Category: Palestine Falling

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The Humanitarian Paradigm – Answering FAQs (Part 2)

Sequel to the dispelling of  doubts regarding the feasibility – and morality – of largescale, financially incentivized emigration as the only non-kinetic approach for resolution of the Israel-Palestinian impasse.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. -Widely attributed to Winston Churchill

 

Readers will recall that last week I began a two part response to FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) relating to the practical feasibility/moral acceptability of my proposed Humanitarian Paradigm (HP), which prescribes, among other measures, large-scale financially incentivized emigration of the Palestinian-Arabs, living across the pre-1967 lines as the only route to attain long-term survivability for Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

 

To recap briefly

 

In last week’s column, I addressed the question of the overall cost of the funded emigration project, and showed that, given the political will to implement it, it would be eminently affordable – even if Israel had to shoulder the burden alone. If other industrial nations could be induced to participate, the total cost would be an imperceptible percentage of their GDP.

 

I then went on to demonstrate that there is ample evidence indicating a wide-spread desire in large sections of the Palestinian-Arab population to emigrate permanently in search of more secure and prosperous livee elsewhere. This point was underscored by a recent Haaretz article , describing how thousands of Gazans had fled their home to Greece, undertaking perilous risk to extricate themselves from the harrowing hardships imposed on them by the ill-conceived endeavor to foist statehood on the Palestinian-Arabs.  Significantly, according to the Haaretz report, none of them blamed Israel for their plight—but rather the ruling Hamas-regime, which, it will be recalled, was elected by popular vote to replace the rival Fatah faction, ousted because of its corruption and poor governance.

 

Finally, I dealt with the question of the prospective host nations, pointing out that the funded Palestinian-Arab émigrés would not arrive as an uncontrolled deluge of destitute humanity, but as an orderly regulated stream of relatively affluent immigrants spread over about a decade-and-a-half, whose absorption would entail significant capital inflows for the host nation’s economy.  Moreover, given the fact that, globally, migrants total almost a quarter billion, Palestinian-Arab migration of several hundred thousand a year would comprise a small fraction of one percent of the overall number—hardly an inconceivable prospect.  

 

Following this short summary of previously addressed FAQs, we can now move on to tackle several additional ones.

FAQ 4: Won’t fear of fratricide deter recipients?

 

One of the most commonly raised reservations as to the practical applicability of the HP is that potential recipients of the relocation/rehabilitation grants would be deterred from accepting them because of  threats of retribution from their kin-folk who allegedly would view such action as perfidious betrayal of the Palestinian-Arabs’ national aspirations.

 

In contending with this question, it is necessary to distinguish between two possible scenarios, in which such internecine intimidation will be either a phenomenon whose scope is (a) limited; or (b) wide-spread and pervasive.  

 

Clearly, if the former is true, it is unlikely to have any significant inhibiting impact on the conduct of prospective recipients of the relocation/rehabilitation grants.

 

If, however, the assumption is that the latter is the case, several points need to be made:

– If this objection  to the HP is to have any credence, its proponents must present evidence (as opposed to unproven supposition) that potential violent opponents of the HP program have the ability not only to inflict harm on prospective recipients (as opposed to issuing empty threats) , but that they can sustain such ability over time.

 

– In this regard, it should be kept in mind that implementation of the HP entails the disarming, dismantling and disbanding —if need be, coercively—of the ruling Palestinian regime, and reinstating Israeli governance over all territory under Palestinian-Arab control.    

 

 

Inhibiting internecine intimidation

 

The HP is hardly unique with regard to this latter point. All other proffered policy alternatives for the failed, foolhardy two-state formula entail such measures—either by explicit stipulation, or implicit inference—since preserving the current Palestinian regime intact would clearly preclude their implementation.  Indeed, they are even endorsed by some pundits who do not discount the eventual emergence of a Palestinian state, such as Middle East Forum president, Daniel Pipes.

 

Clearly, the dispersal of the central Palestinian governing body, together with the defanging of its armed organs and the deployment of Israeli forces in their stead , will greatly curtail  (although not entirely eliminate) the scope for internecine intimidation and the capacity to dissuade potential recipients of the relocation/rehabilitation grants from availing themselves of the funds.

 

In addition, Israel should task its own formidable military and intelligence services to protect prospective recipients of these grants by identifying, intervening and thwarting attempts to intimidate those seeking to enhance their lives by extricating themselves from the control of the disastrously dysfunctional regime under which they live.

 

Moreover, the international community should be called upon to cooperate with and participate in this principled endeavor to prevent fratricidal elements within Palestinian society from depriving their brethren of the opportunity of better, safer lives. After all, violence against Palestinian-Arabs, who choose to reside within any given host nation, would comprise an intolerable violation of that country’s national sovereignty.  

 

Appalling indictment of “Palestinian” society?  

 

Of course invoking the specter of large-scale fratricide as an impediment to the acceptance of the HP is an appalling indictment of Palestinian-Arab society.

 

After all, the inescapable implication of such an objection to the HP’s practical applicability is that its acceptance by otherwise willing recipients, wishing to avail themselves of opportunity to seek security and prosperity elsewhere, can only be impeded by violent extortion of their kin-folk.

 

Accordingly, if the concern over large-scale fratricide is serious, it is in fact, at once, both the strongest argument in favor of the HP and against the establishment of a Palestinian state.  After all, two unavoidable conclusions necessarily flow from it: (a) any predicted reluctance to accept the relocation/rehabilitating grants would not be a reflection of the free will of Palestinian-Arabs, but rather a coerced outcome that came about despite the fact that it is not; (b) Similarly, the endeavor for a Palestinian state is not one that manifests any authentic desire of the “Palestinian people” but rather one imposed on them, despite the fact that it does not.

 

As a result, any Palestinian-Arab state established under the pervasive threat of lethal retribution against any dissenter will not be an expression of genuine national aspirations but of extortion and coercion of large segments of Palestinian-Arab society, who would otherwise opt for an alternative outcome.

 

In summation then, if the fear of fratricide can be shown to be a tangible threat, it should not be considered a reason to abandon the HP formula. Quite the opposite! It should be considered an unacceptable phenomenon to be resolutely suppressed –by both Israel and the international community—in order to permit the Palestinian-Arab public the freedom of choice to determine their future.

 

FAQ 5: Would funded emigration not be considered unethical “ethnic cleansing”?

 

I have addressed the question of the moral merits of the HP extensively elsewhere (see “Palestine”: Who Has Moral High Ground?), where I demonstrate that the HP blueprint will be the most humane of all options if it succeeds, and the least inhumane if it does not.

 

I shall therefore refrain from repeating much of the arguments presented previously and focus on one crucial issue: The comparative moral merits of the widely endorsed two-state paradigm (TSS) and those of  my proposed Humanitarian Paradigm (HP).

 

Since there is very little doubt (or dispute) as to the domestic nature of any prospective Palestinian state, anyone seeking to disqualify the HP because of its alleged moral shortcomings must be forced to contend with the following question: Who has the moral high-ground?

 

(a) The TSS-proponents, who advocate establishing (yet another) homophobic, misogynistic Muslim-majority tyranny, whose hallmarks would be: gender discrimination, gay persecution, religious intolerance, and political oppression of dissidents? ; or

 

(b) The HP-proponents who advocate providing non-belligerent Palestinian individuals with the opportunity of building a better life for themselves elsewhere, out of harm’s way, free from the recurring cycles of death, destruction and destitution, brought down on them by the cruel, corrupt cliques that have led them astray for decades.

 

Furthermore, TSS advocates should be compelled to clarify why they consider it morally acceptable to offer financial inducements to Jews in Judea-Samaria to evacuate their homes to facilitate the establishment of said homophobic, misogynistic tyranny, which, almost certainly, will become a bastion for Islamist terror; yet they consider it morally reprehensible to offer financial inducements to Arabs in Judea-Samaria to evacuate their homes to prevent the establishment of such an entity?

 

FAQ 6: What about those who remain?

 

This is, of course, a serious question and a detailed response would depend on, among other things, the size of the residual Palestinian-Arab population who refuse any material compensation as an inducement to emigrate.

 

The acuteness of the problem would undoubtedly be a function of its scale. Clearly, the smaller this residual population, the less pressing the need will be to deal with it. For example it seems plausible that if, say, only a hundred thousand Palestinians remain, consideration may well be given to the possibility of offering them Israeli citizenship – subject to stringent security vetting and sworn acceptance of Jewish sovereignty as the sole legitimate source of authority in the land – without endangering the Jewish character of the country.

 

However, it should be remembered that, unlike the two-state approach which advocates perilous concessions, and the one-state prescription which calls for incorporating the Palestinian-Arabs resident across the pre-1967  lines into  Israel’s permanent population, the HP does not involve any cataclysmic irreversible measures.

 

At the heart of the HP program is a comprehensive system of material inducements to foster Palestinian emigration, which includes generous incentives for leaving and harsh disincentives for staying. As detailed elsewhere, such incentives would entail substantial monetary grants, up to 100 years GDP per capita per family in Palestinian terms; while the latter entail phased withdrawal of services (including provision of water, electricity, fuel, port facilities and so on) that Israel currently provides to the Palestinian-Arabs across the pre-1967 lines.

 

Accordingly, should it be found that the initial proposed inducements are ineffective, the former can be made more enticing, and/or the latter more daunting, until the proffered package is acceptable.

 

Seen in this context, it is difficult to envisage that many non-belligerent Palestinian-Arabs would prefer to endure the rigors of discontinued provision of services rather than avail themselves of the generous relocation/rehabilitation funds—especially given the dispersal of the Palestinian regime as an alternative source of such services.

 

FAQ 7 What if the same kind of offer were made to induce Jewish emigration?

 

In addressing this question several points should be borne in mind:

 

The offer would clearly not be made by an Israeli government. After all, the HP is  intended as a measure to: (a)  Ensure – not undermine – the survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews, and (b) Relieve the genuine humanitarian predicament of the Palestinian-Arabs—precipitated by the dysfunctional administration they have been subjected to since the 1993 Oslo process—not Jewish disgruntlement with the imperfect functioning of the Israeli government.

 

Of course, it would be impossible to prevent Arab elements from offering Jews financial inducement to emigrate from Israel, but in this regard it should be recalled that: (a) As a sovereign nation Israel can control the financial flows into the country and impede money from hostile sources reaching Israeli citizens, considerably complicating the transfer and receipt of  funds. (b) Arab governments have been singularly reticent in providing large sums  to advance the “Palestinian cause” and there is little chance (or evidence) that they would advance the hundreds of billions required to finance large scale Jewish emigration;  (c) The overwhelming majority of Israelis enjoy living standards of an advanced post-industrial nation with a GDP per capita around 20 times higher than that in the Palestinian-administered territories; (d) Accordingly, it would be commensurately more difficult to tempt them to leave. Indeed, sums offered would have to be considerably higher to create a comparable incentive, running into millions rather than hundreds of thousands per family. (e) Moreover, a slew of recent polls show the large majority of Israelis are satisfied with their lives – thus the prospect of material incentives to induce large-scale emigration seems remote.  

Urgent Zionist imperative.

 

The HP is the only Zionist-compliant policy prescription that can save Israel from the perilous dangers of the two-state formula and the specter of Lebanonization/Balkanization  inherent in other proffered alternatives. Embarking on its implementation is a Zionist imperative that is both urgent and feasible.

 

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PALESTINIAN SUFFERING AND ISRAEL

The Palestinians the international media don’t talk about — and the reason why.

How can we explain the international community’s indifference to Palestinian suffering? Every day, angry bands of protesters burn the flag of Israel, call for the destruction of the Jewish state and insist that Israel and its Jewish citizens be shunned from polite society and thrown out of the global economy all in the name of opposing “the Occupation.”

Although the breathless protesters insist that all their efforts are directed toward the Palestinians, as it works out, none of their assaults on Israel have improved the Palestinians’ lot. To the contrary, their protests have given a free pass to those that do the most to harm Palestinians.

The angry, hateful protests against Israel tell us nothing about either the history of the Palestinians’ relations with the Jewish state or their present circumstances.

And what are those circumstances? Consider the stories of two different groups of Palestinian prisoners.

The first story relates to the Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails after being tried and convicted of engaging in terrorist attacks against Israel.

Led by terrorist mastermind Marwan Barghouti, who is serving multiple life sentences for killing multiple Israelis, in April more than a thousand jailed terrorists opened a hunger strike demanding an improvement in their prison conditions.

The New York Times published an op-ed by Barghouti and massively covered the strike. Numerous other marquee media organizations similarly provided sympathetic coverage of the event.

Hidden beneath mountains of column inches was the basic fact that the terrorists’ demands made clear that their strike was ridiculous.

They weren’t demanding food. They weren’t demanding fair trials or the right to speak to their attorneys.

They were demanding that Israel add 20 new channels to their standard, free cable television access.

They demanded that Israel let them have telephones in their rooms.

They demanded that Israel buy them air conditioning units.

In other words, they were demanding that Israel treat them better than it treats its own soldiers.

The second prisoner story is the story of the 12,000 Palestinians that have been jailed in Syrian regime prisons since the start of the Syrian civil war. These men, women and children are denied sufficient food and water. They are subjected to torture. Several cases have been reported of Palestinian female prisoners being subjected to gang rapes. More than 500 Palestinians have died in jail. More than 500 Palestinian children are behind bars.

And the plight of the Palestinians on the outside is no better.

Nearly 4,000 Palestinians have been killed by regime forces since the start of the war. Yarmouk refugee camp has been all but depopulated. Whereas before the war began in 2011, more than 120,000 Palestinians resided in the camp just 8 km. from central Damascus, today a mere 20,000 remain. Those who remain have been besieged by regime forces for nearly three years. They have been starved and parched. Running water was cut off years ago.

And yet, the only journalist who has consistently covered the story is Palestinian affairs correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh, writing for the niche website of the Gatestone Institute.

As Abu Toameh noted in a report on the Palestinians in Syria last August, the leaders of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority like their sometimes-rivals- sometimes-partners in Hamas have refused to intervene on their behalf.

To the contrary, the PLO happily reopened its embassy in Damascus last year, despite the fact that it is accredited to a regime that is slaughtering the people that the PLO claims to represent.

Abu Toameh wrote bitterly, “The Palestinians of Syria would have been more fortunate had they been living in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Then the international community and media would certainly have noticed them. Yet when Western journalists lavish time on Palestinians delayed at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, and ignore barrels of explosives dropped by the Syrian military on residential areas in refugee camps in Syria, one might start to wonder what they are really about.”

This week we got reminder of what this is really about from an odd source.

During his interview with NBC’s Megyn Kelly, Russian President Vladimir Putin grew exasperated with Kelly’s repetitious line of questioning about whether or not Russia colluded to get President Donald Trump elected last November.

After repeatedly denying Kelly’s allegations, Putin insisted that the Russian-US elections narrative is simply a conspiracy theory invented by Democrats and their allies to avoid the blame for Hillary Clinton’s defeat.

In Putin’s words, “It’s easy to say, ‘It’s not our fault. It’s the Russians. They intervened. They interfered.’” Putin then compared the anti-Russian conspiracy theory to antisemitism.

“It’s like antisemitism,” Putin explained. Anti-Jewish conspiracy spinners use the Jews as a means to deflect blame for their failures. In his words, “‘The Jews are to blame.’ You’re [not] an idiot. Because ‘the Jews are to blame.’” Putin’s statement is important for two reasons.

First, the former KGB chief knows a thing or two about antisemitic conspiracy theories. Russia has played an outsized role in inventing them for precisely the reason that Putin gave – blame deflection.

It was a precursor of the KGB, the czar’s secret police, that wrote the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion which purported to expose a Jewish world conspiracy to control humanity for nefarious ends.

And in 1949, it was the KGB that created the antisemitic conspiracy that has animated and controlled Western discourse on Israel ever since. It was then that the Soviets invented the term “anti-Zionism,” and began referring to Jews as Zionists.

And this brings us to the second noteworthy aspect of Putin’s discussion of antisemitism. The KGB rebranded Jews as “Zionists” and antisemites as “anti-Zionists” to rescue antisemitism as a tool of political warfare from the ruins of Auschwitz.

Until then, it was socially unacceptable to hate Jews.

After the KGB moved to pan Zionism as a form of colonialism and imperialism, it became fashionable again.

What Putin explained in his remarks is that conspiracy theories are not accidental occurrences.

They are deliberate, premeditated acts of political warfare that serve specific political purposes for their creators.

Anti-Zionist conspiracies, like their traditional anti-Jewish antecedents are particularly attractive because Jews are such an easy target.

Their small numbers and the ease with which they can be singled out makes them natural targets of conspiracy mongers.

After all, who will stand up for Israel and the Jews? Jews, of course, have no credibility as defenders of the Jewish state, because, well, they’re Jews.

As for non-Jewish defenders of Israel – they can dismissed as hired guns or religious fanatics or discredited in any number of other ways.

Sadly, while Putin has no compunction about standing up to the anti-Russia conspiracy spinners, with each passing year, the American Jewish community has had more and more difficulty recognizing that they are the target of a conspiracy theory and acting appropriately. Rather than stand up for Israel and against its detractors, more and more American Jews have joined them.

And those who do not join them try to get out from under the conspiracy web by pretending that it is a rational argument, rather than a conspiracy.

Indeed, increasingly, American Jewish organizations make distinctions between Israel and Judea and Samaria. They don’t take their tours beyond the 1949 armistice lines. They say that boycotts of Jewish products made beyond the lines are legitimate.

They try to “dialogue” with anti-Israel activists and blackball Israeli conservatives.

And lo and behold, it doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work because it cannot work. Because the conspiracy mongers are not interested in compromising, they are interested in delegitimizing the very notion that Jews can argue with them.

The toll this has taken on the American Jewish community was clearly in evidence this week at the Israel Day Parade in New York.

15 years ago, some 100,000 area Jews marched in the parade. This year, official counts put the number of marchers at 40,000. A disproportionate number of them were Orthodox.

Fifty years after the Six Day War, Israel has become a hard subject for American Jews to discuss not because it is hard on the merits to defend, but because the conspiracy theories which have taken control of the non-Jewish discourse on Israel have captured the American Jewish discourse as well.

The most pressing duty of the American Jewish community then is to finally recognize the nature of the battle they are beset by and fight it as hard as they can.

The long-suffering Palestinians will no doubt thank them for doing so.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

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The Humanitarian Paradigm – Answering FAQs (Part 1)

Dispelling doubts as to the feasibility (and morality) of largescale, financially incentivized emigration as the only non-kinetic approach to resolve the Israel-Palestinian impasse.

Consideration should be given even to the heroic remedy of transfer of populations…the hardship of moving is great, but it is less than the constant suffering of minorities and the constant recurrence of war

President Herbert Hoover, The “Great Humanitarian”, in “The Problems of Lasting Peace”.

 

With all the money that has been invested in the problem of the Palestinians, it would have been possible long ago to resettle them and provide them with good lives in Arab countries.  Andrei Sakharov, cited in “The New Republic”, June 22, 2009.

The rise in the number of international migrants reflects the increasing importance of international migration, which has become an integral part of our economies and societies. Well-managed migration brings important benefits to countries of origin and destination, as well as to migrants and their families-. Wu Hongbo, UN Under-Secretary-General, 2016.

 

 

Followers of this column will recall that for well over a decade I have promoted what I have designated: “The Humanitarian Paradigm” (HP).  This paradigm prescribes, among other things, large-scale financially incentivized emigration of the Palestinian-Arab population, resident across the pre-1967 lines, as the only comprehensive, non-kinetic policy blueprint that can enable Israel to adequately address both the Geographic and the Demographic Imperatives, which it needs to contend with in order to endure as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

 

Unfounded skepticism

 

Several reservations have been raised regarding my proposed prescription on various grounds, including skepticism as to its economic affordability, political feasibility and moral acceptability. Some have claimed that an alleged sense of “intense nationalism”, social pressures, and fear of retributory fratricide will preclude any chance of large-scale emigration of Palestinian-Arabs.

 

Such skepticism flies in the face of logical reasoning, historical precedents, empirical findings and the revealed preferences of significant segments of the Palestinians-Arabs themselves.   

 

Accordingly, in the ensuing paragraphs I will attempt to address these reservations, show them to be largely unfounded, and demonstrate that the HP is not only eminently feasible but unequivocally imperative if the Jews are to preserve their national independence and political sovereignty.

 

But before addressing the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) regarding such feasibility, allow me to convey—in brutal brevity—what sets the HP apart from ALL other proposals for resolution.

 

This differentiation resolves chiefly around two elements: (a) the atomization of implementation; (b) the de-politicization of context.

 

With regard to the former, since the envisaged compensation will be offered directly to individual family heads/breadwinners, no agreement with any Arab collective (whether state or sub-state organization) is required—merely the accumulated consent of fate-stricken individuals, striving to improve their lot.

 

With regard to the later, this reflects a sober recognition that, after decades of effort, involving the expenditure of huge political capital and economic resources, there is no political formula for resolution of the conflict and efforts should be channeled into dissipating the humanitarian predicament of the Palestinian-Arabs.

 

FAQ 1: How much will it cost?

 

One of the most common queries raised as to the practicality of the HP is the question of cost.

 

In addressing this issue, it is important to keep three things in mind:

 

(a) The absolute cost of implementation is irrelevant; (b) There is inherent difficulty in reaching precise estimates of the required outlay; however (c) There is no need for fine-tuned precision estimates, since political resolve is the real constraint on implementation– not economic resources.

 

As to the first of these points, it is crucial to grasp that the absolute cost of the proposed measures is not really the issue, but rather the comparative cost, relative to other proposals – including the two-state formula – whose implementation is also certain to entail an ongoing multi-billion dollar price tag. Indeed, one of the few (arguably, the only) comprehensive study of the overall cost of the Oslo Process suggests that by 2014 it inflicted expenditures—excluding the cost of the 50-day long Operation Protective Edge—of almost a trillion shekels (a quarter trillion dollars) on Israel’s economy—producing nothing but trauma and tragedy for Jew and Arab alike.  

As to the second point: The overall cost for large-scale relocation and rehabilitation of the Palestinian population across the  pre-1967 lines clearly depends not only on the scope of emigration grants offered, but on the  actual size of the Palestinian-Arab population in Judea-Samaria and Gaza.  In this regard there is fierce ongoing debate regarding the true population figures for Judea, Samaria and Gaza – with a discrepancy of well over a million between competing estimates.

 

Calculating Costs (cont.)

 

Fortunately, precise appraisals of the required costs are not essential for assessing the affordability of the HP. Rough order-of-magnitude estimates are sufficient for this purpose. Indeed, as we shall see, the amounts required are dwarfed by the expenditures on other international ventures—which, predictably, produced results which, charitably, can be dubbed “disappointing”.

 

As I do not wish to become embroiled in an argument as to the real size of the Palestinian-Arab population, and as the envisaged financial grants would be distributed per family unit, I shall sidestep the issue and take as my point-of-departure a figure of 850,000 families (just over 60% in Judea-Samaria). This is far closer to the official Palestinian figures than to the alternative, more optimistic (and plausible) demographic estimates, which are almost 300,000 families lower! Assuming an average emigration grant of US$250-300,000 per family (which is roughly 100 years of GDP per capita in Palestinian terms) this would amount to a total budget of US$200-250 billion for the full implementation of the HP project.

 

While these figures might appear somewhat daunting, two points should be borne in mind: Today Israel’s annual GDP is approaching US$300 billion. Accordingly the total outlay would be 8-10 months of GDP.

 

Assessing affordability (cont.)

 

Spreading this over, say, a decade-and-a-half (considerably less time than has been invested in the fatally flawed two-state endeavor) this would amount to 4.5-5.5% of total GDP. Accordingly, even if Israel was to bear this economic burden on its own, adding it  to the current levels of defense spending (5-6%), the economic burden would not reach the defense expenditure, as a percentage of GDP, through much of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s (11-15%).         

 

Moreover, if the wider international community could be induced to help shoulder the task, the entire enterprise could be completed far more rapidly, at a cost which would be virtually imperceptible, amounting to a mere fraction of a percentage point of the GDP of the OECD nations.

 

It must be firmly emphasized that the sums referred to here are inconsequential in global terms. Indeed, they pale into insignificance when compared to the multi-trillion dollar cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, of which over 90% was spent after (!) Saddam Hussein was apprehended and the Taliban dislodged, and which, even by most benign assessments, produced, at best, meagre results.

 

Accordingly it would appear that financial resources for a program that would cost considerably less than 10% of the cost of those engagements is not a real impediment to its implementation.

 

FAQ 2: Is large-scale financially-induced Palestinian emigration feasible?

 

Of course, no-one knows precisely how many Palestinian-Arabs can be induced to emigrate without putting the matter to test. However, available evidence strongly suggests that extensive emigration is indeed eminently feasible. And there is certainly far more empirical support for it than there is for a stable two-state outcome.

 

A survey I commissioned as far back as December 2004 for the Jerusalem Summit, and conducted by a leading  Israeli polling institute, in collaboration with a well-known Palestinian center, showed that over 40% of the Arab residents of Judea-Samaria had actively considered emigration, while up to 50% did not discount such a possibility – even without being offered any material inducement. When the question of material compensation was introduced to encourage such emigration, the figure rose to over 70%!

 

It appears that this sentiment has only grown stronger over time.

 

Since then, a veritable slew of opinion surveys has emerged from Palestinian institutes showing a keen wish among the Palestinian-Arab population to emigrate. Thus, in 2007 the New York Times cited polls for Birzeit University, showing “35 percent of Palestinians over the age of 18 want to emigrate. Nearly 50 percent of those between 18 and 30 would leave if they could”.

 

Feasibility of financially-induced emigration (cont.)

 

Indeed the desire to emigrate grew so wide-spread that the Palestinian Authority’s mufti felt compelled to issue a  fatwa forbidding Muslims to leave, and berating the fact that “Many are continuing to rush to the gates of the embassies and consulates of the Western nations with requests for visas in order to reside permanently in those countries.”

 

Current polls conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research show, regularly and repeatedly, that between 25-35% of the Arab residents of Judea-Samaria and 45-55% in Gaza wish to emigrate permanently.

But perhaps more compelling than the findings of any poll are the revealed behavioral preferences of the residents of Gaza, who are paying massive bribes to extricate themselves from the grim realities of life there, risking drowning at sea in rickety boats, desperate to seek a better life elsewhere. These headlines in Al Jazeera and Al Monitor bear poignant testimony to their predicament and despair:  Palestinians paying thousands in bribes to leave Gaza; Escaping Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians drown; Gaza’s intellectuals are fleeing abroad.

Surely then, establishing an orderly system of ample financial aid to enable them to extricate themselves from the dire situation which the misguided attempt to foist statehood on them has precipitated, would  be eminently more humane, moral and pragmatic.

 

FAQ 3: But who would accept them?

 

One of the most frequently asked questions regarding the feasibility of the HP is “Which countries will accept them?”

 

I find this question particularly puzzling – especially given today’s realities of massive global population flows. Indeed, the UN recently published a report on global migration, revealing that in 2015 there were almost a quarter-billion migrants globally (up 40% since 2000), the majority of which were motivated by economic considerations. Thus it is difficult to understand why an envisaged yearly increase of a fraction of 1% in this number over the next decade would be such an inconceivable event.

 

Moreover, it should be recalled that, in contrast to many other migrants, the Palestinian-Arab recipients of generous relocation grants would not be arriving as a stream of destitute refugees.  Rather they would be arriving in an orderly fashion as individual immigrants of relative affluence by global standards, who traditionally have brought great benefit to the host countries that have accepted them.

 

In addition, the funds the Palestinian-Arab newcomers would bring with them would constitute a very significant influx into the host countries’ economies. Indeed, for every hundred Palestinian families admitted, the host country could count on the influx of around US$25-30 million into its economy. Absorbing 2,500 new Palestinian-Arab family units could mean the injection of up to three-quarter billion dollars into the host nation’s economy.

 

Who would accept them? (cont.)


Consider the following example, which if not entirely realistic, is instructive in conveying the principle involved.

 

Suppose Indonesia – the world’s most populous Muslim country – were to open its gates to the Palestinian-Arabs across the pre-1967 lines, who, in turn, decided to emigrate to that country. This would entail an increase of a little over 1% of the Indonesian population (around 270 million) but an influx of over US $ 250-300 billion into the Indonesian economy, where total GDP is around US $ 900 billion. Moreover, each of the Palestinian breadwinners would arrive with a sum worth around 80 years of Indonesian GDP per capita (around US$ 3,500)  – the equivalent of over US$ 4 million in the US. Accordingly, they would in no way be impoverished refugees, or a burden on the local society/economy. Quite the opposite. They would be rather well-to-do individuals, capable of making a positive contribution to their new homeland

 

It is of course unrealistic to believe that all the Palestinians would head for a single destination. However if Palestinian-Arab emigration was distributed over several countries, they could be absorbed, resettled and rehabilitated with very little difficulty by a number of host nations with compatible domestic socio-cultural and religious environments – with the financial benefits accruing to these host nations being proportional to number of Palestinian-Arab immigrants they accept.

 

Next week…

 

Given the crucial importance of this issue, I intend to continue this response to FAQs regarding the HP and to address further economic aspects, the question of threatened fratricide and the moral superiority of the HP over all other proposed policy prescriptions. Until then Shabbat Shalom.

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Will Trump Triumph or Will Abbas Mimic Arafat

Will President Trump achieve the impossible breakthrough his predecessors were unable to accomplish? Or, like his predecessors will he fall victim to two-faced Arab Palestinian leadership?

Let’s not forget how hard President Bill Clinton tried to forge an agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO founder Yasser Arafat during the Camp David ll negotiations in 2000. Prior to negotiations Arafat was all smiles and sounded committed to peace between the Arab Palestinians and Israel. Negotiations dragged on and on. Barak provided Arafat with an incredible offer, which would have placed Israeli security at great risk. Virtually 100% of Judea/Samaria, commonly called the West Bank was offered to Arafat. Jerusalem would have been divided and eastern Jerusalem would be awarded to the Arab Palestinians. A land bridge between Judea/Samaria and the Gaza Strip was included, effectively splitting Israel in half. Compensation for so-called refugees was included.

President Clinton would later say he could not believe how good the offer was. Yet all Arafat said was “no.” in the end Clinton was furious with him and publically blamed him for the collapse of the talks. Subsequent to the failed negotiations the Arab Palestinians rioted and an extended intifada ensued.

Arafat fell from favor as far as Clinton was concerned. He learned a painful and embarrassing lesson. Arafat could not be trusted.

In 2002 when the late Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister President George W. Bush was attempting to persuade Arafat to stop his terrorist activity and pursue peace with Israel. Sharon then dropped the hammer on the two-faced Arafat. He provided documents which proved that while Arafat kept up the diplomatic chatter, he was signing off on terrorist operations. Bush was angry and embarrassed. He had faith that Arafat could be a genuine peace partner.

However, when Sharon proved Arafat to be a liar, Bush publically called for his ouster. Relations between the Bush administration and Arafat went flat and never recovered.

Abbas Echoes Arafat

Subsequent to Bush came 8 years of an Obama administration. In 2008 another incredibly generous offer was put forth by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. This time the recipient was Mahmoud Abbas who had succeeded Arafat who passed away in 2004. Abbas rejected the offer out of hand. Abbas demanded Israel halt “settlement” construction as a pre-condition for peace negotiations.

In an effort to entice Abbas to the table, Israel did stop construction for 10 months. However, Abbas failed to return to negotiations. Obama was never able to achieve measurably diplomatic breakthrough during his 2 terms as president.

Enter the Trump Era

He’s called a peace agreement between Israel and the Arabs the “ultimate deal.” He’s met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and PA President Abbas. This past week he made his first foreign trip as President. The first stop was Saudi Arabia where he spoke to an assembled audience of 50 Arab leaders.  The Saudi Royal Family rolled out the red carpet, signaling a clear departure from uneasy relations with the Obama administration.

In Trump’s speech to the audience of Arab leaders he said they must “drive out” the terrorists from their countries and from the earth. These are the strongest words ever spoken by a US President while in an Arab nation, and speaking to Arab leaders. Trump also signaled the Saudi’s are warm to his efforts to achieve a peace agreement with Israel.

Trump moved on and flew to Israel. He met with Mahmoud Abbas, who has already told Trump he is ready to begin negotiations with Israel right away….without preconditions. This is a departure from his long held position of demanding Israel halt all construction before he would consider coming to the table. The question begs, is Abbas sincere? Will he come to the table while Israel continues to build?

Something else noteworthy took place while President Trump delivered his remarks as he stood next to Abbas. Not once did Trump mention the words “Palestinian State,” nor did he use the phrase “two state solution.”

While in Israel Trump became the first sitting US President to visit the Kotel (Western Wall). He also paid a visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum. While in Israel he restated the US commitment to Israel’s security and promised a continued qualitative edge in weaponry for Israel.

Yet, as was the case in Bethlehem with Abbas, in all of Trump’s remarks while in Israel he neglected to use the words “Palestinian State,” or “two state solution.”

A Quid Pro Quo?

One cannot help but wonder what took place in the private discussion between Trump and Abbas as well as with Netanyahu. Did the Saudi’s whisper something in Trump’s ear while he was there? Is there a quid pro quo brewing?

Will Donald Trump be able to achieve the impossible and forge an agreement between Israel and the Arab Palestinians as well as the Arab world in general? Is Mahmoud Abbas changing his colors and expressing genuine interest in peace with Israel? Will he sign off on what no other Palestinian leader has been willing to? Will he recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state? Will he accept Israeli sovereignty over Temple Mount?

President Trump seems to suggest there is a fresh wind of optimism blowing through the halls of power in the Middle East. He is eager to facilitate the most dramatic diplomatic breakthrough ever in the Middle East. He deserves an opportunity to do the unthinkable.

However, what remains to be seen is what Abbas will do. Will he follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and say one thing publically in English, while continuing his Islamic agenda of terror when he speaks in Arabic? Will he string President Trump along, only to ultimately show his true colors and embarrass President Trump as Arafat did with two previous presidents?

Or will Abbas do what no other Arab Palestinian leader has done?

We will wait, watch and witness…

Read more articles by Dan Calic on his Facebook page.

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HOW TO SOLVE THE PALESTINIAN PROBLEM

…and bring peace to the Middle East.

In 1990, there were half as many Palestinians as Kuwaitis in Kuwait. Two years later there were almost none.

With the support of the international community, some 700,000 Kuwaitis expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their country. If they had not done it, basic arithmetic shows that the Palestinians would have outnumbered Kuwaitis in Kuwait in a generation.

The Palestinians of Kuwait were kidnapped, tortured and killed.  “Kill a Palestinian and Go to Heaven,” became the slogan. When Kuwait was “liberated”, tanks and armored vehicles were sent into the Hawally suburb of Kuwait City known as Little Palestine. Half the buildings were knocked down by bulldozers. Some detained Palestinians were buried in mass graves. The vast majority, including those who had been born in Kuwait, were deported or forced to flee a land they had lived in for a generation.

The violent ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians went mostly unremarked. While the Kuwaitis were ethnically cleansing their Palestinians, they continued to fund Palestinian terror against Israel and condemn Israel for violating the human rights of those they were deporting.

And the world shrugged.

President George H.W. Bush defended Kuwait’s actions. “I think we’re expecting a little much if we’re asking the people in Kuwait to take kindly to those that had spied on their countrymen that were left there,” he said. This was in the same press conference in which he condemned Israeli “settlements.”

A year later, Israel expelled 400 Hamas members.  Every human rights organization was outraged. The State Department “strongly” condemned Israel. And Israel was forced to take them back.

The Kuwaiti Nakba isn’t much remembered. There are no rallies full of old women clutching house keys to lost homes in Hawally. They had made a bad bet by backing Saddam Hussein. And paid the price for it.

Kuwait refused to allow Palestinian Authority leader Abbas to visit until he apologized for supporting Saddam. And apologize he did. “Yes, we apologize for what we have done,” the terror boss whined.

The PLO has yet to apologize to Israel for the Muslim settler role in the attempted 1948 genocide of the indigenous Jewish population and the thousands who were maimed and murdered by its terrorists.

Israel, like Kuwait, should have demanded an admission of guilt from Abbas for the PLO’s crimes.

The Kuwaiti Nakba has much in common with what took place in Israel. Palestinians had arrived in both Kuwait and Israel as a cheap labor force to take advantage of the economic boom of a feudal economy becoming industrialized. The “Palestinians” of Israel were not some ancient people but a mass of migrants, mostly from Israel’s neighbors, but occasionally from as far away as Sudan and Senegal in Africa, who were seeking economic opportunity. The existence of the Afro-Palestinians makes it quite clear that they are not a distinct ethnic or national group, but migrants who came from outside Israel.

Over half of the so-called “Palestinian” population lives outside Israel. Many continue to be economic migrants. That is what brought them to Kuwait. And the Kuwaitis were not the only ones to kick them out. Nor are the “Palestinians” the only migrating group that got caught without a country when the game of national musical chairs ended with a lot of new countries with old names dotting the map.

“Palestinians” embraced an imaginary and ahistorical identity because they had been locked out of every other political setup by new governments and tribal arrangements. And that’s not unique.

Kuwait’s other stateless group are the Bedoon. Like the Palestinians, the Bidoon were migrants. The Kuwaitis chose not to recognize them as citizens. There is one Bidoon for every ten Kuwaitis. But that is typical in a region where large nomadic groups around the region exist outside governmental structures.

In this century, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Many of the countries in the region are on the verge of similar civil wars between quarreling ethnic and religious groups. The mass flow of migrants into Europe is an extension of the migratory nature of the region.

All of these problems have a single cause. That cause is the failure of the Arab Muslim nation state.

This century exposed how fragile and artificial most of the countries whose existence we take for granted, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Libya, really are. A little instability and they collapse into quarreling tribes. These tribal conflicts have the same root cause as the “Palestinian” problem.

The Palestinian problem can’t be solved without resolving the problem of the Arab Muslim nation state.

The civil wars in Syria and Iraq, the flow of migrants into Europe and the latest itineration of the failed Palestinian peace process all stem from the conflict between the natural tribe and the artificial nation state. The Arab Muslim nation state is incapable of resolving these tribal conflicts.

That is the source of the tyranny, instability and violence in the Middle East.

No amount of concessions or negotiations by Israel will do anything except create more instability. Decades of Israeli concessions have only led to terrorism, violence, death and misery. If Israel ceased to exist tomorrow, the place where it was would be as much of a disaster area as Yemen or Syria.

It’s often pointed out that the Palestinians are a fictional national identity. But the Iraqis, Syrians and many others are equally artificial; historical names attached to fake countries. We weren’t the first Westerners to think that we could fix the Middle East by making them just like us. Before we tried exporting democracy, the British and the French exported nationhood with all the trimmings of flags, constitutions and anthems. Just like Arab Muslim democracy, the Arab Muslim nation state is a farce that spreads misery, instability and violence.

We can best fix the Middle East by ending all the failed efforts to turn it into Europe and America. And reversing them. Stop recognizing Arab Muslim countries that have incompatible populations. They’re dictatorships on the verge of a civil war. And that civil war will eventually drag us in as Iraq and Syria did.

Whenever possible, deal with tribal and other organic regional leaders, not fake national governments. In Iraq, that means an end to the failed policy of only dealing with the Shiite puppet regime in Baghdad while ignoring the Sunni tribal leaders and the Kurdish authorities. That policy helped create ISIS.

We should recognize discrete regions based on the settlement of natural ethnic, religious and tribal identities. There will inevitably be conflict between these tribal territories, but they will claim far fewer lives than Saddam’s efforts to suppress the Shiites and the Marsh Arabs did. Tribes will kill fewer people than a tribal nation state striving to stamp out rivals and competitors with a powerful domestic military.

Borders should not be viewed as permanent. The Middle East is migratory. It is not Europe. An Arab Muslim who moves from Iraq to Syria or flees Kuwait for Jordan is not a refugee. When you start defining every migrant in a region with an extensive nomadic history as a refugee, the end result is the absurdity of the Palestinian refugee cities of Jordan or the million migrants showing up in Europe.

If you go back far enough, everyone in the Middle East is a refugee.

Instead of trying to resettle fake refugees, we should encourage the settlement of discrete territories with natural borders that create physical and defensible divisions between different groups. That rules out any of the lunatic peace schemes for a Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem and a territory that cuts through Israel. These plans have failed and will go on failing for the same reason that Iraqis are still killing each other despite our best efforts to talk, bribe and bomb them out of it.

The indigenous Jewish population and the Muslim migrants who settled in Israel are inherently incompatible. The Palestinian problem might be solved somewhere in Jordan or Syria. History and experience tells us it will never be solved in Israel.

The Israeli government should begin distinguishing between the Muslim settler population based not on artificial borders dating back to a particular war but on clan and ethnicity.

The Circassians who migrated to Israel in the 19th century from the Caucasus have not been a problem. These Ottoman military colonists are Muslims, but they serve in the Israeli military and have no interest in joining in the tribal wars of other Muslims against the Jews. The Husayni clan, which gave us Arafat and the Mufti of Jerusalem, has been a source of strife and violence in the region for far too long.

Israel doesn’t have a national problem with the “Palestinians”, it faces threats from marauding clans which dominate the leadership of Islamic terror groups such as the PLO and Hamas. No one has managed to make peace with the Husaynis yet. And they never will.

The first step to solving the Palestinian problem is to recognize that it doesn’t exist. The second is to determine which clans would be more compatible where. That is a process that must take place across the region in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Israel and beyond. And it is far more likely to bring peace than any amount of negotiations and peacekeeping missions.

The great error of Western foreign policy in the region was the belief that stability was best achieved through modernization.  The Arab Muslim world is not going to turn into Europe.

We should let it be what it is. Its tribalism won’t bring peace. But it can limit the scope of its wars.

Originally Published on FrontPageMag.