Donald Trump has concluded something that others before him completely missed.
Much ink has been spilled about Donald Trump’s out-of-the-blue suggestion that the U.S. would—without soldiers—take over Gaza and make it wonderful. There are many in Israel who unsurprisingly love the idea. Most in the international community, including the Palestinians and their groupies, think otherwise. Trump is trying to steal Palestinian land they bellow. They vow that they are not going anywhere. And the like. But people are missing a much bigger point not said by Trump but implicit in his suggestion: there can be no peace between neighboring Israelis and Palestinians.
Donald Trump suggested that Gazans would be shipped to countries in the region where they would get nice homes and could live lives without fear and war. Who would pay for the move and the new lifestyle and exactly where all this is to take place were not discussed. But Donald Trump implied that as long as Israelis and Palestinians live with a common border, there is no possibility of a peaceful resolution. And he is right. And he is way ahead of his peers and those who came before him. The two-state bromide, just this week pushed by the UN head who did not mind so much when Jews were slaughtered by Hamas and his UNRWA employees, cannot work as long as one party wants the other dead. The two-state concept is based on the idea that Israelis and Palestinians will come to some geographic formula that will allow them to live peacefully forever. The two-state idea, around since 1969, simply assumes that all differences can be settled and “Palestine”/Israel can be Canada/USA as friendly neighbors. This arrangement cannot exist.
The Palestinians are not willing or able to make peace. Based on their long history of Jew hatred, they cannot accept any formula that includes a state of Israel. Everyone screaming “from the river to the sea” is not saying so simply out of convenience. These people, whether they be Palestinians or their brain-dead supporters in the left and academe, believe that Israel is a completely illegal state. In their telling of the yarn, there was a wonderful state of Palestine. It was minding its own business when in 1948, those wily Jews took half of it. In 1967, when brave Arab armies prepared to push the Jews into the sea, the Israelis took the other half. They want all of their fantasy world of Palestine, and as such there is no two-state formulation that would be acceptable by Palestinians. Period.
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And of course their position is based on a lie compounded by fantasy. Everyone who has more than three firing neurons knows the history: the entire region was under Ottoman control until 1919. No Israel, no Palestine. The British and French divided the Levant after World War I, and the relevant areas fell under complete British rule. Again, no Israel, no Palestine. In 1948, the Jews declared a state and won the war that followed. Israel but still no Palestine, as the West Bank was Jordanian while Gaza, yes that Gaza, was under the Egyptian boot. In 1967, Israel took the West Bank, Gaza and Sinai. Israel, still no Palestine. In 1993, Rabin and Peres gave Arafat Gaza and Jericho. We have Israel and a new contraption called the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA was supposed to be around for a few years as a transition. Thirty years later it still runs the areas that Israel surrendered. In all of the configurations described above, there was no Palestine run by local Arabs. The place was run by Turks, Brits, and Israelis. But the Jew-haters have claimed that Zionism stole something that never existed and want Israel to vanish from the map. Nobody ever pushing the two-state solution has addressed this fundamental problem; the Palestinians do not accept Israel’s right to exist in any format. When Mahmud Abbas was pressed to recognize Israel as a “Jewish” state a few years back, he almost died of a heart attack. He refused and his refusal gave away the game.
So Donald Trump, the real estate tycoon turned reality star turned president of the United States figured out something that flew over the heads of the top policy and diplomacy experts for generations: because the Palestinians refuse to live peaceably with Israel, if you want both peoples to have a good life, then one has to move. Trump could have said to the Gazans: you started the war, so enjoy your soaking tents and lack of goods. Instead, he proposed that the Gazans should have a good life—but away from Israel and their ability to fire rockets or attack the Jewish state again. His offer is in many ways extremely magnanimous. The standard response would have been that the Gazans made their bed, and if they could find it under the rubble, they would have to sleep in it. Instead, he is willing to cajole and twist a lot of arms to get them a better life—on the condition that they and Israel do not share a common border.
The question of his policy vis-a-vis the West Bank is supposed to be answered in the next three weeks. If the above concepts are right, he would again want the Palestinians to be somewhere else to live dignified and happy lives but not be in striking distance of Israelis. Donald Trump is the first major politician to come to the conclusion that Palestinian intransigence means that there can be no solution to the Israel-Palestinian problem with the two populations in close proximity. No leader in the past has openly said as much, though a very old Bill Clinton belatedly admitted that Yasir Arafat was the one who turned down several offers for a two-state solution. I guess better late than never.
Will anything come of Donald Trump’s proposal? Will Gazans board boats and buses to new countries so that Gaza can be rebuilt for residents that the president would not identify beyond their being an “international” cohort? The whole world is against his plans; they like to keep the terrorists close to their victims. His words made it clear that the new Riviera is not meant for returning Palestinians. They will live good lives someplace else. Gaza will be for others who aren’t into rockets and suicide belts. Over 30 years ago, Meir Kahana wanted to pay Palestinian families $100,000 each to leave; he was labeled a terrorist and his political party was banned from the Knesset.
There can be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because the latter simply want to kill the former. And it is not a two-way street. I was dismayed to hear about an organization that prior to October 7th used to ferry Gazans to Israeli hospitals. Nine of their members were murdered. Were they disbanded? Did they give up on the idea? Nope. They are now doing the same things for Palestinians in the West Bank. Jews can live in peace; Palestinians, not so much.
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