| IV-A
Defending the general principle of relocation
Any discussion of an
Israeli-Palestinian Arab settlement often encounters the
automatic assumption that, of all the peoples in the world,
only Palestinian Arabs living inside Israel and the
territories cannot be relocated elsewhere. We are told that
‘relocation’ can only mean more Palestinian Arabs moving
from refugee camps in neighboring countries into Israel and of
Jews being forcibly evicted out of Judea, Samaria (the “West
Bank”) and Gaza (no more Jews in Gaza now). And for Hamas
and other Arab “militants,” the only acceptable solution
would be for all Jews to be expelled from Israel altogether,
or even exterminated. These concepts are inherently racist,
invoke a double standard, and cannot be justified under any
circumstances.
History
is replete with example after example of mass population
relocations. After World War I, two million ethnic Greeks and
Turks were resettled from Turkey to Greece and from Greece to
Turkey, respectively. The creation of India and Pakistan
involved bi-lateral relocations of many millions of people,
Muslims leaving India for Pakistan and Hindus leaving Pakistan
for India. In the immediate aftermath of World War II,
over twelve million ethnic Germans were relocated from areas
that had for hundreds of years been parts of Germany or
Austria, but which were awarded to Poland and
Czechoslovakia by the victorious Allies after World Wars
I and II. Other ethnic Germans were resettled in Germany after
World War II from Hungary and Russia. All of these people have
since been resettled and have built normal and in most cases
prosperous lives for themselves in their new homelands.
The
United States has resettled in its own borders hundreds of
thousands of Cubans, Vietnamese, Laotians and others who were
displaced from the homelands because of military or political
conflicts in which the United States was involved. These
people and their children are now proud to be American
citizens, and have built successful lives for themselves in
their new homeland.
Of course, Jews have
been repeatedly forced to resettle from one country after
another throughout the centuries. As we have pointed out
earlier, the 850,000-900,000 Jews who formerly lived in Arab
countries, and who were forced or pressured to leave these
countries as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict, have now
been resettled and have made new lives for themselves in
Israel, France, the United States and elsewhere. The Arab
world can resettle and rehabilitate the Arabs displaced by the
Arab-Israeli conflict just as Israel has taken in the
displaced Jews.
The relocation of the
Palestinians by the P.A.I.R Initiative would be radically
different from the numerous instances of forced, violent and
unplanned expulsions and displacements of peoples that have
occurred in the past. Resettlement would be conducted in an
orderly and carefully planned way, with full compensation for
any property left behind, and with provision for new land,
housing, employment, and general infrastructure to enable the
resettled communities to acquire a decent standard of living.
IV-B
But won’t the Palestinian Arabs reject this idea?
We are constantly
told that virtually everyone opposes resettling the
Palestinian Arabs. Unfortunately outside nations are opposed
as are all Arab governments along with the PLO/PNA. Even the
Israeli government seems afraid to oppose Arab-inspired
international pressure. The PLO/PA not only rejects any talk
of resettlement but also demands the ‘right of return’ of
millions of Arabs to places inside Israel itself.
It would seem that
everyone has been heard from - everyone except the Palestinian
Arabs themselves. We are told by their corrupt leaders and
various non-Palestinian Arab voices that they are unanimous in
strongly rejecting any possibility of resettlement. These
voices seem overly anxious to bury this idea in advance even
before the Palestinian Arabs have had a fair chance to hear of
this plan, to debate it freely and to give it full
consideration.
If some Palestinian
Arabs began to look favorably upon a viable and generous
resettlement plan it would then become progressively more
difficult for others to reject resettlement on their behalf.
Is the zeal to reject resettlement in reality a purposeful
attempt to lock the Palestinian Arabs (and Israel too) into a
bad solution before they have had a chance to choose freely?
Self-appointed
Palestinian Arab spokespeople will naturally attempt to reject
any idea of resettlement while claiming to represent all
Palestinian Arabs. However, a poll conducted among the
Palestinian Arabs by the Maagar Mohot Interdisciplinary
Research and Consulting Institute Ltd., in collaboration with
the Palestinian Arab Center for Public Opinion in 2004, found
that over 70% of Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza could be
induced to relocate. To the question: “What would induce you
to emigrate permanently?”, only 15% stated that nothing
would induce them, while 71% specified one or more material
factors that would induce them to emigrate permanently (such
as substantial financial compensation, a guarantee of a good
job abroad, or good housing).
These encouraging
numbers are prior to their receiving a credible offer which
might be even more tempting. This shows the great potential of
the P.A.I.R. Initiative with its many attractive incentives.
Even an initial response of 10%-20% would be sufficient to
start the process moving. The successful adjustment of those
who resettled first would build confidence for others to
follow.
The Palestinian Arabs
deserve the opportunity to consider the P.A.I.R. Initiative,
to fully explore it, to extensively debate it, and to respond
freely and without intimidation.
Palestinian Arab
moderates willing to consider this plan will face intimidation
and violence, and will feel afraid to speak openly—and with
good reason, given the violence and cruelty of the terrorist
groups toward “collaborators.” It is therefore of the
utmost importance that the terrorist groups be disarmed,
suppressed and completely disbanded immediately as the first
step toward implementation of the P.A.I.R.
initiative. Then a
free, open discussion of the relocation proposal can occur
within the Palestinian community and throughout the Middle
East.
In reality, the P.A.I.R.
Initiative benefits both Arabs and Jews, unlike the
Roadmap and similar schemes, which cheat both Arabs and
Jews. The P.A.I.R. Initiative is actually
very pro-Palestinian Arab, and that point is readily
demonstrated by comparing its results with the perpetuation of
the suffering and massive loss of life for both sides that has
occurred, and that is continuing, under the current conditions
of conflict.
IV-C
Answering Other Likely Objections
It is anticipated
that any proposal to relocate Palestinian Arabs will likely
trigger immediate and extreme criticism from many sources,
including the charge of racism. The answer to this charge is
simple: as we have seen, the P.A.I.R. Initiative
will benefit all “races” involved in the Arab-Israel
conflict equally.
Another
objection to the P.A.I.R Initiative that will be
raised is that nations can only be built in countries where
their inhabitants have deep historical roots. Can Palestinian
Arabs really build a nation outside “Palestine” as it is
currently defined?
There are several
valid answers to this question. For one thing, many
Palestinian Arabs do have deep roots in the Arabian peninsula.
As the historian James Parkes has pointed out, many
Palestinian Arabs are descended from Arab tribes that migrated
from the Arabian peninsula to Palestine between the 16th and 19th centuries. Some Palestinian Arab “aristocratic” families , such as the Husseinis and Nusseibis, can trace their genealogies in a direct line to the earliest Muslim settlers from Arabia in the 7th century of the common era. Indeed, much of Palestine’s Arab population surely can be traced, at least in part, to the Arab conquest and settlement of the 7th century C.E.
In addition, history
is replete with examples of peoples who migrated to new
countries without losing their ethnic identity or sense of
nationhood. The Turks moved from Central Asia to conquer and
settle in the Anatolian Peninsula beginning in the 11th
century C.E., but remained “Turks.” Their new country
became “Turkey.” The Magyars migrated from Central Asia to
what is now Hungary in the 10th century C.E., and promptly
adopted their new country as their homeland. The English
people migrated from the coast of the northwestern European
Continent in the 5th century C.E. and soon became right at
home in a country that they renamed “England”—referring
to the “Angle” along the coast of the European continent
between Denmark and Germany, from which the “English” had
originally sprung. Thus the Palestinian Arabs could even take
the names “Palestine” and “Palestinian” along with
them to their new sovereign territory if they choose to do so.
On a practical level
some critics might argue that Arabia is mostly uninhabited
desert with only about 1% of the area being arable land and
therefore cannot accommodate resettlement of Palestinian
Arabs. At the time of the Balfour Declaration during World War
I, there also were ‘experts’ and critics who argued that
the land mandated to become the Jewish National Home was too
barren to support a mass influx of Jewish refugees. The Jewish
pioneers proved them wrong by making the desert bloom again as
it did in ancient times by using methods of modern agriculture
to heal the land. The same can and should be done in the vast
areas of Arabia that remain undeveloped, with Palestinian
Arabs leading the transformation. It actually must be done
because the world is losing arable land to desertification at
a time of rising populations. The world needs the Middle East
to again be a verdant garden and a regional ‘breadbasket’
as it was in ancient times.
Proponents of the P.A.I.R.
Initiative would welcome open debate because we believe
that all opposing arguments can be rationally addressed. The
opponents will ignore the fact that, during the last century,
countless millions of people have resettled for the sake of
peace and a better life, often under far less favorable
conditions than proposed here. They will have to argue that,
of all the people in the world, the Palestinian Arabs alone
cannot be resettled, even if it is to an infinitely better
life. They will ignore the Arab regimes and the UN that have
deliberately kept Palestinian Arabs rotting in refugee camps
for decades as an open wound to be used as a political weapon
to undermine any settlement with Israel. (An observation by
Ralph Galloway, a former director of UNRWA, in 1958., is
relevant here: “The Arab states do not want to solve the
refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an
affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against
Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab
refugees live or die.”) They will have to argue in favor of
continuing a zero sum game where both Arabs and Jews remain
locked into a lose-lose situation. And they will have to
ignore the millions of Jewish refugees, many from Arab
countries and others from elsewhere in the Middle East, South
Asia, Africa and Europe, that have migrated to Israel and
built a strong, vibrant Jewish nation as well as better lives
for themselves.
IV-D
The future choices can be visualized by presenting three maps.
[Link]
Map #1, the
IMPOSSIBLE map, which is currently on the table means
returning approximately to the pre 1967 lines, i.e. the Road
Map. That option is totally unacceptable and impossible for
reasons given earlier in Part I.
Map #2, the WAR map,
is the PLO/PA map in which Israel no longer exists. The world
pretends not to notice it but the PLO/PA continues to use that
map to define Palestine both past and future. Trying to
implement that map leads directly to the nightmare scenario of
all out war.
Map #3, the PEACE
map of the P.A.I.R. Initiative, means a new
Palestinian Arab state inside the Arabian peninsula thus
removing the main pretext for hostility against Israel by
other Arab states. It shows suggested borders for the new
state and proposed secure, defensible borders for Israel,
consonant with the original League of Nations mandate for a
Jewish National Home. |