I’m amazed at how many otherwise intelligent people talk about transferring millions of Palestinians out of Gaza (and sometimes out of Judea/Samaria). This is a central position of Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut party, which just signed a vote-sharing agreement with the so-called Religious Zionism party. Sure, it’s an appealing idea for many, but has any of its proponents given it any serious thought?
Forget the moral issues for now, which, contrary to popular Western belief today, are complicated. How do they see this actually playing out? Even Trump gave up on the idea. For those Gazans who don’t want to leave, how do you physically get them on the buses? And even more fundamentally, even with the huge number who want to leave - no country in the world is willing to accept them, so where would the buses go?
And these are just some of the innumerable reasons why it cannot actually happen. It boggles the mind that people take this idea seriously and support politicians who claim that they will make it happen. You might as well say that we will send Palestinians to the moon.
(See the interview with Moshe Feiglin here, half-way through the video, where Feiglin flails and avoids answering the young questioner who pushes him to answer the question of what happens to Gazans who don’t want to leave. Feiglin, not even addressing the question of where even Gazans who want to leave would possibly go, says that they could be deprived of water to force them to leave. The questioner points out that he is effectively stating that Israel should starve two million people to death, and thus fully justify the accusation of genocide. Feiglin refuses to own this and instead starts attacking the questioner and asks him why he doesn’t care about Hamas murderers!)
I posted this on Facebook a few days ago, and the response by those who disagreed with me was extraordinary and revealing. My post was about how proponents of this idea are pushing something without giving any consideration to the impossibility of actually doing it. They reacted by insisting that it should and can happen, without remotely explaining how - thereby perfectly proving my point!
Some people responded by saying that it could be done just as Sudetenland Germans were deported from various countries after WWII. But they are ignoring a very obvious and basic difference. Sudetenland Germans were transferred to Germany, which was under Allied occupation and control. There is no such equivalent for Gazans (unless you want to deport them to Judea and Samaria, which is presumably not what is being wished for).
Other people threw out names of countries where they could go. Egypt! Jordan! Syria! But while these countries are of the same ethnicity, and are even the original homes of many Gazans from not too long ago, and certainly should take responsibility for the results of a conflict that they incited, they point-blank refuse to do so (for some very obvious reasons). Even Trump couldn’t change their minds, and Israel certainly doesn’t have as much leverage as Trump.
When I pointed this out, people said that Israel should do it “by force.” But what on earth does that even mean? Break our agreements with those countries, break our various agreements to follow international law, and launch a cross-border war?!
Other silly ideas that people threw out including dropping all the Gazans by parachute over Iran. Eventually, before even engaging with such ideas, I just asked people how much thought they had actually given to their ideas before advocating for them, and whether any complications and drawbacks had occurred to them.
This whole idea is unworkable and thus absurd. And it’s utterly reckless for people to advocate for something so significant without even giving it any serious thought. One can sympathize with how people are desperate for a solution to avoiding another attack, but if we are going to survive in this dangerous part of the world, we have to acknowledge the lack of perfect solutions, recognize the limitations, and work on practical approaches.
Meanwhile, this week I’m starting an additional Substack as a project with the Biblical Museum of Natural History, featuring weekly insights into Torah and the natural world (including a short but fascinating Dvar Torah for the Shabbat table!). This is content exclusively sent to Friends of the Museum. Sign up by clicking on the image below!
I have to admit parachuting the Gazans into Iran and sticking the ayatollahs with them has a certain appeal. 😈
Feiglin's plan may be unrealistic but at least he is raising the issue of what happens in the long term. We have a current ruling party that offers absolutely no guidance whatsoever as to what it would like to do in the short term, the medium term or the long term. In fact it offers no guidance whatsoever on anything and has not issued a manifesto in over 15 years. Its entire election campaign is based on "If the other guys get in, they will establish a Palestinian state", the same claim they have been using repeatedly over those 15 years (and a bit rich from a leader who famously actually endorsed the 2 state solution himself).