Trump's Gaza Idea

 

Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza, remove all the Palestinians, and develop it as a “Middle Eastern Riviera” is astonishing.

Unfortunately, this looks like ethnic cleansing. It seems to me that it is, by common definition, and therefore a “crime against humanity.”

On the other hand, it also looks like the only way to achieve peace in the area. Supposedly 80% of Gazans support Hamas. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and vows eternal war. “From the river to the sea.” So long as there is this hostile population right next to Israeli settlements, like a knife alongside Israel’s throat, war and atrocities and bombings and civilian deaths will continue.

Separating the parties looks like the only way; just as, when you find two dogs fighting in the alley, you pull them apart.

There is too little land in either Gaza or Israel for a buffer zone; especially with both sides possessing rockets.

In any real world, there is no place to move the 9 million people of Israel. Put the Jewish state anywhere else, and you have all the same tensions as here.

On the other hand, the 1.7 million Gazans are culturally identical with a dozen countries nearby. Same language, same religion; historically one country, up until 1917, with continuing dreams of reunification. They are just one small neighbourhood in a vast Arab and Muslim world.

Is moving the Gazan Arabs substantially and ethically different from expropriating for a new shopping centre?

Is moving the Gazan Arabs substantially and ethically different from the Israeli government requiring Jews to move out of Gaza some years ago, in an earlier attempt to separate the two sides?

By itself, Israel had no way to move the Arabs. Israel had little land, Israel is just Israel, with no other place to put them.

But the US may have the wasta to use with some nearby nation. Most obviously, Egypt: Egypt owned the Gaza strip up until 1967, and so up to then accepted the Gazan Arabs as Egyptian citizens. Egypt gets especially large sums in foreign aid from the US. It should be easy for Trump to buy Egyptian compliance. With some investment in desalinization, it should be possible to make some part of the Egyptian desert bloom, as has been done in Saudi Arabia or the UAE. Presto: a nice new home for the Gazans.

At the same time, why does it make sense for the US to take ownership of Gaza?

So that the enterprise can be self-financing. The US pays for relocating the Gazans, and for building a tourism infrastructure; but it is an investment. The place has tourism potential. The US makes the money back in taxes on the revenue. Never mind a Middle Eastern Riviera. It can be a Middle Eastern Monte Carlo. There is a lot of money in the nearby Persian Gulf. Beirut used to profit from such tourism: a place where Muslims could indulge in many pleasures not available at home. Why not Gaza, with its beaches?

Secondly, the US gets an inalienable military base in a strategic and unstable part of the world. Britain has done well with its bases in Cyprus.

Why does it make sense for Israel?

It removes the knife at their throat, which they cannot do for themselves, either as a practical matter or because of international disapproval.

Without owning the property, the Israelis stand to benefit as much as if they did. The people actually living and working and investing in the revamped Gaza strip and making the money from the new developments will inevitably mostly be Israelis.

And a permanent American presence is a further guarantee of Israeli security. Like the American troops permanently stationed in South Korea, Gaza becomes a “trip wire” in case of attempted invasion. If anyone attacks Israel henceforth, the US is almost automatically militarily engaged. It is a peacekeeping force.

And it makes sense for the Gazans, even if this is the hard sell. Reputedly polls even before the present conflict showed at least 44% of young Gazans sought to emigrate. They have been artificially sealed off in this narrow strip by the closing of the Egyptian border, and the refusal of other Arab lands to take them.

It really looks like a win-win-win situation.

This is what happens when you elect an entrepreneur as president. Business is all about spotting such opportunities.

I think we need to change international law.