What to do with the ‘Palestinians’

OPINION:

President Trump has proposed and doubled down on the idea of half the “Palestinians” of the Gaza Strip being relocated to Jordan and Egypt.

Historical facts and demographic realities aside, millions of people refer to themselves and identify as “Palestinian.” That title was subsumed in the 1960s by the Palestine Liberation Organization, a terrorist movement whose sole purpose is to replace Israel with an Arab state called Palestine, even though no state of Palestine had ever existed until 1948 when Israel declared independence. The only people referred to as Palestinians were the Jews. My father was one of them. A Palestinian Jew. An original Palestinian.

When you look at the population of “Palestine” before 1948, there are two significant trends. First, the Jewish return to the land in the late 1800s brought its population from tens of thousands to 600,000 when Israel became a state. There is a parallel and related reality in the massive growth of the Arab population. When you look at that growth, double or more over a decade or less, it’s impossible to explain that as natural growth. The only explanation that demonstrates the historical fact is Arab immigration to Palestine.

Why and how are the two related? Just as the biblical prophecy of Ezekiel 36 was played out with the Jewish people returning to the land of Israel and the land blossoming and prospering again upon their return, hundreds of thousands of Arabs from Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Lebanon and what is now called Jordan (but then was the eastern part of “Palestine”) migrated to Israel to be part of the economic blossoming and success prophesied by Ezekiel.

The fact that millions of people refer to themselves today as “Palestinian,” even though their names tell us where their grandparents and great-grandparents came from, does not mitigate the fact that there are millions who have adopted this ethnicity that is only as old as I am.

With the interest and intent to see peace in the Middle East, specifically between Israel and Gaza and all Palestinian Arabs, the question is what can truly be done to achieve that.

Mr. Trump’s proposal to move as many as half of the Gaza residents to Egypt and Jordan has met with wide criticism, specifically in the Arab world. Unfortunately, throughout history, most Arab leaders and countries have used the plight of the “Palestinians” as a way to blame Israel rather than to seek any true resolution for the reality or to take responsibility to make that happen other than dumping billions of dollars into a failed jihadi enterprise they call “Palestine.”

The reasons that neither Egypt nor Jordan (nor Saudi Arabia nor any other country) wants to absorb masses of Palestinian Arabs are complicated. First, with a population that has been radicalized for so long and been nurtured to live on handouts from the United Nations, European Union, USAID and other Arab countries, simply nobody wants them. They are the ideological progeny of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in Egypt. Jordan’s King Abdullah remembers well the threat to his father’s monarchy by “Palestinians” in 1970, leading to the “Black September” slaughter of tens of thousands. Ironically, nobody thought to call that a genocide when Arabs massacred one another, only when Jews can be blamed.

The other fact is that by absorbing Palestinian Arabs, even those countries that are at peace with Israel would no longer have a reason to blame Israel for the “Palestinian” situation, for which they take no responsibility and blame Israel exclusively, no matter the issue.

Third, any country that would do so would be seen as a traitor to the “Palestinian” cause. Even those countries at peace with Israel have done nothing in decades to educate their populations that Israel not only has a right to exist but is also an essential partner in their own well-being. By “betraying” the “Palestinian” cause, which is the Kool-Aid that the Arab world has ingested since the 1960s, doing so would put their own respective rule at risk because of possible massive protests that would result.

Despite billions of dollars being invested ostensibly for the well-being of the Palestinian Arabs, what we’ve seen in the past 16 months is that it all has literally blown up, and nobody wants any more financial or geopolitical liability.

In these Arab nations, Palestinian Arabs are treated as second-class citizens without rights of citizenship or other economic benefits, even though they may be third- and fourth-generation natives of the countries in which they live, perpetuating the myth of “Palestinians” as foreign refugees.

So, as Mr. Trump has proposed the repatriation of many Palestinian Arabs to some of the countries from which their relatives came a century or more ago when seeking prosperity as the Jews restored Palestine and built a thriving state, what we see is that none of these countries wants them and that these countries would not accept them, even if that were a viable solution devoid of politics and the ability to continue to condemn Israel.

So what is the solution? What to do with the “Palestinians”?

What’s clear even from people on the left who were once advocates of a two-state solution is that it was not viable and was on life-support before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre and is not practical. It is clear that the Palestinian Arab terrorist leaders from Hamas and Islamic Jihad and all the way up to their Iranian patrons do not want a separate “Palestinian” state but the destruction of the Jewish state. Moving Arabs out of Gaza will not change that nor mitigate the threat to Israel.

To ever see peace in Gaza, with the hope that such peace might expand to other Palestinian Arabs and intransigent Arab and Muslim countries, the actual solution is not rooted in a crushing military defeat, which Israel has still not accomplished sufficiently, nor is it rooted in simply repatriating 50% of the Gazans to other countries. Even with that scenario, you’re left with a population of more than 1 million people who are radicalized, who believe that Israel has no legitimacy and that it is their religious mandate, according to Allah, to destroy the Jewish state.

The answer is to change their attitudes and offer them an ideology not rooted in hate and destruction but one of love and prosperity. Either way, it’s necessary to rebuild Gaza for 1 million or 2.5 million inhabitants. The question is who will be responsible for doing so and how. The rebuilding of Gaza is not just a necessity but also an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to bring in 100,000 to 200,000 Christians from all over the world to take responsibility for rebuilding schools, hospitals, residential areas and public parks as well as its medical system, nutritional programs and, most important, its educational system. All of it.

Working alongside Palestinian Arabs to make this happen over a generation will serve the purpose of giving Palestinians exposure to a reality that they have never experienced. They will meet people who have a love for them and for Israel, a love that’s rooted in the Bible in which Israel was and remains God’s chosen nation. They will learn that Israel is the cornerstone of their problems and the foundation for their future. They will learn that their self-destructive jihadi brainwashing for most of the past century, and the god they worship, has failed them. When they see and embrace an attitude and ideology offering true hope, love and prosperity, we can see a new reality in Gaza and true peace between Gaza and Israel.

President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are on the verge of a historic meeting during which they will surely talk about the imperative to have all of the hostages released and remove Hamas and any other Islamic forces from their position of control and influence in Gaza.

Hopefully, they will also discuss the necessity to cut off their life support from the Islamic regime in Iran. As world leaders, they will also be open to out-of-the-box ideas such as the Solution for Peace and Gaza to create a lasting peace.

The only way to achieve true peace is by a crushing military defeat of Islamic extremism and by a radical changing of hearts. That is what to do with the “Palestinians.”

• Jonathan Feldstein is president of the Genesis 123 Foundation. He was born and educated in the U.S. and emigrated to Israel in 2004.