Saudi Arabia has suggested an alternate solution to end the perpetual conflict in the region: move the entire population of Israeli to Greenland, once Donald Trump buys it.
I would add that this approach has a much greater chance of bringing peace to the entire region than relocating the Palestinians would. It would also have the advantage of providing ready-made housing for all the Palestinians whose houses were destroyed by the Israelis.
Before any pro-Israeli types fly into outrage over the Saudi proposal, perhaps you could meditate for a moment on how it would feel to have the shoe on the other foot.
Billions of dollars in aid was poured into Gaza. Hamas stole most of it.
Hamas has from the start calibrated its attacks on Israel to maximize casualties among the Arabs in Gaza.
The investment Trump wishes to make has already been made. And here we are.
As for removing the Arabs from Gaza....where are they going to go? They have been expelled from Jordan and Lebanon, and Egypt is determined not to let any refugees from Gaza cross their border.
No one wants to take them in. The Arabs in the West Bank fought a civil war with. Hamas over control of the Palestinian National Authority in 2006, which makes moving them over to the West Bank problematic.
Ideologically, the al-Qaeda derived radicals now in charge of Syria are probably the closest to Hamas, but I suspect al-Jolani is not going to want to deal with another competing power group.
Trump's proposal sounds great in theory. I don't see it working in reality, and I would not want the US entangled in trying to make it work. That's a scenario that has "disaster" written all over it.
"No one wants to take them in" - that's by design, the Muslim nations need a perpetual victim to justify wiping Israel off the map. Could Trump use some leverage to change that situation? Possibly.
Prior to the Six Day War, Jordan possessed the West Bank, having occupied the region after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and formally annexing the region in 1950. The Arabs living in the West Bank were all given Jordanian citizenship and representation in the Jordanian parliament--more than tripling Jordan's population in the process.
The Arab League was unhappy with Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, although it accepted Jordan's assurances that the annexation was merely holding the region "in trust".
Even so, radicalized Arabs from the West Bank assassinated King Abdallah in 1951, and throughout the 1950s became an ever more restive presence in Jordan.
In 1964, those restive sentiments resulted in the formation of the PLO, which Fatah joined in 1967 after the Six-Day War. Fatah's leader, Yasser Arafat, became the Chairman of the PLO in 1969.
By 1970, tensions between the PLO and Jordan's King Hussein reached a boiling point, and Hussein used military force to expel the PLO completely from Jordan, after which Arafat moved most PLO activities to Beirut, Lebanon.
Jordan would relinquish its claims on the West Bank in 1988, and with that the Arabs living in the West Bank lost all claims of Jordanian citizenship. Since 1988 Jordan has been cancelling the Jordanian citizenship of those living elsewhere in Jordan but who originated from the West Bank.
PLO guerilla and terrorist actions against Israel resulted in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, with the result that the PLO was expelled from Lebanon.
More recently, Egypt, while broadly sympathetic to the cause of Arabs living in Gaza, is absolutely opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas. Even when Rafah was targeted by the IDF, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi steadfastly refused to open the border between Gaza and Egypt, and concerns about Hamas' potential for causing strife within Egypt was a principal reason why.
Even on an historical basis, the animosity of the Arab nations to those Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank has for the most part even exceeded the animosity of those same Arab nations towards Israel. That was how Egypt and Jordan were able to make peace agreements with Israel in the 1970s and 1980s.
While the Arab nations have no qualms about exploiting the privations of the people in Gaza and the West Bank to promote anti-Israel sentiment internationally--a cynical weaponization of that suffering outdone only by Hamas' intentionally hiding behind civilians in Gaza to maximize civilian deaths during IDF reprisals--they equally have no intention of allowing them to settle within their terrirories no matter what.
To express an informed opinion, I would need to know something of the current land tenure situation in Gaza. Do most people own the land (or a share thru apartment ownership) that they use? Who keeps land records and how well is this done? How is the land taxed?
And also, I suppose, how does DJT propose to compensate the current land owners?
That's an interesting take. Rebuilding the place so it's nice is amoral? How so? No-one is suggesting the Palestinian people be killed. Would you prefer they stay in poverty and at war with Israel?
Rebuilding it for who? The current course of action is to either kill the Palestinians or at the very least, drive them out. Paying for replacement infrastructure for the genocidal thieves is kinda missing the point.
"genocidal thieves" - that's emotionalized language that doesn't tell the full story (at best) There would be no modern "Palestinians" if Arab Muslims hadn't invaded the area and converted people by the sword in the first place. Why is this concept so hard for people to understand?
While Dubai enjoys a glitzy reputation as a financial hub for the Middle East and a Persian Gulf resort for the rich, its track record of abusing migrant workers and marginalized people is not something that would likely fill the Arabs in Gaza with optimism.
Who said it had to be built using the same labor model as Dubai? The comparison to Dubai is the end result, not how they got there. Clearly it has to be done in a different way given the situation.
By the same token, you’re assuming that the same labor model would not be the inevitable result of attempting to rebuild a territory with literally no rule of law.
One only has to look at the existence of labor trafficking just within the United States to see that, even with the rule of law, labor trafficking, indentured servitude, and slavery still happen.
Keep in mind also that the UAE is widely viewed as the least corrupt of the Middle Eastern countries. Every other Arab nation as well as Israel is ranked as more corrupt than the UAE by Transparency International.
It's not the Arabs who provide the slave labour. We all know this.
This is not just in the UAE either.
Look at Oman, Qatar, Abu Dhabi for also examples.
The native population is wealthy. Thus it should follow, given the oil reserves in Palestine, that the native Palestinians will be the slave owners, not Trump's friends.
Geographic quibble: Abu Dhabi is the largest Emirate in the UAE by land area, and the second largest by population after Dubai.
As for the natural gas reserves offshore near Gaza, as Gaza is still part of the Palestinian Authority--whose capital city is Ramalah in the West Bank--legal rights to develop those reserves belong to the PA government which is led by Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah.
Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah govern the West Bank, with Hamas having been in control of Gaza since the PA civil war in 2006.
The challenge this poses for relying on revenues from those energy reserves to develop Gaza or the West Bank economically is that Abbas and Fatah are as corrupt as Hamas is genocidal. Additinally, Abbas is pushing 90 and apparently intends to remain in charge of the PA until he at last shuffles off this mortal coil.
The most likely near term scenario for the West Bank irrespective of the resolution of Gaza's future is factional violence after Abbas is gone as Fatah fights a variety of political groups for control of the PA government.
Gaza's offshore gas fields represent a substantial economic asset, one which Hamas has been less interested in developing than it has been interested in pursuing genocide against Israel while holding Fatah at arm's length in Gaza. Alas for Gaza, Fatah and the PA government under Abbas are an equally unlikely prospect to develop those fields, leaving them frustratingly just out of reach of the Arabs in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia has suggested an alternate solution to end the perpetual conflict in the region: move the entire population of Israeli to Greenland, once Donald Trump buys it.
I would add that this approach has a much greater chance of bringing peace to the entire region than relocating the Palestinians would. It would also have the advantage of providing ready-made housing for all the Palestinians whose houses were destroyed by the Israelis.
Before any pro-Israeli types fly into outrage over the Saudi proposal, perhaps you could meditate for a moment on how it would feel to have the shoe on the other foot.
Billions of dollars in aid was poured into Gaza. Hamas stole most of it.
Hamas has from the start calibrated its attacks on Israel to maximize casualties among the Arabs in Gaza.
The investment Trump wishes to make has already been made. And here we are.
As for removing the Arabs from Gaza....where are they going to go? They have been expelled from Jordan and Lebanon, and Egypt is determined not to let any refugees from Gaza cross their border.
No one wants to take them in. The Arabs in the West Bank fought a civil war with. Hamas over control of the Palestinian National Authority in 2006, which makes moving them over to the West Bank problematic.
Ideologically, the al-Qaeda derived radicals now in charge of Syria are probably the closest to Hamas, but I suspect al-Jolani is not going to want to deal with another competing power group.
Trump's proposal sounds great in theory. I don't see it working in reality, and I would not want the US entangled in trying to make it work. That's a scenario that has "disaster" written all over it.
"No one wants to take them in" - that's by design, the Muslim nations need a perpetual victim to justify wiping Israel off the map. Could Trump use some leverage to change that situation? Possibly.
It's more by consequence than design.
Prior to the Six Day War, Jordan possessed the West Bank, having occupied the region after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and formally annexing the region in 1950. The Arabs living in the West Bank were all given Jordanian citizenship and representation in the Jordanian parliament--more than tripling Jordan's population in the process.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170202010834/https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/jordan-formally-annexes-west-bank
The Arab League was unhappy with Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, although it accepted Jordan's assurances that the annexation was merely holding the region "in trust".
Even so, radicalized Arabs from the West Bank assassinated King Abdallah in 1951, and throughout the 1950s became an ever more restive presence in Jordan.
https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2020/06/kramer-the-west-bank-was-annexed-once-before-it-ended-in-regrets/?print
In 1964, those restive sentiments resulted in the formation of the PLO, which Fatah joined in 1967 after the Six-Day War. Fatah's leader, Yasser Arafat, became the Chairman of the PLO in 1969.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/israel_and_the_palestinians/profiles/1371998.stm
By 1970, tensions between the PLO and Jordan's King Hussein reached a boiling point, and Hussein used military force to expel the PLO completely from Jordan, after which Arafat moved most PLO activities to Beirut, Lebanon.
https://www.france24.com/en/20200915-fifty-years-ago-black-september-for-plo
Jordan would relinquish its claims on the West Bank in 1988, and with that the Arabs living in the West Bank lost all claims of Jordanian citizenship. Since 1988 Jordan has been cancelling the Jordanian citizenship of those living elsewhere in Jordan but who originated from the West Bank.
https://reliefweb.int/report/jordan/stateless-again-palestinian-origin-jordanians-deprived-their-nationality
PLO guerilla and terrorist actions against Israel resulted in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, with the result that the PLO was expelled from Lebanon.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/defense/1661709845-when-yasser-arafat-left-beirut-while-israel-had-him-targeted
More recently, Egypt, while broadly sympathetic to the cause of Arabs living in Gaza, is absolutely opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas. Even when Rafah was targeted by the IDF, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi steadfastly refused to open the border between Gaza and Egypt, and concerns about Hamas' potential for causing strife within Egypt was a principal reason why.
https://theconversation.com/why-egypt-refuses-to-open-its-border-to-palestinians-forcibly-displaced-from-gaza-223735
Even on an historical basis, the animosity of the Arab nations to those Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank has for the most part even exceeded the animosity of those same Arab nations towards Israel. That was how Egypt and Jordan were able to make peace agreements with Israel in the 1970s and 1980s.
While the Arab nations have no qualms about exploiting the privations of the people in Gaza and the West Bank to promote anti-Israel sentiment internationally--a cynical weaponization of that suffering outdone only by Hamas' intentionally hiding behind civilians in Gaza to maximize civilian deaths during IDF reprisals--they equally have no intention of allowing them to settle within their terrirories no matter what.
To express an informed opinion, I would need to know something of the current land tenure situation in Gaza. Do most people own the land (or a share thru apartment ownership) that they use? Who keeps land records and how well is this done? How is the land taxed?
And also, I suppose, how does DJT propose to compensate the current land owners?
Indeed, can individual land owners opt out?
>Should Gaza Be Turned Into Dubai?
Somehow this feels even *more* amoral than just genocidal carpet-bombing.
That's an interesting take. Rebuilding the place so it's nice is amoral? How so? No-one is suggesting the Palestinian people be killed. Would you prefer they stay in poverty and at war with Israel?
Rebuilding it for who? The current course of action is to either kill the Palestinians or at the very least, drive them out. Paying for replacement infrastructure for the genocidal thieves is kinda missing the point.
"genocidal thieves" - that's emotionalized language that doesn't tell the full story (at best) There would be no modern "Palestinians" if Arab Muslims hadn't invaded the area and converted people by the sword in the first place. Why is this concept so hard for people to understand?
Dubai is a problematic model for a possible future for Gaza.
Dubai and the UAE are where labor exploitation and modern day slavery are perhaps the worst within the Middle East.
https://www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/modern-day-slavery-in-the-united-arab-emirates
While Dubai enjoys a glitzy reputation as a financial hub for the Middle East and a Persian Gulf resort for the rich, its track record of abusing migrant workers and marginalized people is not something that would likely fill the Arabs in Gaza with optimism.
Who said it had to be built using the same labor model as Dubai? The comparison to Dubai is the end result, not how they got there. Clearly it has to be done in a different way given the situation.
By the same token, you’re assuming that the same labor model would not be the inevitable result of attempting to rebuild a territory with literally no rule of law.
One only has to look at the existence of labor trafficking just within the United States to see that, even with the rule of law, labor trafficking, indentured servitude, and slavery still happen.
Keep in mind also that the UAE is widely viewed as the least corrupt of the Middle Eastern countries. Every other Arab nation as well as Israel is ranked as more corrupt than the UAE by Transparency International.
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023
Most countries in the Middle East score below 50 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
How wil corruption and labor trafficking be prevented during the rebuild when the rule of law in the region as a whole is already problematic?
It's not the Arabs who provide the slave labour. We all know this.
This is not just in the UAE either.
Look at Oman, Qatar, Abu Dhabi for also examples.
The native population is wealthy. Thus it should follow, given the oil reserves in Palestine, that the native Palestinians will be the slave owners, not Trump's friends.
Geographic quibble: Abu Dhabi is the largest Emirate in the UAE by land area, and the second largest by population after Dubai.
As for the natural gas reserves offshore near Gaza, as Gaza is still part of the Palestinian Authority--whose capital city is Ramalah in the West Bank--legal rights to develop those reserves belong to the PA government which is led by Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah.
Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah govern the West Bank, with Hamas having been in control of Gaza since the PA civil war in 2006.
The challenge this poses for relying on revenues from those energy reserves to develop Gaza or the West Bank economically is that Abbas and Fatah are as corrupt as Hamas is genocidal. Additinally, Abbas is pushing 90 and apparently intends to remain in charge of the PA until he at last shuffles off this mortal coil.
The most likely near term scenario for the West Bank irrespective of the resolution of Gaza's future is factional violence after Abbas is gone as Fatah fights a variety of political groups for control of the PA government.
Gaza's offshore gas fields represent a substantial economic asset, one which Hamas has been less interested in developing than it has been interested in pursuing genocide against Israel while holding Fatah at arm's length in Gaza. Alas for Gaza, Fatah and the PA government under Abbas are an equally unlikely prospect to develop those fields, leaving them frustratingly just out of reach of the Arabs in Gaza.