Two weeks ago, MK Danny Danon, former Israeli ambassador to the UN and one of the most prominent political figures in Israel, co-authored an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal with MK Ram Ben-Barak, former deputy director of the Mossad, titled, “The West should welcome Gaza refugees.”
Danon and Barak called on Western nations to take in Gazans in the wake of the current Israel-Hamas war. Right-wing Danon and Center-Left Ben-Barak were showing bipartisan Israeli support for this idea.
Earlier this month, a similar position was taken by current Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel on these pages. After laying out the failures of past attempts to solve the Gaza problem, Gamliel presents a similar solution to that of Danon and Ben-Barak.
“We will still have around two million people in Gaza, many of whom voted for Hamas and celebrated the massacre of innocent men, women, and children,” Gamliel wrote.
“Gaza is a breeding ground for extremism."
“The international community can assist in the costs of resettlement, helping the people of Gaza build new lives in their new host countries.” She added that she is “gratified to hear that members of Knesset from across the political spectrum, including both the coalition and opposition, have joined my ministry’s initiative and declared their support for it.”
Taking in Gazans is not the solution
While calling on the “international community,” or “the West” to take in Gazans to solve Israel’s problem may be a good idea from the perspective of domestic Israeli security, this must not become the direction of Israeli policy for a number of reasons.
Alongside the military campaign, Israel must also win the political war for international opinion. We have all witnessed the mass pro-Hamas demonstrations in the streets of Western cities and on college campuses.
The Left across the Western world is decidedly against Israel. And as disheartening as these anti-Israel demonstrations are, we must realize that we in Israel are not the only ones who find them disturbing. The silent majority of Westerners are horrified as well.
This past week, in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ populist-nationalist PVV party was elected to lead the country. According to polling conducted over the weeks leading up to the election, the rise in pro-Hamas sentiment by the large Muslim minority in the Netherlands contributed significantly to the PVV victory.
It should be noted that Wilders and the PVV are strongly supportive of Israel.
The Wilders victory is only one indicator of where Israel’s support currently resides. In the United Nations, when an anti-Israel resolution was proposed on October 26 calling for a full and immediate ceasefire, Hungary was one of only 14 countries to vote against it. Hungary, led by another populist nationalist, Viktor Orban, has been firm in its support of Israel since Orban took power. These are but two illustrative examples of a growing political trend.
Followers of Orban and Wilders, along with many native Europeans, have been suffering for years from the effects of mass immigration from countries in the Middle East.
Rather than assimilating into the Western culture of their new countries, the millions of Moslem immigrants that have flooded European countries over the past few decades have brought Mideastern Islamic values to Europe. Patriotic native Europeans are legitimately afraid of losing the Western underpinnings of their societies. And they correctly see Israel as fighting the same enemy that threatens them.
On the American side, one need only to follow the headlines from Capitol Hill to know that mass immigration is the biggest wedge in American politics today. The demands from Republican lawmakers and media influencers to shut down the southern border and get control of immigration are heard daily.
Donald Trump, the runaway frontrunner for the Republican nomination who also leads any potential Democratic nominee in recent polls, has made mass deportation of illegal migrants and shutting down the border a major centerpiece of his platform for his next term in office. Put simply, for the majority of Americans, mass immigration is the most urgent issue of the day.
THE CALLS by Israeli leaders for the West to assist in resettling Gazans in their countries are both tone-deaf and just plain wrong
A win-win solution?
The day after Gila Gamliel’s piece appeared in these pages, Charlie Kirk, the leader of the influential Turning Point USA organization and one of the most significant figures on the American right, posted his criticism of this call by Israeli leaders. After accurately summarizing Gamliel’s proposal, Kirk wrote on X:
“Gamliel says this would be a ‘win-win’ solution: A win for Israelis, and a win for Gazans who can live in richer countries. Okay, but how is it a win for us? It’s not, of course. Gamliel is trying to guilt the West into taking terrorists and terrorist supporters off of Israel’s hands and making them our problem instead. I support Israel, so I say this in all goodwill: If members of the Israeli government keep putting out op-eds like this, they will destroy their support among Western conservatives.”
And Kirk is not the only staunch supporter of Israel who has expressed this misgiving. I am someone who is in constant contact with political and faith leaders on the American right. The day that Danon and Ben-Barak’s piece ran in The Wall Street Journal, I was contacted by a number of leaders who expressed the same sentiment.
But it’s not only about messaging. Resettling Gazans, who, as Gamliel points out, mostly support Jihadist ideology, in Western nations is destructive to Israel’s national security in the long run as well.
Considering what we are seeing in the streets of London, New York, and on college campuses, do we really think it’s a good idea to ship the Middle East’s problems to the West? How will this help stem the tide of the growing anti-Israel sentiment in these countries?
I shared these concerns with Gamliel’s office. Her response is worth noting. She emphasized that her call for the resettlement of Gazans should not be understood as a call for Western nations to take them in. Her intent is that the international community should work with Israel to find creative solutions to this problem.
Israeli leaders must adjust their messaging on this point. And the pivot should not be difficult to make.
Rather than calling for resettlement of Gazans in Western countries, pressure should be brought to bear on the Arab-Muslim world to take responsibility for a problem that they helped create and have always refused to help solve.
Further destruction of Western culture and alienation of those who are sympathetic to Israel’s battle against Jihadist Islam must not be the answer to our problems.
The writer, a rabbi, is director of Israel365action.com, a new grassroots Israel-advocacy movement, and is co-host of the Shoulder to Shoulder podcast.