For Mideast Peace, Pay Gazans to Leave

The UN estimates it will cost over $50 billion to rebuild Gaza – a poor investment so long as Gazans remain committed to the destruction of Israel. That money would be better spent financing those who wish to leave.

In the immediate aftermath of President Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza, many international commentators were condemning it as a planned war crime.    

In the US, a group of 350 rabbis and Jewish public figures took out a full page ad in the New York Times, proclaiming:  “Jewish people say NO to ethnic cleansing!”

While the usual (mostly progressive) suspects were gnashing their teeth and nursing their sanctimonious impulses, left unsaid was the fact that, over the course of the past year, more than 100,000 Gazans had paid exorbitant sums to Egyptian officials as bribes in an effort to leave an enclave that has effectively become a terror-infested rubble heap.

How many more would elect to get out if, instead of paying for the privilege of refuge, they were provided viable financial opportunities to move elsewhere and better their lives?

So-called progressive critics of Israel seldom trouble their conscience with the consideration that hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been provided no option at all to escape the existential crisis to which Hamas has exposed an entire captive population – a portion of which dare not speak their minds, lest they come to violence at the hands of the other portion of the population who have been indoctrinated into a nihilistic belief that death and martyrdom is the only worthwhile lifetime goal, so long as it is achieved in the course of trying to destroy the Jewish State next door.

These are the practical circumstances that the international community effectively propose for the “rehabilitation” of Gaza: Several years, if not a decade, of rebuilding the enclave while Gazans remain living in temporary beach shelters, under the continued rule of Hamas (or a similar entity), with their children educated to weaponize themselves for yet another round of death, destruction, and rubble at the end of it all. Mix, stir, and repeat.

For progressives in the thrall of their cherished moral “values”, this is the $50 billion preferred solution for Gaza so long as:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. This is what Palestinians want; and
            2. This is not what Israelis want.

Prior to October 7, 2023, according to the always reliable statistics of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), over 70% of Gazans were registered with UNRWA as refugees.

Practically speaking, this meant that over 70% of Palestinians in Gaza wanted to leave Gaza before October 7^th. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be registered as “refugees” in Gaza.

Under international law, it’s not called ethnic cleansing when a mass effort is made to resettle refugees in other countries. It’s called an international humanitarian effort, except – and here’s the rub – when the effort has the incidental effect of relieving the Jewish State from an ongoing existential threat. In that case, the resettlement effort must be opposed at any cost.

In terms of moral values, progressive critics of Israel –  Jews and non-Jews alike – are perfectly fine with weaponizing the entire Palestinian population against Israel so long as, again, this is what the Palestinians want and so long as it’s not something that the Israelis want.

What’s all the more depressing is that we’re speaking here of Israel’s comparatively good faith critics. Israel’s bad faith critics, on the other hand, couldn’t care less what the Palestinians want. They just want the Jewish State destroyed – and they’re happy to have that price paid in the currency of Palestinian blood and suffering.

If there is any commonality among these critics of Israel – whether moral or amoral – it’s that they prefer zero sum solutions when contemplating “peace” between Israelis and Palestinians.

In this kind of calculus, Palestinian aspirations are the governing variables, even when those aspirations undercut Palestinian interests – so long as they also undercut Israel’s interests.

With that calculus in mind, President Trump’s proposal is to be condemned by such critics because it is premised on a desire to improve Palestinian well-being – even at the cost of undercutting their aspirations – in the course of relieving the Jewish State from an existential threat. That’s what’s known as a positive sum solution.

The vast majority of the Israeli population is currently debating a menu of different positive sum solutions that might have the effect of improving Palestinian lives while relieving the threat against Israeli lives.

One dead end proposal – often advocated by Israel’s leadership – is to regionalize the solution by engaging Israel’s Arab neighbors to step up and invest in the management of Gaza themselves.

Ultimately, that’s a terrible idea. The long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict had its origins in the ideology of pan-Arab nationalism – the desire to unite the region (including Palestine) as one Great Arab Nation.

Since then, the region has been overtaken by a wave of popular religious fervor – one in which the continued existence of an independent non-Muslim nation, in the heart of the Muslim ummah, is to be opposed by any means necessary.

With that kind of regional backdrop in mind, the last thing Israel needs to do is to create new political circumstances for further entangling the Arab Muslim world with the fate of Gaza and the Palestinians. Far better for Israel to create conditions for distancing its regional neighbors from any such solutions.

If the Gazan population were to be offered mass permanent refuge in the Sinai, the existential threat to Israel would merely be relocated to Israel’s southern border, with a growing hostile neighboring population in the Sinai nurturing dreams –and building the military infrastructure – for another attempt at infiltration and invasion.

In the case of Jordan – whose population is already close to two-thirds Palestinian – a mass influx of Hamas-indoctrinated Palestinians from Gaza might provide the demographic tipping point for the collapse of the Jordanian monarchy, giving rise to a hostile Palestinian state on the east bank of the Jordan River – with potentially catastrophic opportunities for infiltration and destabilization of the west bank.

In light of the above, the only practical positive sum solution for Gaza would be to provide financial incentive and opportunity for its residents to voluntarily leave the enclave for multiple countries other than those bordering Israel.

If the Hamas-indoctrinated masses of Gaza were to immigrate to countries with sizable Jewish populations – mainly in North America or Europe – the security implications for Jewish communities outside of Israel would be potentially catastrophic, at least in the short term, until the Gazan immigrant generation gradually assimilated.

The conditions for Hamas’ continuing power over the Palestinian masses arise from the fact that those masses remain captive and concentrated together in just one enclave, beholden to a totalitarian death cult that remains singularly focused on weaponizing the entire population for just one goal – the destruction of the Jewish State.

So long as those aspirations remain within practical reach – just next door to the desired object of destruction – all political solutions for Gaza will end up being zero sum, no matter how well intentioned.

Practically speaking, this means that Gaza cannot viably be rebuilt with a Hamas-indoctrinated population, at least 70% of whom consider themselves as refugees, with the aspiration to resettle in – and to destroy – the state next door.

The fact that a certain proportion of Gazans might prefer to continue living in a terrorist-governed rubble heap – to preserve future opportunities to infiltrate Israel –is all the more reason why a $50 billion fund to rebuild this enclave would ultimately end up being a horrifically expensive zero sum investment.

What if, instead, a $50 billion fund were raised to give those UNRWA-registered refugees in Gaza a viable opportunity to immigrate to destinations where it would be practically impossible for them to destabilize politics in those countries bordering Israel – including the democracies of the West – and where Jewish communities mostly don’t exist?

There are a great many other countries where – if an immigrant were provided with sufficient capital to get established – they and their families might have excellent prospects for building a flourishing and satisfying existence.

What if every Gazan under the age of forty became individually eligible for a one-time payment of $20,000, to be paid from a special fund set up to facilitate their immigration to one of a number of designated  countries? The applicant would have the option to choose from a list of such countries, and upon their immigration to the country of their choice, a bank account would be set up in their name, with payment received in that country’s currency.

Under this proposed scenario, a Gaza family of ten members, for instance, would be eligible for payment of up to $200,000, so long as each member were under the age of forty. Though family members over that age would not be eligible for such payment, the immediate expenses for their relocation (such as plane fare) could be covered under the fund to ensure that families could immigrate together.

In this manner, a $50 billion fund could cover the immigration of virtually the entire population of Gaza, including a large portion of the Palestinian population of the West Bank (25% of whom are registered by UNRWA as “refugees”).

So, then, why would any of these so-called ”designated countries” open themselves up to accepting Gazans as individual immigrants under this scenario? For one, any undeveloped country that opted to participate would be the beneficiary of a massive fund under which billions of dollars would potentially be injected into their economy, depending on the number of Gazan immigrant applicants they allowed in, with an accompanying boost to their currency.

It wouldn’t hurt, either, if the United States assisted the effort by providing its own political and financial incentives for some of these countries to open up their immigration slots to Gazan applicants.

Under such circumstances, the population of Gaza could effectively be dispersed across a number of countries, lessening the opportunities for radicalization and indoctrination that would otherwise come from mass population concentration and isolation in just one area.

One of the benefits of this kind of global dispersion would come not only from the opportunities it would afford Palestinians to free themselves from living in fear and captivity under other radicalized Gazans, but from the opportunities their children would have to free their minds from their prior indoctrination –  a consequence that inevitably would come from living as a small minority gradually assimilating into a new country of refuge.

Now, let us assume that no other country – including the United States – would be willing to finance this fund.

With a GDP of $500 billion, Israel’s current debt-to-GDP ratio is 69% – much below that of the US, Canada, and Japan, while just slightly above that of Germany.  Theoretically, Israel could raise a fund of this magnitude solely on its own credit, marginally increasing its debt in the short-term in exchange for security (and, ultimately, security cost) dividends over the long term.

In practice, Israel would not have to raise such a large sum over a short time span.  Assuming a best case scenario under which the entire under-forty population of Gaza opted to immediately access the fund for such purposes – an unlikely possibility – the point is that Israel could theoretically cover the entire amount of the proposed fund on its own credit.

Israel does not have to wait for the approval of the international community to get this initiative started, at least in terms of covering the finances. It just needs to get the financial structure of the fund in place, to set up its governing protocols, and then commence the application process for those Gazans who wish to access the fund for a better life elsewhere.

Progressive critics would no doubt condemn this proposed fund as a cynical ploy by Israel to cleanse Gaza of its population. However, the beauty of a positive sum solution is that the governing intentions behind it – cynical or otherwise – are essentially irrelevant. If, on an individual level, both Palestinians and Israelis end up leading more fruitful, secure lives as a result, the critics’ opinions have no objective value.

By contrast, if the progressive critics’ preferred zero sum solutions invariably bound the parties to new cycles of death and destruction, then no amount of sanctimonious platitudes and moral chest-beating – no matter how well intentioned – would lend any value to their fundamentally unworkable ideas.

Lastly, this proposed fund is fully in line with the principles of international humanitarian and refugee law.

Gaza is currently in ruins, following from Hamas’ one-day massacre of 1,200 Israelis on October 7^th. Hamas has sworn that, if given the opportunity to do so, it will rebuild and try again.

What sense, then, does it make for the international community to invest in a rebuilding project that Hamas will foreseeably hijack as an opportunity for yet another nihilistic tango of death and destruction with the State of Israel?

Whether operating under the brand of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, the collective aspirations of the Palestinians in Gaza will remain the same: to define themselves as refugees in place – to resist any attempts at resettlement unless they are to be resettled in the state they aspire to destroy.

Yet that is not how refugee law works. Under international law, refugee status ceases once the refugee finds citizenship or secure permanent residence in any country. A refugee is not legally entitled to preserve their refugee status – nor to turn down viable opportunities to resettle elsewhere –  for the sole purpose of returning to their country of origin.

Nor is Israel obligated under international law to facilitate or enable the aggressive aspirations of a hostile neighboring population sworn to its destruction.

If Israel wishes to set up workable financial and political arrangements to facilitate the voluntary immigration of Gazans elsewhere, it has every moral and legal right under international law to do so.

Israel’s enemies, if they so wish, are always free to set up their own counter fund to pay Israeli Jews to immigrate elsewhere. In all likelihood, it might attract a disproportionate number of Israel’s malcontented progressive citizen critics. It’s a free market, so have at it.

Critics may scoff that this proposal is not likely to succeed – that few, if any,  Palestinians would opt for a viable financial package to start a new life with their families outside of Gaza, over the opportunity to live under Hamas in a state of rubble and terror.

But the effort is nevertheless worth a try, for no other reason than that it furnishes Gazans with a positive sum choice that currently does not exist for them – to live better lives, while relieving Israelis of the threat to theirs.