The plan for the Jewish
inhabitants to vacate Gaza is a thoroughly bad one:
v It would acknowledge
that, in order to be acceptable to the Arabs, Gaza had to be “judenrein” –
free of Jews — a concept invented by the Nazis.
v It would reward terror
and would be understood as a sign of weakness.
v It would leave the
Arabs at complete liberty to import the most destructive weapons through their
port and their airport. Nobody doubts that they would do just that.
v It would not bring the
solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict one step closer — on the contrary, it
would exacerbate it and very likely result in full-fledged war, quite possibly
involving weapons of mass destruction.
If Jewish “settlements” in Gaza were to be
abandoned, it would be understood as a victory for terrorism. Inevitably, if Israeli
settlers and the Israeli military were to leave the area, the terror emanating
from Gaza would increase, the violence would explode. The Gaza terrorists, no
longer restrained by the Israeli military, would launch hundreds more rockets,
missiles and mortar rounds into Israel. Short of blanketing the area with
massive artillery and air strikes, which would cause tens of thousands of
deaths (and which the world would not allow to happen), Israel would stand
defenseless against such onslaughts.
In proposing the abandonment of Gaza by its
approximately 7,500 Jewish inhabitants, who, in stark contrast to the Arabs
surrounding them, have created prosperous communities, industries and
agriculture in the area, there is nothing at all that the Israelis are expected to
receive for such an enormous sacrifice. There isn’t even a promise — though it would
in any case be quite meaningless — to abstain from violence. In accepting a
plan to vacate Gaza, Israel would effectively relinquish the right of its
citizens to live anywhere they wish in the land of Israel. Such right is
unquestioningly granted to the Arabs. They live in Gaza, of course, and in the
“West Bank”. Over one million of them live in Israel proper, where they have
equal rights with the Jews and enjoy all benefits of citizenship.
But here’s a better idea: Yes, move all Jews from
Gaza and even from those parts of the “West Bank,” that might eventually be
ceded to form an autonomous Arab entity and repatriate them to “Israel
proper.” But at the same time, evacuate all Arabs from Israel and resettle
them in Gaza, the “West Bank,” or wherever they might want to go. Such
exchange of populations would be drastic, but certainly not unprecedented. The
vast exchange of Muslims and non-Muslims on the Indian subcontinent, though
accompanied by much bloodshed, is perhaps the best and ultimately most
successful example of such population exchange