# Why not encourage people to move from Gaza to the West Bank, Egypt, etc **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** israel-hamas-war\ **Created:** [October 8, 2023, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296 "2023-10-08T23:03:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2023, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/101 "2023-10-20T15:07:14Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > > [@Kash4u](#): > > > > Are you saying all Palestinians are islamic extremists? > > Where, _exactly_ where in my post did you get the idea I said any such thing. I await your apology. I think that poster believes you were mis-quoting them, and were purposely mis-quoting you in return. Here is what I think that poster was saying in their original post: most Gazans should move to the West Bank, except for the terrorists, who should be sent to Iran. And Israel should take over Gaza (permanently? not clear). If that was their meaning, they certainly could have been more clear about it. If that was their meaning, it should be dealt with on its (dubious) merits. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2023, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/102 "2023-10-20T18:01:38Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > But that’s not what happened. Gaza was _already_ Egyptian territory. Israel won Gaza in a war with _Egypt_, not conflict with the Palestinians. And then Israel offered Egypt Gaza back, but the Egyptians refused. As @Elmer_J.Fudd noted in the post just above this, Gaza was never part of Egypt. Why would they want it ‘back’? It, and the West Bank, are essentially large refugee camps of Palestinians dispossessed from the land that became Israel in 1948 and their descendants. How long do you imagine the 40 years of peace between Egypt and Israel would have lasted if Egypt had agreed to administer the territory of Gaza again? I can assure you that regardless of how heavy-handed Egypt would be in its administration, there would be attacks from Gaza against Israel by militant Palestinians wanting to take their homes, i.e., Israel, back from the Israelis. Only this time instead of it being a matter between Israel and Palestine/the Palestinians it was occupying (prior to 1993), it would become a matter of Israel retaliating against Egypt, and suddenly we’re back to Egypt and Israel having hostile relations with each other and fighting wars. This is more or less what happened with Jordan, dispossessed Palestinians in the West bank, and Palestinian militants attacking Israel from the West Bank prior to Israel occupying the West Bank. [Black September Background Palestinians in Jordan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September#Palestinians_in_Jordan): > The Palestinian nationalist organization [Fatah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah) started organizing cross-border attacks against Israel in January 1965, often drawing severe Israeli reprisals upon Jordan.[[17]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September#cite_note-BBC1970-17) The [Samu incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samu_Incident) launched by Israel on 13 November 1966 was one such reprisal, after three Israeli soldiers were killed by a Fatah landmine.[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September#cite_note-FOOTNOTEShlaim2008223-18) The Israeli assault on the Jordanian-controlled West Bank town of [As-Samu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As-Samu) inflicted heavy casualties on Jordan.[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September#cite_note-FOOTNOTEShlaim2008223-18) Israeli writer [Avi Shlaim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avi_Shlaim) argued that Israel’s disproportionate retaliation exacted revenge on the wrong party, as Israeli leaders knew from their interaction with Hussein that he was doing everything he could to prevent such attacks.[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September#cite_note-FOOTNOTEShlaim2008223-18) Hussein, who felt he had been betrayed by the Israelis, drew fierce local criticism because of this incident. It is thought that this contributed to his decision to join Egypt and Syria’s war against Israel in 1967.[[19]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September#cite_note-FOOTNOTEShlaim2008224-19) In June 1967 Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan during the [Six-Day War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War).[[20]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September#cite_note-FOOTNOTEShlaim2008252-20) If you’re unfamiliar with Black September, I’d suggest giving the article a read, but in short, the PLO became a de facto state within a state in Jordan, going so far as to call for the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy. They were violently put down by the Jordanian army in September 1970, Syria intervened by sending some of its army into Jordan, Israel threatened to intervene against the Syrians, and the Jordanians were able to drive out the Syrians in part thanks to the absence of the Syrian air force to protect their army from Jordanian airstrikes, courtesy of Israeli threats. War makes for strange bedfellows. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > As I think I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t see a good way out of this situation. One thing I do see is that a whole lot of people (maybe not including you) are blaming the people who have been holding one side of this border closed, but not the ones who’ve been holding the other side closed. Which they’ve been doing since there were a lot fewer people there. The above pretty much addresses this as well; I assume its immediately understandable why people are ‘blaming’ Israel for blockading any movement of humanitarian supplies into Gaza, but the above is why Egypt is blocking movement of refugees in the other direction into its territory. Ignoring any ethical considerations for a moment, assuming that Israel is allowed to ethnically cleanse the over 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza by driving them into Egypt, what does this actually solve? It’s just kicking the can down the road, now instead of Gaza being a giant refugee camp of Palestinians and their descendants displaced from what is now Israel, now you have them displaced from the location they were displaced to in 1948 into Egypt. Only now Egypt is responsible for attacks on Israel from its territory, and Camp David breaks down. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2023, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/103 "2023-10-20T18:46:33Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > It’s just kicking the can down the road, now instead of Gaza being a giant refugee camp of Palestinians and their descendants displaced from what is now Israel, now you have them displaced from the location they were displaced to in 1948 into Egypt. My ancestors were refugees from tzarist Russia. But no one locked them in refugee camps in the hopes they would some day go “home”. I am not a refugee, and i have a home, which isn’t in Russia. No, letting Palestinians who want to leave settle and gain citizenship in other countries does not “kick the can down the road”. It lets those people build new lives. Again, there’s no way that all those 2 million people will voluntary leave Gaza. And I’ll be shocked if Israel tries to annex any of it. I think it’s crazy to pretend that locking refugees in is somehow morally better than letting them run away. And yes, i guess i ought to write to my congressional rep. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2023, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/104 "2023-10-20T19:10:56Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Ignoring any ethical considerations for a moment, assuming that Israel is allowed to ethnically cleanse the over 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza by driving them into Egypt, what does this actually solve? I’m not suggesting that. I’m suggesting that it would have drastically changed the situation if, over all these intervening years, Egypt had allowed _those Gaza residents who wanted to do so_ to move to Egypt and become Egyptian citizens; and had kept the Egyptian border open to normal commerce, including movement of workers. Would the place be empty now? Of course not. Would somewhat more Egyptians than now still be saying that Israel and Israelis should be driven out of Palestine? I expect so. Would quite a lot of people have and have had better lives, and would there now be fewer people who’ve been trapped in a pressure cooker for all of their lives? Hell yes. Do I think Egypt’s afraid of what’s in that pressure cooker now? Sure. But they had a large hand in creating it, and in keeping the heat turned up. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2023, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/105 "2023-10-20T21:03:37Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Again, there’s no way that all those 2 million people will voluntary leave Gaza. And I’ll be shocked if Israel tries to annex any of it. I think it’s crazy to pretend that locking refugees in is somehow morally better than letting them run away. And yet that is exactly what Israeli minister Gideon Sa’ar has publicly suggested Israel should do. When the Israeli government tells the northern half of the Gaza Strip they have 24 hours to flee to the southern half, publicly encourages that they keep fleeing to Egypt, and an Israeli minister just appointed after the war started states that Israel should keep part of the Gaza Strip that Palestinians have been evicted from, what would you expect Egypt to think? Particularly given the history of Palestinians in the region, and that the people in the Gaza Strip are largely the descendants of refugees forced from their homes in 1948 and never allowed to return. Again, > **[Israeli minister: Gaza 'must be smaller at the end of the war'](https://forward.com/fast-forward/564999/israeli-minister-gaza-must-be-smaller-saar/)** > > "Whoever starts a war against Israel must lose territory," Israeli Minister Gideon Sa'ar told Israel Channel 12 News. I’m not claiming the situation is morally superior, or for that matter to have an answer to the situation. I’m only pointing out the realities on the ground both now and in the past, why Egypt didn’t want the Gaza Strip ‘back’, why taking it ‘back’ would have led to a breakdown of the peace between Egypt and Israel that has lasted 40 years, why Egypt doesn’t want to take in a million or more refugees fleeing from the Israeli military advancing on their homes, and why the idea of doing so sounds ominously like 1948 all over again. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > My ancestors were refugees from tzarist Russia. But no one locked them in refugee camps in the hopes they would some day go “home”. I am not a refugee, and i have a home, which isn’t in Russia. Not knowing the personal details of your ancestors but going only by what you have written here, the two situations aren’t alike at all, unless your ancestors were driven from some place that Tsarist Russia expanded into and drove the locals out of - in which case they wouldn’t want to be returning to Tsarist Russia as they were never from there to begin with. Any desire they would have to return would be to return to their home country. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2023, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/106 "2023-10-20T21:22:50Z")
My ancestors lived in Jewish settlements in the [Pale](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement#:~:text=The%20Pale%20of%20Settlement%20(Russian,de%20facto%20until%201915)%20in). There are a lot of similarities, actually. The Jews had been there for generations, possibly they were the descendants of Slavic converts whose ancestors had “always” been there. (I certainly look more Slavic than Arabic.) When Greece and Turkey warred over Cyprus, a lot of Cypriots were displaced. But they weren’t locked into “refugee camps”, and most of them ultimately made new homes. Does that mean that Turkey effectively “cleansed” Northern Cyprus of Greeks? > **[Turkish invasion of Cyprus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus)** > > Turkish victory > Turkey occupies 36.2% of Cyprus > 4,500–6,000 casualties (estimated) (military and civilian) including 309 (Cyprus) and 105 (Greece) military deaths1,000–1,100 missing (as of 2015) To some extent, yes. And Greece displaced a lot of Turks from Southern Cyprus, as well. Most of those displaced people never were allowed to “return home”, but they aren’t living in squalid refugee camps today. They and their descendants are ordinary citizens of ordinary nations. The ideal of _Palestine_ is served by keeping all those people hostage to it. But the actual people are not well served. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2023, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/107 "2023-10-20T21:41:38Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > And yet that is exactly what Israeli minister Gideon Sa’ar has publicly suggested Israel should do. The dude’s party has 4 ministers. He represents a very small portion of the electorate. You’re doing the equivalent of pointing to something odious and nuts that MTG or Tlaib said and saying “Look at America’s disastrous policies!”. Now, that’s 4 ministers too many, and any number of ministers can get you concessions if you’re the deciding vote when creating a coalition. But all that being said - that is _not_ a popular opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2023, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/108 "2023-10-23T07:59:40Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > To be fair, why should Egypt or Jordan or other neighboring countries be expected to absorb Palestinians who currently live in their own ancestral homeland and want to continue living there? People who suggest the Palestinians move to Jordan or Egypt usually don’t know that there are _already_ millions of Palestinians in those countries. Jordan, for example, already has 3 million Palestinians, 2 million of which are refugees displaced from land where Israel now is. That’s slightly more than 1/4 of the population being Palestinian. Egypt has far fewer, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 out of a total population of 110 million. Maybe they could absorb more but I don’t know enough about Egypt to know how feasible that is. The point being that surrounding nations have taken in Palestinians, most especially Jordan. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Sure. But most people who want to move have some options. I don’t think Palestinians have any. It’s not just “the Palestinians as a whole” who matter. The individual Palestinians do, too. And it often feels like they are being used as pawns to put pressure on Israel, and not treated with the concern that other people in war zones are treated with. Yep, that seems to be the case. I would like there to be an _option_ for Palestinians to move elsewhere but no compulsion. That weird notion of letting Palestinians decide their own fates instead of other people doing it for them, usually without consulting them at all. There’s also the problem of something like 4 million Palestinians [having no legal citizenship in any nation at all](https://www.state.gov/other-policy-issues/statelessness/), about half of the total. This seriously impedes their ability to go elsewhere for any reason, and in a situation like at present could be lethal. If they do manage to travel elsewhere (usually on an RTD or a UN refugee travel document) if they are detained for any reason, even a relatively trivial one, they can wind up detained _indefinitely_ because there is no home nation to deport them to. Essentially, a life sentence for the crime of not being a citizen of anywhere. Not to mention that being stateless can seriously impair the ability of a person to gain citizenship in many countries due to lacking the proper bureaucratic paper trail. Even if they don’t want the Palestinians living on their territory (and many Palestinians want to remain on their ancestral lands despite the problems involved) why don’t those “Arab brothers” offer citizenship to the stateless? Note I said _offer_, not compel. Palestinians should be able to make decisions about their own lives. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2023, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/109 "2023-10-23T08:08:57Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Lest you think that is an impossible or improbable outcome, I give you Gideon Sa’ar, recently sworn in Minister without portfolio in Netanyahu’s war government: It should be pointed out that Sa’ar opposes a two state solution and views dumping all the Palestinians in Israel onto Jordan - you know, the place that _already_ houses a big chunk of such refugees. He’s just as much an ultra-nationalist as the rest of Bibi’s government buddies. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2023, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/110 "2023-10-23T08:24:29Z")
> [@Kash4u](#): > > Seriously, why isnt Iran, the primary supporter / instigator of this muslim extremist terrorism even considered as an option here? I dunno - why don’t we move everyone in North Korea into Cuba? Everyone in Cuba into the outskirts of Beijing? People are not chess pieces to be moved around a gameboard at a whim. > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Rather than criticizing poor Arab countries for not wanting to take them in, why not criticize rich Western countries, who constantly bloviate about the Occupation but aren’t willing to take in refugees? ^ This. The US has taken in about 100,000 to 250,000 Palestinians (the stats are somewhat muddled due to how you count Palestinians who might have had citizenship prior to coming to the US as opposed to stateless refugees). There are about 100,000 in Europe as a whole. [There are Palestinians all over the world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_diaspora#Population_figures) but their numbers are small in any one location outside of the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2023, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/111 "2023-10-23T14:44:07Z")
[Queen Rania of Jordan - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Rania_of_Jordan) the queen of jordan is of palestinian decent. she was born in kuwait and the family went to jordan during the gulf war. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2023, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/112 "2023-10-23T21:24:47Z")
Sure. Jordan has done its share and then some. What about other Arab states? ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/113 "2023-10-25T14:51:27Z")
I don’t know about leaving Gaza, but it seems to me it would be irresponsible to start a family with children there. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/114 "2023-10-25T14:59:15Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > but it seems to me it would be irresponsible to start a family with children there. Replace Gaza with Earth, and you have my opinion for the last 40 years. But it does seem to be a biological imperative for most human beings, so I’m not going to give a Gazan any more grief than I would my next door neighbor. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/115 "2023-10-25T15:09:11Z")
Why, are you some kind of zero population growth zealot? ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/116 "2023-10-25T15:12:21Z")
Yeah, I know they can’t help themselves, but I believe there are just a few places on Earth where children would have close to a zero chance at anything resembling a decent life. They shouldn’t be subjected to life in a “hell hole”. It’s cruel. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/117 "2023-10-25T15:13:20Z")
I work with a guy from Bangladesh who has seven siblings. That seems a bit much. Winston Churchill suggested that three was a good number of children. One to replace each of the parents, and a spare. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/118 "2023-10-25T15:16:49Z")
There is a well-documented feature of human societies where pre-industrialized cultures have many children and a high mortality rate; the mortality rate drops off first, leading to a big population boom, then the borth rate drops off to match. In many places (Japan, China, Italy, even the US) the birth rate actually drops below replacement levels, at least for some time. So while I agree that 7 siblings is a bit much if we all did that, that’s not the trajectory most human societies follow. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/119 "2023-10-25T15:24:27Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Why, are you some kind of zero population growth zealot? I’m not a zealot, just someone who recognizes that there are not enough resources to support everybody in the world right now, let alone in the future. If I bring a child into the world, that’s less resources for someone elsewhere. The conflict in the Levant is ultimately a fight over limited resources (land). ---
**Author:** ![Pazu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pazu/32/15522_2.png) [@Pazu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pazu)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296/120 "2023-10-25T15:34:12Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Why, are you some kind of zero population growth zealot? I see what you did there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-encourage-people-to-move-from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-egypt-etc/991296.md?page=7)