The ideological-political fixation in which the world is held, is preventing the residents of Gaza from the benefit of an ethical, vital solution, which they also desire: emigration to the world outside. Author Yoav Sorek explains.
Editor of the journal Hashiloah, publicist, intellectual and author, Dr. Yoav Sorek, calls, in an article that he published, for not returning the residents of Gaza to areas from which they were evacuated during the war.
As part of the Sovereignty Movement’s Zoom meetings, Dr. Sorek expounds on his opinion on the matter.
Regarding the ethical matter entailed in Israel’s war, Dr. Sorek mentions that the aim of a person who is concerned with ethics is to prevent suffering and harm from innocents and minimizing bloodshed as much a possible, and anyone watching the conflict between Gaza and Israel from the outside, searching for the source of this conflict, will find that the majority of residents of the Gaza Strip should find a different place to live in the world. And for this, it is enough to open the gates and provide the possibility for emigration for those who are interested in doing so, which is the majority.
In Sorek’s opinion, this scenario is what will minimize bloodshed and suffering.
Therefore, it is also the most ethical in the current situation. “There is a population here that is educated from age zero that they are refugees of the Nakba and that they have lost their land to the "Zionist colonizers in ’48, who pushed them out of their cities".
Many of them came to the Gaza Strip with the Egyptian army, which invaded Israel and were pushed to the border in the cease-fire. Slightly more than two hundred thousand refugees flowed in and joined the local population of about 75 thousand people, which was very difficult from the economic point of view as well as for other reasons.”
“The Egyptians did not annex this area and they defined it as a military zone and unlike what we did with the Jewish refugees who came from the Arab countries and Europe. And since then, we are actually the refugees who created a flourishing society.
The Arab countries did not accept the refugees, besides Jordan, who gave them citizenship and absorbed them. This is how the Gazans remained refugees, according to UNRWA, although they are already the fourth and fifth generations.” In such a situation, where the Gazans are educated on the narrative of the Nakba, according to which, they will only rise when Israel is erased from the River to the Sea, they will continue to bring upon us the same destruction continually and on the other hand, Israel will continue trying to defend itself, which means that the bloodshed will continue, because of what Golda said, “We have nowhere else to go”.
Oslo was an attempt to bring about a life of mutual peace, but we did not check whether this was indeed feasible and if this hope was based on reality.
“The Gaza refugees are prisoners of this concept, in addition to the poverty and over-crowding in which they live, as well as the plight preventing them from leaving, which could have been solved if the world had not turned its back on them, thus creating a situation in which, as long as this population remains there in these numbers and with this mentality, blood will continue to be shed. And in the best case, we will establish military rule there and for years we will deal with the policing hated by Israelis, of Sisyphean occupation.
Since we will not do this, the result is that we will leave them alone, and the cycle of bloodshed will never end until the refugees who left in ’48 from the small Land of Israel to Judea and Samaria, Gaza, Jordan and Syria, accept reality”, says Dr. Sorek, who is not shocked by the claim that it is Israel who is responsible for the situation or for causing it, because the establishment of the Jewish State is part of the changes that occurred in the Middle East and this must be accepted and internalized.
Sorek goes on to say that as long as the essence of Palestinian nationalism and consciousness is the denial of Israel’s existence without reconciling with the reality that has been created on the ground, the only solution is moving them to another place.
Relating to the claim that transfer of a population is considered a crime against humanity, Sorek wonders how it can be that a process that could be so beneficial for everyone involved can be defined this way. But besides this, it is correct “to do something very simple - to allow anyone who desires to leave, to emigrate.”
“The Arab world continually exports emigrees to the rest of the world, which drives the Europeans crazy. From which place is it very difficult to emigrate? From the Gaza Strip? Is this because of the attachment to their homeland and the desire to cling to it? This is just a Jewish fantasy. They want very much to leave and every worker from Gaza says it. They also do not view Gaza as their homeland. In their eyes, "Palestine" is their homeland. This is the reason that they attack Be’eri and Nahal Oz. Because they say that they are not in their homeland and they cannot live in their homeland and this means throwing the Jews into the sea and erasing Zionism, which will not happen. In any case, the world must accept them as they accepted millions all the time, even if not happily.”
According to him, what is needed is “international organization that says, let’s open the Gaza prison and check which countries are willing to absorb ten thousand, twenty thousand or fifty thousand, who will be able to help them. This is a relatively well-educated and developed population that can contribute significantly to many places with a shortage of workers and manpower”, notes Sorek.
The rebuilding of Gaza and inviting the Gazans to return to live there will be, according to Sorek, nothing other than the stage before the next slaughter that they will perpetrate on us, and the deaths that they themselves will experience, as has happened in the past. Instead of this, they must be offered good options that can also be a sort of emigration grant, which will cost Israel less than all the shells it uses in its war against Gaza and without bloodshed for us or for them.
“It is possible to solve this thing and it is appropriate for the world to mobilize for this”, says Sorek, who believes that everything he says is known to the decision makers but they do not believe that it is possible. “They do not dare touch it”, he says.
In relating to the term “Gaza Prison”, Dr. Sorek says that the only way the residents of Gaza can leave the Strip is via Egypt and with a visa, which any country can provide, but which is beyond the means of many residents there, and this results in relatively low emigration.
Nevertheless, he notes, there has been significant emigration.
A document of the Intelligence branch on emigration of Gaza youth, describes the unrest that was created among the Gaza youth when the Turkish Office, which used to issue visas to leave the Strip, was closed. In addition, the document notes the number of emigrees, which is usually kept quiet, but according to various bodies dealing with the matter from 2018 until this year, between 200,000 and 300,000 people have left the Strip, which means tens of thousands every month. This emigration is done under stress and difficulty and it is possible to state with relative confidence that if the opportunity were given freely, many would choose to leave.
Dr. Sorek notes another article that was published in Haaretz, which describes the scenes that the Gazans see when, because of the cease-fire, they come to the northern part of the Strip. Many of them say that they are waiting for the first opportunity to leave to assure a better future for their children.
As someone who was one of the leading advocates of the Israeli plan by Rav Benny Elon, obm, Dr. Sorek speak of the plan’s principles, which included the application of sovereignty, Israeli-Jordanian cooperation regarding civilian control in Judea and Samaria and rehabilitation of the refugees without the fear of dealing with this matter, even if it included paying damages to refugees of the Nakba.
Rav Benny Elon, says Sorek, told him back then that it was a logical plan but at that time there was nobody who would implement it, but history reveals opportunities and when the opportunity arises, the question would be which plan is on the table, therefore, a plan such as this will be on the table.
From his own experience, Sorek relates: “In 2007, we tried to promote the initiative and we tried to create a connection with Palestinian elements in eastern Jerusalem to discuss the question of rehabilitation of the refugees, the importance of which, they understood. Not much came of these attempts, but there was one meeting with a delegation from the European Union for aid to Gaza. It was after one of the IDF’s operations in which Gaza suffered considerably. I met the representative of the European Union who spoke of the humanitarian situation, which concerned him deeply and that his parents hid Jews during the Holocaust. And indeed, from what appears in foreign media it seems that every person with a conscience must care for the poor and oppressed Palestinians. I told him, ‘You want to help them, and polls show that more than half of them want to emigrate from there’ - He stopped me and said ‘half? All… They all want to leave’. I told him ‘If so, why do you throw them sacks of rice instead of offering them absorption as refugees?’ and he answered me, ‘And what will happen with our claim against Israel that you threw them out in the Nakba?’ which means anyone who desires to help them is captive to the Palestinian narrative. They are willing to suffer in order to protest against Israel’s existence. Is this ethical? It would be ethical to allow them to leave, to open the gates and absorb them as Pakistanis, Syrians, Algerians and Libyans are absorbed, and if not in Europe, it is possible in South America or Asia or in one of the former Soviet Republics that can open the gates.”
“If they want to return to the Gaza Strip, if they want to give sovereignty over the villages around the Gaza Strip back to us, those who wish for our death cannot be in such close proximity”, says Sorek, commenting that one of the confusing things about Oslo is the idea that “you make peace with enemies”. “An enemy is someone that looks for opportunities to harm you. You don’t make peace with him. You prevail over him. You make peace with someone who wants to make peace with you, otherwise there is no point and it will be peace with rifles.”
“I am ashamed of the situation that we have accepted in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem and some of the places in the small State of Israel, a situation where, in order to allow someone who wants to kill me at the first opportunity to live near me, I fortify myself with defense systems, instead of saying that if he wants to kill me at the first opportunity, he cannot be here at all. The Land is intended for people who are interested in living together. I am not in favor of expelling gentiles, but if someone does not want to live in peace with me, we do no have to accept his existence.”
Sorek believes that if such offers of emigration bring about the emigration of half or a third of the residents of Gaza, it would lead to a dramatic change, both because not everyone there is the same and because the price that they would pay for emigration or in a war will be clear to anyone who remains, so that it will be possible to examine options for arrangements such as these and others, under the vital Israeli security control.
Dr. Sorek also notes that as we know from the Second World War, there were many exchanges of populations throughout the world in order to enable political stability and these things were done in many cases by agreement. “These are traumatic events but they were considered to be the key to resolving disagreements during a certain period, but then they stopped. Since the 50s, such things have not been done, therefore, what might have been acceptable in the first discussions of the Zionist movement could not be discussed today”.
“We can be critical of the world’s hypocrisy, but I prefer to live in the world where there is international law rather than a world there is not, because international law has an effect that refines bad things”, he says, expressing the understanding that transfer is not something that is done in our times, however, it must be understood that a population that refuses to live in peace and is brutal toward itself and toward its neighbors, and when it is a population with the consciousness of having being expelled, but not the consciousness of belonging, in such a situation “they should be expelled a bit further. This would be better for them and it is what they want.”
And what about the Western world and its reaction to this? Dr. Sorek believes that it is very doubtful that they would agree to mobilize for the challenge, both because there, they are fixated on the idea of two states and because of what he defines as mental laziness and fixation to a paradigm that is considered to have proven itself, though it has proven itself to be a failure. This is the reality and it is human nature, even if there is no logical explanation for it.
In order to affect a change, vigorous hasbara work is required, and wealthy people such as Elon Musk can be mobilized for this. If they become enthusiastic about the step, together with a few countries that can also help, this can be a real turning point. Countries such as Saudi Arabia on one hand and Turkey on the other, which is the Palestinians’ gateway to the world, can help, as well as other countries, and research must be done to locate them and offer them the idea to take the world out of the existing concept that is heard from the American president, who speaks of rule by the PA and Abu Mazen over Gaza.
In Sorek’s opinion, the military push for the residents of the northern Strip to move southward opens the option and rare historic opportunity for a new kind of thinking, especially in light of the military challenge that has now just begun and during this period it is not logical to leave the Gazans in tents and insist on not find a more effective and suitable solution.