If the British and the UN could’ve foreseen the decades of bloodshed – surely they must have considered, if not outright anticipated, the possibility – one would hope they would’ve more thoroughly encouraged alternate locations.
Could Israel be moved to someplace that isn’t as hostile to its inhabitants? Someplace land-rich and population-sparse, maybe parts of the US or Canadian countryside, with the historic land of Abraham redesignated an international DMZ for all the religions that care about it?
Even if the hardcore Zionists don’t want that, could they be compelled by force to relocate by the international community if the wars continue for another few decades?
Why relocate the Israelis? Why not relocate the Palestinians instead? Answer that question, and I suspect you’ll find the answer to the question you asked, too.
Can you flesh out how that is supposed to work? You do realize that if you moved all the Jews out “the historic land of Abraham”, there would still be millions of people there, right? Or do they get evicted, too?
“Thou shall not kill” is biblically defined too, and that hardly stops anyone.
Because there are a lot more Muslims in that region than there are Israelis, and it would be less of a logistical nightmare to move them than all of their enemies, who seem to be multiplying by the day. Also because the places with a lot of land left tend to be more friendly towards Jews than Muslims, at least in the West.
If it were up to me, the entirety of Israel + Gaza + West Bank would be evacuated and made into a protected religious site where people of all religions may visit but may not settle. If one country managed to move millions of Jews while at war with the whole world, I’m sure that the international community could do so today if we had the willpower and their tepid cooperation – the latter of which is probably the more difficult thing to acquire.
I don’t mean in just Israel, but her neighbors included, the ones who she’s warred with over the decades.
Yes. And I’m not suggesting genocide (since you said “ethnic cleansing”), but the forced deportation of a people, which in my mind is somewhat the lesser of two evils compared to indefinite war and infinite collateral damage. Sort of like the Judgment of Solomon applied to a piece of land – if they can’t peacefully agree, a harsher settlement is needed.
The land itself could be treated like a trans-national park, open to all and belonging to none.
Because that wouldn’t do any more good than just moving Israel. ALL the combatants should be expelled – both sides, equally. The Muslims there can migrate to surrounding countries. The Israelis can go to this hypothetical new home of theirs (hell, if I were king of a nation, I’d welcome them).
I see. Thanks for that clarification on what constitutes “ethnic cleansing”. I still think a cleansing of the migratory sort is somewhat less evil than a cleansing of the rockets-and-missiles sort.
I think the UN should commit this war crime since they helped create this mess. The only other entity capable of such a thing – the United States – has too vested an interest in Israel to do anything of the sort. It would be nice if the US offered land to exiled inhabitants, though.
Haredic Jews are ‘multiplying by the day’ a lot faster than either Gazans or WB residents. In the long run, Jews are more likely to win the war of the womb (at least in the historic region of Palestine) than Muslims are.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m on Team Palestine and I wish it were possible to move Israel, but this is not going to happen.
I think you edited this in after I replied, so yes, I know that. They should be allowed to choose where they want to go in this hypothetical relocation scenario.
My understanding (correct me if I’m wrong) is that the Muslim world there primarily has a problem with the State of Israel being where it is, not necessarily with the Jews as a cultural or religious group per se. I think they extend some sort of minimal tolerance towards all “peoples of the Book”, just not necessarily to the extent of granting them land and independence in what they consider their territories.
Anyway, back to the OP: If your main opposition to the idea is “Why should the Israelis move and not the Palestinians?”, I’m saying we should move both groups out and empty out the whole war-torn region. Let it regrow into a less vicious sanctuary.
I understand they even explicitly encourage Jewish breeding, because in a democratic society they fear that multiplying Muslims would simply outvote them otherwise. Nonetheless, I don’t think they’ll outbreed the pan-Arab world in that region. Even if Israel/Gaza/WB (I’m just going to call it Israel for short, in this context) were to become 99% ethnic Jew, their neighbors would still be trying to force them out.
LOL, is it really a good idea to essentially reward people just for being hostile? No way that ends well. If the real problem is that people in that area can’t control their anger, let’s instead flood the area with therapists and psychiatrists.
I think all of human history is a “reward for being hostile”. Violence is the ultimate arbitrator in most of our conflicts. Violence will arbitrate this conflict even if we do nothing – hundreds of Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans will continue to die for the foreseeable future.
There is no way this situation can end well, regardless – we can only ask what the least of all possible evils imaginable could be.
And if we’re going to export shrinks there, we may as well monetize the whole thing. Under UN rule, it could be a marketplace of choose-your-own clerics, rabbis, shawarma and latkas – like a Disneyland of religion. Maybe even paintball arenas where new generations could reenact old religious wars.
Let’s talk about force for a little bit. There’s currently about eight million people living in Israel. About three million of them (per wikipedia) are fit for military service - and have already been trained for it, thanks to Israel’s conscription policies. And they’ve got a lot of experience fighting people who want to remove them from the area.
How much force do you think it would require to move those people? How many of them are you willing to kill to establish control over the region and start the massed deportations? How many are you willing to kill during the bloody insurrection that is guaranteed to go on during the lengthy deportation process? How many are you willing to have die on the journey to where ever they’re going? And where exactly are they going? Whose land are you going to take away to give to what ever remnant of the state of Israel survives your deportation process? And where are you going to put the people the Israelis have displaced?
Not really - this specific type of situation is known as “blackmail” (“do what I say or I won’t be responsible for my actions!”) and one can find many examples in history of why it’s not a good idea to indulge it. Ever heard the term danegeld?
