Let us face the facts. In 2005, Israel granted the Palestinians sole and sovereign rights to land to build the Palestinian state. In 1948, the United Nations and the entire international community granted the Jews sole and sovereign rights to land to build the Jewish state.
Admittedly, both the Palestinians and the Jews felt short-changed by the small amount of land granted to them. However, what did they do in response? Let us examine the first 18 years of each enterprise.
During the first 18 years of Israel’s existence, from 1948 to 1966, Israel resettled the 700,000 Jewish refugees expelled from Arab lands and built them permanent homes throughout the country. Despite ongoing violence and attacks from its neighbors, Israel founded the only democratic nation in the Middle East.
Israel built a state-of-the-art defense force that protected the tiny state from numerous incursions and attacks on civilians, but did not seek unprovoked military engagements with the Arab nations. However, Israel was forced to again and again defend itself from Arab aggression. Despite these provocations and its capability, Israel never indiscriminately launched rockets into surrounding civilian territory.
Let’s look at the first 18 years of the “Palestinian state.” Upon taking full control of Gaza, the Palestinians immediately dismantled the valuable hothouses that formed the basis for a profitable agricultural business that generated $150 million in hard currency revenue in 2004 from exports of organic vegetables and flowers to Europe.
In place of the self-sufficiency of the Jewish Gush Katif communities, Gaza became the perennial beggar. Despite the absence of any obligation, Israel supplied Gaza with electricity and water as humanitarian gestures made necessary by the callous disregard of the rulers of Gaza toward their own civilian population.
The rulers of Gaza
The rulers of Gaza – first the Palestinian Authority and then Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other ISIS terror groups – never built houses for the Palestinian refugees. They never built a civil society based on democracy and the rule of law, instead following the “one and done” rule of elections in totalitarian societies.
Instead of building a state, they built hate. They built hate into their school curriculum, indoctrinating children into an antisemitic creed that glorified death. They built attack tunnels and rockets to terrorize peaceful communities in neighboring Israel.
Regardless of your viewpoint about the relative merits of the land claims of the Jews and the Palestinians, which group would you choose to act as overseer of your own property? Which group took a disappointing land grant and built it up into an enviable world leader in innovation? Do you really want to reward the murder, terror, and theft associated with all the Palestinian thugs (Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah) who time after time failed to build a civil society that could live in peace?
Unless, that is, we correct the injustice committed in 2005. Abuse of power should disqualify the Palestinians from ruling in Gaza. Instead, Israel has proven itself capable and willing to rule Gaza in a prudent and judicious manner.
There is a grassroots movement of Israelis from all walks of society: secular kibbutzim, haredim, descendants of Gush Katif residents, etc. They are ready and willing to go back into Gaza and rebuild it into a civil society. They will build Gaza into the “Singapore of the Middle East” that the Islamic Jihad terror groups sought to destroy.
Note that this does not disenfranchise individual Palestinians. Quite the opposite. As long as they do not foment anarchy, murder, and terror, they are free to live in the bounty of a Jewish-controlled Gaza. This will free Palestinians from the tyranny of Hamas and the other terrorist groups who have mercilessly abused their own people.
The writer holds the William F. Aldinger Chair in Finance at Baruch College, City University of New York, and is proud to be an honorary member of the Netzer Chazani community as well as a Jerusalem resident.