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A Moment Of Clarity In The Mideast

Portfolio Armor's Photo
by Portfolio Armor
Saturday, Oct 07, 2023 - 9:54
Israelis
Israelis stand amid the rubble of a Hamas rocket attack. Photo via the Middle East Eye. 

Submitted via Portfolio Armor:

The Biggest Attack On Israel In Fifty Years

On the 50th anniversary of the surprise Arab invasion that started the Yom Kippur War, Palestinian militants based out of Hamas have launched an unprecedented attack on Israel--not just the usual smattering of rocket attacks, but according to Hamas, 5,000 rockets. 

The rocket attacks were only the beginning though. Hamas militants infiltrated Israel and killed what appears to dozens of Israeli civilians, with gruesome videos of the dead appearing on X. 

Including some being paraded as trophies by Hamas. 

Gazan militants also reportedly captured Israeli hostages. 

Celebrations On The West Bank And Elsewhere

There were celebrations of this by Palestinians on the West Bank. 

And by some of their supporters X.

The Insanity Of The Status Quo

Under the Oslo Accords, both the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank are considered to be the territory of the Palestinian Authority, but Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007. 

In the West Bank, although the peace process has been stalled for years, the old land-for-peace formula still at least has a pulse; in Gaza, Israel forcibly removed the last of its settlers in 2005. Some of those settlers ran high-tech greenhouses they used to profitably sell produce internationally. A group of American Jews, including former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, bought the greenhouses from the settlers and donated them to the Palestinians in Gaza. They were prompted looted. 

For the last 16 years there's been no hope of peace between Israel and Gaza, where 2.3 million Palestinians are boxed into a densely populated strip with Israel on two sides, Egypt on one, and the Mediterranean on the other. 

Gaza Map

Who benefits from this arrangement? Certainly not most of the Palestinians or the Israelis. 

The Refugee Racket 

Palestinian refugees are unique in the world in two respects. For starters, they are the only multi-generational refugees. The descendants of refugees from other wars and partitions, such as the partition of India into India and Pakistan, are no longer refugees: they are citizens of countries where they live now. But Palestinians in Gaza who are descendants of refugees from the 1967 Six Day War, during which Israel captured Gaza from Egypt, are still considered refugees today. 

The other way Palestinian refugees are unique is that they have their own UN agency dedicated to them, UNRWA, The UN Relief And Works Agency, which employs a staff of 30,000. The rest of the world's refugees are served by UNHCR, The UN Refugee Agency, which has a staff of just under 19,000. Those 30,000 UNRWA staffers would be unemployed in the event Gaza became part of an independent Palestine, or Gaza's residents were welcomed as citizens in neighboring Arab countries, or elsewhere. 

Other Beneficiaries Of The Status Quo

Opponents of Israel (and of normalization of relations between Israel and Arab states) would also lose a political weapon against the country in the event every Gazan were settled elsewhere. 

The military industrial complex in Israel and elsewhere also benefits from continued conflict. Just last month, the U.S. House of Representatives approved another $1 billion for Israel's Iron Dome anti-rocket system. This is a flawed, high-tech solution to a low-tech problem: 2.3 million people who hate you living right next to you. 

What Happens Now 

The Israeli Air Force announced it was bombing Hamas targets in Gaza. That will likely be followed by a ground incursion, which will inevitably lead to scenes of dead Palestinian civilians, further embittering Gazans against Israel.

Some American pro-Israel hawks have suggested Israel strike Iran, under the theory that Iran facilitated the Hamas attacks. 

This seems unwise. Even if Iran didn't exist, having 2.3 million enemies on your doorstep is a recipe for continued conflict. 

The smarter approach for Israel would be to issue an eviction notice to Gaza, giving the rest of the world ample to time to welcome the Gazans to their countries. The international community would of course object, but there is historical precedent for this. After the war that followed the establishment of Israel in 1948-1949, hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Muslim countries, while similar numbers of Arabs were expelled from what became Israel. Around the same time, millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from parts of Europe back to Germany, in the wake of World War II (The expelled Germans fared much worse than the Jews and Palestinians, with hundreds of thousands of them being killed in the process). 

There would be no need for unnecessary deaths in this case, if international supporters of Gaza agree. There will be some Gazan holdouts, no doubt, but Israel was able to humanely remove its own recalcitrant settlers from Gaza; perhaps Egyptians or other fellow Arabs could do the same with Palestinians in Gaza. 

There will certainly be a lot more death if the status quo of keeping millions of mutual enemies in close proximity continues. 

 

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