“War is hell,” said General Sherman. That is what is going on. In the case of Gaza, it will continue to go on unless some drastic actions are taken.
The Palestinians and the Israelis are diametrically opposed to each other. They are completely different people.
Part of the problem is Islam. Islam is a menace. Part of the problem is culture, which is influenced by Islam. Part of the problem is that the Palestinians really do see the Israelis as invaders. Such a thought may ring hollow to a Zionist Jew, but the Arabs really do see the Jews as invaders.
If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?
—David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli prime minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pg. 121.
Gaza has the potential to become an eternal war.
It turns out that the Israeli government is considering relocating some Gazans to Latin America. Better late than never.
Over ten years ago, I suggested that one solution was moving Arabs to Latin America. My original suggestion was to move Arabs from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) by making them a substantial offer. The Jewish people want Judea and Samaria as their biblical heartland; the Gaza Strip was an afterthought. It was my thought at that time that the first matter was to Judaize Judea and Samaria, which would demoralize the rest of the “resistance” elsewhere.
Events have intervened.
The suggestion — at that time — was that $200 billion would be sufficient to persuade 2 million Palestinians to leave. If that seems high, remember that, already, Israel’s central bank is tendering an estimate of $53 billion for this war. That is probably a low estimate for the struggle. So paying Palestinians to leave might be cost-effective.
Supposedly, Israel recently offered to pay off Egypt’s national debt if she would take in the Gazans. Well, that may get Egypt to agree, but would the Gazans agree?
According to the pro-Israel website Israpundit:
It has proposed to pay off Egypt’s staggering debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which, according to the IMF website, stands at a colossal $12,387,130,007. The catch? Egypt must agree to relocate the residents of Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula.
Egypt’s total national debit is a lot higher than $12 billion. That figure would barely make a dent. And it would amount to only $6,000 per Gazan, which is ridiculously low. The trick is to persuade Palestinians to leave.
The problem is that, as in the past, Israel has tried to lowball those numbers. Consider the plan to relocate Palestinians to Paraguay in 1969.
The protocol from 1969 states that Israel would bear the travel costs of the Palestinians moving to Paraguay and give each person $100, plus $33 per person would go to the government of Paraguay. At the time of signing the agreement with Paraguay, Israel would pay $350,000 to cover the costs for 10,000 émigrés. The full amount Israel was meant to pay was $33 million.
This was low, even for 1969. Very few considered the offer.
Israel will have to pay a lot more now, if it wants “voluntary migration.” Ten years ago, my estimates were about $500,000 for a family of five, or roughly $100,000 per person. The idea was to give each family enough money to buy a house, a small business, and a car. I crunched these numbers in 2018, for Chile. The idea was to make the relocation offer attractive, to offer the Palestinians a new life.
It is doable. The trick is not to dump all the Muslims in one place, but rather to spread the Muslim populations thin. In the case of Chile, 100,000 Gazans would constitute less than one half of one percent of the Chilean population, and the relocation would cost $10 billion.
That’s one fifth of the present estimate for the Gazan war.
Nor do all of Gazans have to go — just enough to demoralize those who stay behind.
I know that no Israeli will want to foot the bill after this war. But as I used to say, you can pay them in cash or in blood. It would have been far cheaper to pay to manumit the slaves than fight the Civil War. The other divisive issues were negotiable.
This is ugly on all sides.
South America could take in half a million Palestinians for $50 billion, the cost of this war. In Brazil, the refugees would face an enormous Evangelical Revival, something not seen in the Mideast, and for which the Muslims have no social defense. Muslims are not used to having their religion publicly contested. Conversions will be large.
Brazil is one third Evangelical.
Guatemala is 41% Evangelical
Honduras is 44% Evangelical.
Argentina would confront them with the tango, and a smaller Revival. Even Chile has a minor Revival.
Forcing the Palestinians out will only provoke hatred, and will backfire.
Don’t send the Palestinians to America or Europe, which are already flooded with Muslims. Latin America has a remarkably low percentage of Muslims and a history of converting those Muslims who do arrive. Go with a winner.
And of course, any Palestinian family entering a North African country with half a million dollars might be welcomed.
It may hurt to suggest this, but buying them out — and not by lowballing the cost — is the only way it will work.
Mike Konrad run a website, LatinArabia.com, where he discusses this.
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