It is clearly evident that in rejecting President Trump’s plan for the transformation of the Gaza Strip, the Arab world is, first and foremost, rejecting the rehabilitation of the refugee camps. To understand the deeper meaning of the Arab states’ rejection, one must understand that the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 War of Independence were the cherished political weapon against the Jewish state. Seventy-seven years since that war, and the Arab states are still determined to preserve the refugee camps rather than integrate the refugees into their states.
The Palestinian-Arab refugees from 1948 and 1967 speak the same language as the Arabs in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and all of the other Arab states. They also share the same Sunni-Islam religious affiliation, along with the same cultural heritage. Yet, with the exception of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, none of the 22 Arab League states were willing to absorb the Palestinian-Arab refugees. Conversely, the Jewish state managed to absorb, with far fewer resources, an even greater number of Jewish refugees from the Arab world. Those Jewish refugees were not placed in separate camps, but were given immediate citizenship and became productive citizens of the State of Israel.
The Gaza Strip is one of the world’s most crowded areas, with one of the least developed infrastructures, even before the current war, which was prompted by the October 7, 2023 massacres of thousands of Israelis. As a result, the living standards in Gaza are extremely poor. The UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip, rather than providing children with positive educational and life skills, had become a spawning pool for terrorism.
Gaza’s population must be reduced by half and the refugee camps replaced with proper modern housing if there is to be a rise in the standard of living and quality of life.
The hypocrisy of the Arab governments could not be more transparent in their bogus arguments that the Trump plan for Gaza means uprooting a people from their land. First and foremost, the plan calls for voluntary and temporary relocation. The plan will replace the ramshackle “housing” in the camps with apartments equipped with running water, sewer facilities (instead of sewers spilling into the streets and causing disease and foul smells). The Arab brethren of the Palestinian-Arabs refugees “love” them so much, yet they care little for the living conditions in the camps, while they (particularly the Gulf Arabs) live in luxury.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia illustrated this duplicity in its tactical negotiations over normalization with Israel. A month before the October 7 massacre, the Saudi regime claimed that it was seeking to “improve Palestinian life,” yet when Trump seeks to do just that now, he is condemned by the Saudis and throughout the Arab world for trying to uproot the Palestinians. Similarly, whereas the Saudis keep insisting that normalization with Israel is dependent on the creation of a path toward a Palestinian state, behind closed doors and in private conversation, they continue to seek an alliance with the U.S. and Israel against the looming threat of a nuclear Iran.
Vast sums of foreign aid from Western nations, Qatar, and others were invested in Gaza, perhaps more than in any other place on Earth. Hamas, however, chose not to improve the lives of those who voted them into power, but rather to build war tunnels and feed an industry of death and destruction — with the full support of its population. Sure enough, when they are asked in private and away from Hamas’s ears, Gazans say that they are positively inclined to move out, but only to wealthy Western nations that can provide them with generous welfare. This leads us to call upon those hypocritical Western states, such as Ireland, Slovenia, Norway, and Spain, to put their alleged “love” for the Palestinians into action.
Voices throughout the Arab world and, some in Western states like Ireland, claim that Trump’s plan will undermine Palestinian right of self-determination. These voices ignore the fact that Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel and not to the creation of a Palestinian state. Its Islamist ideology holds that the Arabs are one nation to be guided by Sharia law. It rejects Arab particularist nationalism, and it has been using terror to accomplish its aims.
It isn’t just Hamas that eschews a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, much like Hamas, seeks the destruction of the Jewish state. Had the Palestinians really wanted a state, they could have accepted the numerous opportunities presented to them from 1937 to 2008, including when Israel’s P.M. Olmert provided Abbas with a generous blueprint for a Palestinian state — which he rejected.
From a strictly humanitarian point of view, providing Gaza’s Palestinians, who for decades have dwelt in misery, is morally right. Trump wants to provide the area with livable housing, which will take time to rebuild. Those Gazans who participated in the killings, looting, and rape of Israeli civilians may not benefit, but the Palestinian generation of tomorrow will, especially in an environment of peace, with no oppression and violence from Hamas. Gaza can flourish and be an ideal place to live, invest, and enjoy.
Improving the lives of Gazans is the real intention of President Donald Trump, and not some conspiracy cooked up by many Arab leaders. They, unlike Trump, have devoted their political lives to the preservation of hate and animosity toward the Zionist enterprise. They fear that settling the Palestinian-Arabs in a peaceful setting will diminish their efforts to destroy the Jewish state and, turn the focus on them. Peace would also take away the single “toy” that unified the quarreling Arab world: the Palestinian refugee issue.
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