Gaza: Refugee Wasteland to International Riviera

President Trump shocked the world this week when he said that the U.S. would take over Gaza to level it and rebuild it into the “Rivera of the Middle East.” To accomplish this, the Palestinians would be relocated from a devastated war zone in Gaza to other countries where they would have proper housing, electricity, running water, educational and career opportunities, and medical care.

Many, of course, jumped on this to ridicule Trump and the plan as a forcible displacement of a population and a “crime against humanity.” In turn, they ignored not only the global historical reality of refugee resettlement but also the humanitarian aspect of his plan to give the Palestinians a much better life as well as, more broadly, the opportunity to end the cycle of violence and destruction that has been going on for more than a century.

The Palestinian Arab neighbors, Jordan and Egypt, are dead set against having any Palestinians relocated to them. Jordan has a history of civil war with the PLO, often called Black September (1970). In addition, King Abdullah was assassinated in 1951 by a Palestinian on the Temple Mount. Similarly, Egypt has long fought the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas in Gaza is an offshoot. But above and beyond this, the Arab League wants to keep the Palestinians as perpetual refugees and in an endless war with Israel. This weakens their historical “infidel” enemies, the Jews, and serves as a scapegoat for manipulating their disgruntled populations who generally live under ruthless dictatorships that enrich themselves at the expense of the common people. When their people are busy hating on the Jews and Israel, who are blamed for all the injustices of the world, then they are distracted from holding their corrupt governments accountable.

What’s incredible is that rather than having compassion on their Palestinian brothers and sisters and resettling them like every other people impacted by war have been throughout history, including up to 60 million people displaced as a result of World War 2, the Arab League prefers to keep the Palestinians in place, in squalid refugee camps, destitute, indoctrinated with hate and violence, and fighting for a cause that has long been lost to them.

After the UN 1947 Partition Plan, the Muslim countries expelled more than 800,000 Jews who were resettled in Israel and elsewhere, but in almost 80 years, the Arab League has refused to absorb a similar number of Palestinians who were displaced as a result of the 1948 War of Independence, where they and a coalition of six Arab countries rejected compromise and partition for a two-state solution living side-by-side in peace and instead chose to try to annihilate Israel. When the Arabs lost, rather than resettling the Palestinians dislocated by the war they started, they sold them a ridiculous pipe dream that someday they would be able to return.

However, life moves on, and decades later, Israel has built a thriving and steadfast country. At the same time, the Palestinians have been left by their fellow Arabs to languish as refugees, as pawns to threaten and harass Israel, and for diverting attention to use Israel as a scapegoat for everything wrong in the Arab societies, from ruthless governance, corruption, embezzlement, and human rights violations, including oppression of women, LGBTQ, and other minorities.

The reality that should be readily apparent is that the Arabs are not going to conquer Israel and displace over 7 million Jews. Israel is powerful, technology-advanced, committed to “Never Again,” and allied with the United States based on a deep sharing of ideals and values. The Palestinians can continue to try to fly their makeshift paragliders over the Gaza border, dig endless terror tunnel labyrinths, commit terror attacks that routinely end in the neutralization of the shooter as well as the destruction of their homes, and shoot projectiles, which Israel routinely shoots down with a highly reliable missile defense shield, or they can come to their senses.

The tens of billions of dollars of funding, training, infrastructure, and efforts that the Palestinians and their nefarious, self-serving supporters are investing in a fruitless fight for a war long lost could instead be put to productive use to build cities, universities, prosperity, and health for their people in a home that they can call their own. That home is not and will never be Israel. The Palestinians and Arab League fought that war over and over again and lost, period. They continue to bring misery and dishonor to their people, who deserve better and a real future built-in reality and not fantasy.