortunately Uzbekistan experts are helping out. It’s part of what should be on the world agenda for international cooperation. Wouldn’t Caterpillar like to be involved, for example. But there has been this economic warfare.

Here are some of the people involved in building the canal. You see that there is a line up of workers. There have been ceremonies to celebrate each step of the way. It is rightly a point of pride, not only of the people of Afghanistan, but the spirit behind the Qush Tepa Canal is a major achievement in all Eurasia.
When finished, it will allow over 500,000 hectares of wheat, that will make Afghanistan once again self-sufficient in wheat, which it was until the 1970s, when all the decades of warfare and strife ensued.
The particularly awful thing about the reaction of the West, is that Washington, London and Brussels refuse to help the farmers who have absolutely ceased growing opium poppy in Afghanistan, and need help to transition to growing other crops.
What we see in the Qush Tepa Canal and other projects in Afghanistan, is that the ability to create benefit here, in the form of water, and there are also oil and gas deposits in northern Afghanistan for development, typifies the spirit in which we need to bring construction and development into Gaza.

The Qush Tepa Canal. We understand, that the Amu Darya River—like the Nile, is insufficient, but we can deal with that, if we are building the future. That’s a topic for another discussion. You can move water on a continental basis. We should be doing that in North America in the dry West, with the North American Water and Power Alliance. And you can do it in Central Asia as well. But that’s another topic.

One more photo of the project. You see how they are moving ahead, and building the infrastructure on the sidelines for the agriculture processing complexes, transportation and so forth. But the lack of resources is acute.

Finally, we go farther eastward to one of the most inspirational programs, and it is very concrete. Here is a map of China, with the lighter areas—and red, being deserts. You see the scope of the deserts. The point to be made is that just this month, it is the 47th year of celebration of tree-planting, and making war against the desert, with great success.

Over 40 years ago, the plans were activated for shelterbelts of tree planting, grassland, and eventually, actual productive farmland development. Beginning in the late 1970s, you see the area concentrated upon (1978-2000), then an area around Mongolia (2001-2020). The shelterbelt program is to go to 2050. In other words, this is development, so that what you do now, is based on what you want in the future.
The area planted to trees in the last 40 years in China is pushing to be the same area as that of Portugal. It was formerly desert; it is now in appropriate types of trees. The planting was done by the military, by the communities, by everyone. Just people going out and planting.

Here is a guest group of planters. Look behind them, and you see the shelterbelt going way off into the distance. These are volunteers from Africa, because this same shelterbelt idea is in action there, except for lack of resources, among 11 nations south of the Sahara Desert. Here are African nationals working in China.

We end this review, with another aspect of this, which is science itself. What has been developed in China and elsewhere are drought-tolerant plants—food crops, grasses, fodder, and anti-desert plant life, good for beating back the sand dunes. This is a photo showing a research facility for drought-tolerant plants in China. This is absolutely what is in order for the Trans-Jordan.
I end by saying what I won’t go into: some of the most fabulous technology is in places like northwestern Saudi Arabia, in the Midian Mountains. Where they are building, or trying to build, a city—Neom, to be very technologically, ecologically advanced, and even have ski slopes.
But if you take those construction methods, instead of building luxury operations, you could be building beautiful and productive nations, not just “gated” enclaves and entertainment zones. Take another example. In my own country, Arizona. They have fabulously transferable dryland farm and hydroponics technology, but it is being used to grow food for free trade, to bilk both domestic farmers, and farmers elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. They grow peppers and ship them by air. But that, too, is another story.
What is going—as we see in Egypt, right there in the eastern Mediterranean, is our world priority. You can see what we can do.

Contact: MarciaBaker@larouchepub.com

Credits for Images:
NASA Earth Observatory
NASA, 2010
NASA Earth
to 6) The Arab Contractors
7) ICARDA
8) ICARDA
9) National Development Corp. (NDC), Afghanistan
10) NDC, Afghanistan
11) NDC, Afghanistan
12) NDC, Afghanistan
13) NDC, Afghanistan
14) European Space Agency, 2004
15) China National Forest and Grassland Administration
16) UNEP/Xinwen Xu
17) World Bank

Palestine’s Ambassador to Denmark Prof. Dr. Manuel Hassassian gave an interview here to the Schiller Institute’s Tim Rush on March 19. The Ambassador had been one of the featured speakers at the Advocacy Summit that the Churches for Middle East Peace held in the city.

Click for Video and Transcript Here

(at min. 50 discussion of Southwestasia):
The Plan to Change the World for the Better | A Conversation with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

We Have The Solution: Build LaRouche’s Oasis Plan

Everyone is speculating on whether President Trump intended to make such an absurd proposal as the United States taking over Gaza and expelling all the Palestinians seriously, or as a bargaining point.  Either way, it will never work that way, and to even express such a thing exposes a disturbing lack of understanding of the regional dynamic, and a lack of recognition that millions of Americans voted for Trump because they hoped he would end the genocide which the Biden/Harris team had been supporting, while claiming that they were “working on stopping it.”

50 years ago, Lyndon LaRouche put forward a proposal for a two-state solution based on addressing the real crisis of the entire region: the lack of water. Tonight I will take  up his proposal with Jason Ross, of LaRouche’s Science Team, and Hussein Askary of the Schiller Institute and the Swedish Belt and Road Institute.

A New Approach Is Needed For Gaza — The Oasis Plan

LaRouche’s Oasis Plan, a Path to Peace and Development

International Peace Coalition #88: The LaRouche Oasis Plan: Water, Not War, Feb. 7, 2025

– Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Peace Through Development

– Palestinian Ambassador to Denmark H.E. Prof. Dr. Hassassian, Stop the Killing, Start Rebuilding

– Hussein Askary, The Impossible is Self imposed Peace Through Development is the Only Way Forward in

The Oasis Plan: The LaRouche Solution for Peace Through Development Between Israel and Palestine and for All of Southwest Asia

Panel 1 – Creating the Conditions for Dialogue, Security, Peace, and Development in Southwest Asia

Moderator: Dennis Speed, Schiller Institute

• Schiller Institute Founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche
• H.E. Prof. Dr. Manuel Hassassian, Palestinian Ambassador to Denmark
• H.E. Mounir Anastas, Palestinian Ambassador to UNESCO
• H.E. Beryl Rose Sisulu, Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa to Mexico
• H.E. Donald Ramotar, Former President of Guyana
• Connie Rahakundini Bakrie, Lecturer, strategic analyst (Indonesia)
• H.E. Pavel Shidlovsky, Chargé d’Affaires of Belarus to the U.S. 
• Prof. Georgy Toloraya, Director, Russian National Committee for BRICS Research
• … and more

Panel 2 – The Oasis Plan, The Physical Foundation for Economic Development of Southwest Asia

Moderator: Stephan Ossenkopp, Schiller Institute

• Jason Ross, Schiller Institute Science Advisor
• Ilya Andreev, First Secretary, Expert in Humanitarian Affairs, Russian Federation Mission to the United Nations
• Dr. Pierre Berthelot, Associate Researcher at IPSE, member of the Académie de l’Eau and director of the journal Orients Stratégiques
• Dr. Kelvin Kemm, nuclear physicist, former Chairman, South African Nuclear Energy Corporation
• … and more, including a U.S. hydrologist and proponent of nuclear desalination