By John Dunkelgrün
Forcibly removing over two million people permanently is clearly against international law and a crime against humanity. That said, it is evident, when looking at the devastation in Gaza, that the ruble cannot be removed while the inhabitants are there. As for rebuilding, imagine cranes, bulldozers, and lorries navigating tent camps and playing children. The Gazans will have to be removed temporarily.
To clean up and rebuild is a massive undertaking, which at the same time is a good way to find and destroy the Hamas underground fortress. Whatever the outcome, if Hamas remains a force, there will be no permanent peace, and a new Gaza will just be waiting to be destroyed after the next Hamas attack on Israel.
It is high time to free the hostages, not just the Israeli ones, but all the Gazans, who have been held hostage for almost twenty years. But it is not just Hamas that has had a pernicious influence on Gaza (and on the West Bank), but also UNWRA.
UNWRA was set up to provide for the Arab population that fled or was forced out by the war that the Arab countries waged on the land that the UN had allotted to the Jews. As the displaced people (then not yet called Palestinians) were forced to stay in camps, UNWRA became a de facto Ministry of Health, Education, and Welfare. Rather than setting up such ministries and training Palestinians to be in charge, UNWRA became a self-serving behemoth that started to suffer from an organizational form of the Stockholm syndrome. It hampered the PA in developing governing expertise and aided and abetted Hamas.
In a peaceful environment without Hamas and its even more violent allies, alongside a government that isn’t corrupt and international aid focused on building a modern state, the Palestinians are fully capable of developing a nation that provides a better future for its citizens. Mr. Trump rightly points out that the people of Gaza are located on a prime piece of real estate.
The UN and the international community should assist them in starting but should not act as permanent babysitters. That would be paternalistic, neocolonial, and, worse, counterproductive.
