Likud MK Feiglin proposes paying Arabs to leave Gaza
Feiglin suggested the idea as his own opinion and not that of his Likud party or the government that it leads.
By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMANMoshe Feiglin(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Israel should be paying Arab families $100,000 each to leave the Gaza Strip and move to a different country, Likud MK Moshe Feiglin proposed Monday in a controversial post on his personal Facebook page.Feiglin suggested the idea as his own opinion and not that of his Likud party or the government that it leads. He has presented such ideas in the past and they have not been adopted by other politicians.He renewed the call Monday following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's vow in Sunday's cabinet meeting to compensate Jewish families from the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip who have left their homes.“The cost of a bomb to destroy a building in Gaza costs Israel $80,000,” Feiglin wrote. “If Israel would give that money to the Gazan family living in the building in order to help them to emigrate, they would do so willingly.”Feiglin called for destroying the Hamas, conquering Gaza, and turning it into a flourishing Jewish region. He noted that Gaza was a Jewish city during Biblical times.“The Arabs living in Gaza will have two choices,” he wrote. “They could continue to perpetuate their refugee status in Gaza, as is the situation today, or take $100,000 to emigrate to a different country.”In an interview. Feiglin cited a recent survey that found that Gazans would rather live in a different country. He noted that there are many countries with large populations of Arabs from the land of Israel, such as Chile.“There are a few good countries who want to take them, they want to go, and they can leave with a nice amount of money in their pockets, not like the Jews were refugees from Arab countries in the 1950s,” he said.Feiglin said it was ridiculous that instead of giving money to Arabs to live in “a better place,” Israel was bombing them while giving money to Jews to leave their homes.The British Daily Mail newspaper caused a controversy three weeks ago when it headlined a similar proposal by Feiglin “Israeli official calls for concentration camps in Gaza.”
Feiglin did not use such a term and vigorously denied implying anything similar when he suggested creating tent encampments on the Sinai border.“I said we should prevent them from being harmed,” he said. “They should have enough time to move to a protected area. I think the people of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki would have loved to get an offer like that from the US and the Brits.”Feiglin criticized Netanyahu for his policies on Gaza, which he finds too moderate.“Of course he is going to let Hamas stay in power in Gaza,” he said. “He wants Hamas to stay in power, because he doesn't want to control Gaza.”
