In one short statement, U.S. President Trump has opened the door to a settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict which, in the long term, has more chance of creating a peaceful future than the fantasies currently perpetrated by some Western leaders of a two-state solution,
Talking about Gaza, Trump said,
You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. I don’t know, something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished, and people are dying there, so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location.
The possible implications of Trump’s statement are far-reaching. Taken to their conclusion, they imply that the whole postwar programme for Palestine statehood should be dismissed and replaced by a peaceful dispersal of Palestinians who do not wish to live in Gaza and the West Bank into other Arab countries.
It would mean an end to the ‘right of return’ which has applied since the UN-backed creation of the state of Israel in 1948. It would mean an end to the permanent refugee status of not only the original Arabs who left or fled from Israel in 1948, an event Arabs refer to as the ‘Nakba’ or ‘catastrophe’, but also their descendants.
The granting of refugee status to the descendants of refugees is an anomaly, as it does not apply to refugees anywhere else in the world. Nor should it. If all the various peoples displaced by the wars and conflicts of the 20th century were granted the right of return, it would lead to endless chaos and conflict globally. This applies in spades to the Palestinians who wish to ‘return’ to a state that does not even exist.
What makes this two-state, right-of-return fantasy even more ludicrous is that Hamas itself has no interest in a Palestinian state, except as a base to launch attacks on Israel. It is committed to an Islamist global caliphate, in which the Jews are just the first victims.
Hamas has demonstrated, for all the world with eyes to see, its barbarism and intransigence, its desire to eliminate Israel and all the Jews who live there ‘from the river to the sea,’ and its determination to repeat the October 7th pogrom in Israel ‘again and again.’
Yet, Hamas retains the leadership of Palestinians in Gaza, who voted overwhelmingly for the Islamists to rule them in the last election Hamas allowed, in 2006. Look at the pictures of the crowds in Gaza chanting their Jew-hatred in ‘celebration’ of the recent ceasefire. Many Arabs living in the West Bank also supported the Hamas massacres on October 7th, as did the supposedly ‘moderate’ Palestinian Authority that formally governs there. How could Israelis think of allowing a state that openly threatens their very existence to exist on their borders?
In all the various peace talks since 1948, the Palestinians have rejected any forms of statehood offered to them. Since 1948, the closest thing Palestinians have ever had to a state has been Gaza, after the Israeli military and civilians pulled out in 2005, but it could only function with the aid and support of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), itself heavily infiltrated by Hamas supporters.
During that time, under the leadership of the elected Hamas government, instead of focusing on the well-being and economic development of the people of Gaza, the Hamas government used the billions of dollars it was granted by the West to build a vast underground infrastructure to support an offensive against Israel. Through its war on Israel, using Palestinian civilians as human shields and celebrating their deaths as martyrdoms, Hamas has wrought death and destruction on Gaza, delivered a true ‘catastrophe’ for its own people, and left them with only the ‘demolition site’ Trump referred to.
There will be Gazans who want to escape the destruction and the likelihood of further conflict. Whether Trump can find the means and the resolve to get Egypt to open its closed borders to Gazans, or get Jordan and other Arab countries to grant citizenship to them, something they have always refused to do, remains to be seen.
My instinct is that the Arab countries will not happily respond to Trump’s suggestions. They have been loath to accept Palestinians from Gaza until now, revealing the hypocrisy of their supposed ‘concern’ for Gazans. But at least Trump’s comments mean some realism is entering the discussions about the future, rather than the magical thinking of the two-state solution. And maybe he can make them an offer they cannot refuse.
Trump Points the Way to a Future for Israel and the Arabs
In one short statement, U.S. President Trump has opened the door to a settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict which, in the long term, has more chance of creating a peaceful future than the fantasies currently perpetrated by some Western leaders of a two-state solution,
Talking about Gaza, Trump said,
The possible implications of Trump’s statement are far-reaching. Taken to their conclusion, they imply that the whole postwar programme for Palestine statehood should be dismissed and replaced by a peaceful dispersal of Palestinians who do not wish to live in Gaza and the West Bank into other Arab countries.
It would mean an end to the ‘right of return’ which has applied since the UN-backed creation of the state of Israel in 1948. It would mean an end to the permanent refugee status of not only the original Arabs who left or fled from Israel in 1948, an event Arabs refer to as the ‘Nakba’ or ‘catastrophe’, but also their descendants.
The granting of refugee status to the descendants of refugees is an anomaly, as it does not apply to refugees anywhere else in the world. Nor should it. If all the various peoples displaced by the wars and conflicts of the 20th century were granted the right of return, it would lead to endless chaos and conflict globally. This applies in spades to the Palestinians who wish to ‘return’ to a state that does not even exist.
What makes this two-state, right-of-return fantasy even more ludicrous is that Hamas itself has no interest in a Palestinian state, except as a base to launch attacks on Israel. It is committed to an Islamist global caliphate, in which the Jews are just the first victims.
Hamas has demonstrated, for all the world with eyes to see, its barbarism and intransigence, its desire to eliminate Israel and all the Jews who live there ‘from the river to the sea,’ and its determination to repeat the October 7th pogrom in Israel ‘again and again.’
Yet, Hamas retains the leadership of Palestinians in Gaza, who voted overwhelmingly for the Islamists to rule them in the last election Hamas allowed, in 2006. Look at the pictures of the crowds in Gaza chanting their Jew-hatred in ‘celebration’ of the recent ceasefire. Many Arabs living in the West Bank also supported the Hamas massacres on October 7th, as did the supposedly ‘moderate’ Palestinian Authority that formally governs there. How could Israelis think of allowing a state that openly threatens their very existence to exist on their borders?
In all the various peace talks since 1948, the Palestinians have rejected any forms of statehood offered to them. Since 1948, the closest thing Palestinians have ever had to a state has been Gaza, after the Israeli military and civilians pulled out in 2005, but it could only function with the aid and support of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), itself heavily infiltrated by Hamas supporters.
During that time, under the leadership of the elected Hamas government, instead of focusing on the well-being and economic development of the people of Gaza, the Hamas government used the billions of dollars it was granted by the West to build a vast underground infrastructure to support an offensive against Israel. Through its war on Israel, using Palestinian civilians as human shields and celebrating their deaths as martyrdoms, Hamas has wrought death and destruction on Gaza, delivered a true ‘catastrophe’ for its own people, and left them with only the ‘demolition site’ Trump referred to.
There will be Gazans who want to escape the destruction and the likelihood of further conflict. Whether Trump can find the means and the resolve to get Egypt to open its closed borders to Gazans, or get Jordan and other Arab countries to grant citizenship to them, something they have always refused to do, remains to be seen.
My instinct is that the Arab countries will not happily respond to Trump’s suggestions. They have been loath to accept Palestinians from Gaza until now, revealing the hypocrisy of their supposed ‘concern’ for Gazans. But at least Trump’s comments mean some realism is entering the discussions about the future, rather than the magical thinking of the two-state solution. And maybe he can make them an offer they cannot refuse.
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