I figure that’s about how much we could spend for what the war will cost us (figure the war will cost between $50 - 100 billion dollars, taking into account all the bribes to other countries in order to get them involved in the “coalition of the willing”, and I think their are 3 million refugees) Yes, I know much of the money is already spent, and it would be very difficult to approve such a thing, but what if?
So, do you think if a family of 4 was offered $120,000 to move out of the refugee camp and start a life somewhere else would they take it? If so, how far to you think this would go to ensuring the safety of the U.S. and improve our relationship with the islamic world?
I can tell you exactly what would happen if you suggested it - you would be burned in effigy by Palistinians.
At least, that was what happened a couple of years ago, when our Canadian foreign minister allegedly was considering it:
http://www.geocities.com/stanley_william/palistianiansburnmanly.html
Resettlement of populations in the past has usually been driven by large-scale development projects (megadams, most of the time). It does not have a very good history (sorry, I don’t have a reference handy, but see work on Sardar Sarovar by Thomas Berger) for many reasons: the people in charge usually do not have the best interests of the people who have to move at heart, for starters, so they tend to get badly screwed over. Also the people who move have to basically start over in a new land, new culture, new society, new everything, which is pretty bad for just a person but could be catastrophically worse for an entire society.
I have no reason to believe that resettlement in this context would be much different, especially because of your wording which suggests that the interests of the Palestinians would not be at heart: your stated goal is
I would change my mind if I could be assured that the Palestinians would happy to participate in your plan. Seeing as they presently have no real reason to trust the US, I’m not sure they would.
How much would they have to pay you to move, with your family, to some far-off and unfamiliar place?
Are you assuming that since they are so badly off where they are, they would leap at the chance to take the money? Are you comfortable making that assumption about their values?
I think that’s a rather naif idea, probably likely to fuel more resentment than anything else.
A better idea would actually be to put pressure on Israel to make peace. Bush’s roadmap to peace has already doomed itself to failure, due to the fact that Ariel Sharon has had priveleged access to it and has been able to demand changes to it before it’s even been released. Just yesterday he demanded that it be made clear that the end result could not be a Palestinian state which has made the document completely worthless.