What are we talking about when we talk about transfer?
The notion of population transfer as part of either a short-term or long-term solution for Gaza has reared its ugly head again. It is being promoted by right-wing and centrist voices in Israel. It is also being advanced by President Donald Trump, who repeated the plan in his White House meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and later at their joint press conference.
But the concept of population transfer is delusional, not to mention immoral, particularly given the history of escape and expulsion that undergird the collective Palestinian trauma known as the Nakba.
Even the early Zionists did not entertain such an immoral notion. Not Ahad Ha’am in his controversial first report from Palestine. Not Yitzhak Epstein, who in 1905 sparked a short-lived debate on Jewish relations with the Arab population when he said “there is in our beloved land an entire people that has been attached to it for hundreds of years and has never considered leaving it.”
Not even the spiritual father of Likud, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, whose testimony to the Peel Commission in 1937 proclaimed clearly: “There is no question of ousting the Arabs.”
Rational actors and policy experts know that beyond the obvious issue – population transfer is just ethnic cleansing by another name – it is also not feasible to implement.
There are two million Palestinians in Gaza. Palestine is their national home. It is interconnected with their family stories and their past. Palestinian identity is deeply rooted in the land. One need only look at the photos and videos of the masses returning to the destroyed parts of northern Gaza with the faintest of hopes they’ll find a few of their valuables intact in the wreckage.
Jews, among all the nations, understand the powerful connection of a people to their land. When Theodor Herzl presented a plan for the territory of Uganda as a temporary settlement at the 1903 Zionist Congress, the Eastern European delegation walked out, with Herzl noting, “These people have a rope around their necks, but they still refuse.”
But let’s pretend for a moment ten percent of Gazans would be willing to leave and Trump was able to find a country willing to take 200,000 refugees. Who would leave? The moderates, the educated, the ones who are not willing to endure endless cycles of violence. Now you have a Gaza Strip with 1,800,000 Palestinians who are, on average, less moderate and even more driven by nationalism. What is the plan then?
If supporters of transfer were honest, they would admit there are only two possibilities: forcibly remove them or make their lives miserable to the point they would choose to leave.
The global community stood with Israel in the harrowing aftermath of the brutal atrocities committed on October 7, 2023. But that understandable goodwill was wasted within months by a government which lacked the courage to define concrete goals for the fighting in Gaza, refused to consider plans for an alternative to Hamas rule over the Strip, and loosened its rules of engagement, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. The nations of the world, whose patience with Israel was exhausted long ago, would not stand by idly as Israel engaged in either ethnic cleansing or war crimes.
Sanctions would most likely first pick up momentum in Europe. Over the last decade, Europe has accounted for more than a quarter of Israeli exports and nearly a third of its imports. The consequences for the Israeli economy would be devastating.
And where would these reluctant Palestinians be forced towards? Southern Gaza and the border with Egypt. If Egypt refuses to accept them, Israel would have to break its treaty with the first Arab country with which it signed a peace agreement. Israel would be facing further sanctions which would limit its ability to import weapons or produce them domestically, all while at war with a country of 112 million people.
Let’s dream big, though, and assume Egypt was willing to take 1.8 million Gazans. Where would they settle them? The most likely answer is the Sinai Peninsula. Whereas before Israel had to defend against terror groups in Gaza over a 37-mile border, they would now have to patrol and defend 128 miles in the middle of a desert. And achieve this difficult feat while under an arms embargo, dealing with brain drain, and an ongoing economic crisis.
Which is to say, again, population transfer is a delusion promoted either by messianic elements who wish to resettle Gaza or by loudmouthed activists not grounded in a realistic understanding of the situation between the river and the sea.
Palestinians will not choose to leave Gaza or the West Bank anymore than Israelis will choose to abandon the Zionist dream to be a sovereign people in our historic homeland.
In the end, there are two people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The only peaceful resolution for this modern conflict is the two-state solution, a diplomatic vision of neighborly relations between two peoples who have more in common than either chooses to admit.