A Question about Middle East History, Or, Calling Dr. Rahe

 

Paul’s post about Gaza, below, got me to wondering.

Most of the population of Gaza, Paul notes, is composed of Arabs displaced as a result of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, and, of course, of their children and grandchildren—Gaza represents, in short, a gigantic and permanent refugee camp.

Screen Shot 2014-07-22 at 9.06.47 AMJust a few years earlier in Europe, far more people were displaced at the end of the Second World War, largely as a result of the redrawing of borders. Millions of Germans were forced off lands they had occupied, often for centuries, in Pomerania, East Prussia, and Silesia as those provinces became part of Poland. Millions of Poles, in turn, were forced out of traditionally Polish towns and cities in territory that, once Polish, had now been absorbed into the Soviet Union. In Czechoslovakia, the Benes Decrees ejected the Sudeten Germans, forcing them north to Germany proper. Large numbers of Hungarians and Romanians were also displaced.  

In all, several tens of millions of Europeans were forced to leave ancestral homes for new lands. They did so—and the countries to which they moved made room for them. Six decades later, the whole enormous exodus is nearly forgotten.

Why didn’t something similar happen to the Arabs of Gaza—why, in particular, did their fellow Arabs fail to take them in?

Even today, the population of Gaza remains under 2 million. The Sinai desert, which Gaza borders, is essentially…empty. For a fraction of the billions the Arab world spends perpetuating the Arab-Israeli conflict, the population of Gaza could be shifted a few miles to the south and west, given new homes, provided with desalination plants, and permitted to make the desert blossom. The United States itself spends more than $3 billion a year on aid to Egypt and another $3 billion on aid to Israel. For a couple of years’ worth of that aid—say $10 to $12 billion—we could build the Gaza Arabs a new settlement in the Sinai that would rival the nicer suburbs of Phoenix.

Why hasn’t this happened?

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  1. Albert Arthur Coolidge
    Albert Arthur
    @AlbertArthur

    Peter Robinson: Most of the population of Gaza, Paul notes, is composed of Arabs displaced as a result of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, and, of course, of their children and grandchildren—Gaza represents, in short, a gigantic and permanent refugee camp.

     Unrelated to the post, but I just wanted to say, good job not using the incorrect “comprised of,” a common error to which, unfortunately, many people fall prey.

    Peter Robinson: Why didn’t something similar happen to the Arabs of Gaza—why, in particular, did their fellow Arabs fail to take them in?

     The answer is, sadly, simple. The Arab countries do not care about the so-called palestinians except in that they can be used as pawns. At the same time that Arabs were displaced during Israel’s war of independence, so too were an equal number of Jews forcibly removed from their homes throughout the middle east. Israel took most of them in (the others probably went to Europe or the United States).

    • #1
  2. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    All the Europeans you mentioned had homelands which felt obliged to take them in. Palestinians may be Arabs but Arabs are not all Palestinians. Arab to me seems akin to a larger ethnic group like Slavs. There is no pan-Slavic solidarity despite what Russia may say nor is there any pan-Arab solidarity either despite what ISIS might say. It would have been better for all if the Palestinians of Gaza could have been resettled but it seems a bit late now.

    • #2
  3. Douglas Inactive
    Douglas
    @Douglas

    “why, in particular, did their fellow Arabs fail to take them in?”

    At last, someone asks the question out loud.

    And the answer is that the nations/tribes of the Arabian Peninsula don’t’ like them very much, and look down on them. Some still call them “Levantines”. The other “Arab” states… like Egypt… already have their own identity issues (Arab or Egyptian? Berber or Arab?), and are in no hurry to take Palestinians in in the name of Arab brotherhood.

    • #3
  4. user_124695 Inactive
    user_124695
    @DavidWilliamson

    Dr Rahe has the answer in his post – “If Gaza now belongs to Hamas, it is because it is largely populated by Palestinians unwilling to settle for anything short of the destruction of the state of Israel”.

    • #4
  5. Son of Spengler Member
    Son of Spengler
    @SonofSpengler

    If any Arab country were to permanently settle the Palestinians, that would be a tacit acknowledgement that the State of Israel was not a temporary aberration.

    Even today, Hamas wants to “end the occupation from the river to the sea”.

    • #5
  6. ctlaw Coolidge
    ctlaw
    @ctlaw

    Douglas:

    “why, in particular, did their fellow Arabs fail to take them in?”

    At last, someone asks the question out loud.

    And the answer is that the nations/tribes of the Arabian Peninsula don’t’ like them very much, and look down on them. Some still call them “Levantines”. The other “Arab” states… like Egypt… already have their own identity issues (Arab or Egyptian? Berber or Arab?), and are in no hurry to take Palestinians in in the name of Arab brotherhood.

    Didn’t Egypt annex the Gaza Strip in 1959?  

    • #6
  7. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    I once read an article* about the difficulty intelligence agencies have in infiltrating Muslim terrorist networks. The upshot is that pan-Arabism is largely a myth. They are more tribal and family-centric than anything in the west. They mistrust anyone outside of the small tribal circles, even other Arabs. 

    *And since I read it in the internet it has to be true.

    • #7
  8. Paul A. Rahe Member
    Paul A. Rahe
    @PaulARahe

    ctlaw:

    Douglas:

    “why, in particular, did their fellow Arabs fail to take them in?”

    At last, someone asks the question out loud.

    And the answer is that the nations/tribes of the Arabian Peninsula don’t’ like them very much, and look down on them. Some still call them “Levantines”. The other “Arab” states… like Egypt… already have their own identity issues (Arab or Egyptian? Berber or Arab?), and are in no hurry to take Palestinians in in the name of Arab brotherhood.

    Didn’t Egypt annex the Gaza Strip in 1959?

     It did not, however, confer Egyptian citizenship on the Palestinians. Albert Arthur is, alas, correct. The Palestinians were left stateless and used as a pawn.

    • #8
  9. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Silly Peter, trying to be logical about the Middle East. Or perhaps that’s silly trying to apply Western logic.  The situation and players are very logical, given their premises. They’re just working from a very different playbook from the, “Can’t we all just get along and create wealth?” playbook that Republican Americans tend to use.

    • #9
  10. doc molloy Inactive
    doc molloy
    @docmolloy

    Palestinians are pawns. 
    The Palestinians’ Real Enemies
    by Efraim Karsh
    Middle East Quarterly
    Spring 2014

    For most of the twentieth century, inter-Arab politics were dominated by the doctrine of pan-Arabism, postulating the existence of “a single nation bound by the common ties of language, religion and history. … behind the facade of a multiplicity of sovereign states”;[1] and no single issue dominated this doctrine more than the “Palestine question” with anti-Zionism forming the main common denominator of pan-Arab solidarity and its most effective rallying cry. But the actual policies of the Arab states have shown far less concern for pan-Arab ideals, let alone for the well-being of the Palestinians, than for their own self-serving interests. Indeed, nothing has done more to expose the hollowness of pan-Arabism than its most celebrated cause.

    Denying Palestinian Nationalism

    • #10
  11. Mark Coolidge
    Mark
    @GumbyMark

    There is an additional factor in the mix.  In the years after WWII there were four great refugee waves.  Millions of Germans evicted from lands in Eastern Europe where, in many cases, they had lived for centuries.  Millions of Hindus and Moslems in India during its breakup and the creation of Pakistan.  About 750,000 Palestinians who fled, or were expelled, during the first Israel-Arab war and about 750,000 Jews who fled, or were expelled, from the Moslem countries where, in many cases, they had lived for over 1,000 years.

    The only refugee wave in which the U.N. was involved was the Palestinian.  A specific UN organization was created in 1950 (the UNWRA) and still exists and operates the refugee camps for the original refugees and their descendants.  The U.S. and other Western countries were instrumental in establishing the UN role and, to this day, provide most of its funding so it is our tax dollars that keep this going.

    • #11
  12. doc molloy Inactive
    doc molloy
    @docmolloy

    Mark: and about 750,000 Jews who fled, or were expelled, from the Moslem countries where, in many cases, they had lived for over 1,000 years.

    The Nakba Hoax

    Those spewing such venom — which frequently results in violence — do not understand that their promoting such provocative public rallies not only outrages the majority of Israelis, but creates tension that will ultimately make their lives in Israel intolerable.

    They also fail to consider that the majority of their neighbors are themselves refugees or descendants of refugees from all over the world who found a safe haven — free from persecution and violence — in Israel.

    In fact, many of them — about 850,000 — suffered pogroms and persecution in Arab countries in 1948. They were forcibly expelled from their homes and had their property and worldly possessions confiscated. One can visit virtually every Arab city in the Middle East and see the remnants of synagogues and cemeteries from once vibrant Jewish communities that were destroyed because of Arab hatred.

    • #12
  13. Mark Coolidge
    Mark
    @GumbyMark

    A correction to my prior comment.  I referred to UNWRA – it is actually UNRWA, the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestine in the Near East.

    According to the UNRWA website its two largest contributors in 2013 were the US ($130 million) and the EU ($106 million) which together constitute 45% of its budget.  However, UNRWA recently announced that the US substantially increased its contribution which in 2014 will be $211 million.  To add insult to injury, UNRWA has been transformed over the years into a propaganda arm of the Palestinians.

    • #13
  14. hawk@haakondahl.com Member
    hawk@haakondahl.com
    @BallDiamondBall

    Every system works, or it is not a system, and the Palestine System definitely works.  In addition to the good answers listed here (which I was crazy for mentioning a decade ago, but no matter), the UNRWA functions like any other bureaucracy, and specifically like race-hustling Sharptons and Jacksons, in that riding a problem is more profitable than solving it.  The Arab states and affiliated actors not only get to use Israel as a foreign policy hockeypuck, but as a manufactured external enemy for domestic consumption.  

    That’s right — Emmanuel Goldstein. 

    • #14
  15. Tommy De Seno Member
    Tommy De Seno
    @TommyDeSeno

    I know I haven’t received much support for this on Ricochet in the past, but I remain resolute in my assertion – the hostility between Palestinians and Jews centers around both having a desire to control East Jerusalem.   That’s why it never matters what land the Palestinians are given and the fighting continues.  Ask any Jew or Palestinian who is from there if they can support a deal where the other side controls East Jerusalem and the answer will be no.

    • #15
  16. AIG Inactive
    AIG
    @AIG

    There are millions of Palestinians living in other Arab countries, so they did “take them in” to a large extent.

    The difference between Europe post WW2 and the Arab world today is that there were 2 other dominant powers in Europe which either forced the exodus, or administered it: mainly the Soviet Union and to a smaller extent the Western Allies. 

    No one was going to make a peep about Poles or Germans moved around, in a communist Eastern Europe. I.e., both sides were ruled by the same foreign power. 

    Also, many of these population movements in Europe were coordinated by both sides. Prior to WW2 there were other population transfers, such as for example between Yugoslavia and Turkey post WW1 where more than half a million people were exchanged between the two. But it was “mutually” agreed.

    • #16
  17. hawk@haakondahl.com Member
    hawk@haakondahl.com
    @BallDiamondBall

    Tommy De Seno:

    I know I haven’t received much support for this on Ricochet in the past, but I remain resolute in my assertion – the hostility between Palestinians and Jews centers around both having a desire to control East Jerusalem. That’s why it never matters what land the Palestinians are given and the fighting continues. Ask any Jew or Palestinian if they can support a deal where the other side controls East Jerusalem and the answer will be no.

     I’ll go for that, sort of.  Israel won’t accept it because it’s Jerusalem, not Mecca, and the Arabs won’t accept it because there are still Jews left if there are Jews in East Jerusalem.

    • #17
  18. Mark Coolidge
    Mark
    @GumbyMark

    Tommy De Seno:

    I know I haven’t received much support for this on Ricochet in the past, but I remain resolute in my assertion – the hostility between Palestinians and Jews centers around both having a desire to control East Jerusalem. That’s why it never matters what land the Palestinians are given and the fighting continues. Ask any Jew or Palestinian who is from there if they can support a deal where the other side controls East Jerusalem and the answer will be no.

     In 2000, 2001 and 2008 the Israeli government made proposals under which East Jerusalem would be divided, there would be joint sovereignty for the holy sites and the Palestinians would have a capital in their section of the city.  In 2000 and 2001 Arafat refused to negotiate over the proposal and launched the Second Intifada while in 2008 the Palestinians never responded. 

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  19. Tommy De Seno Member
    Tommy De Seno
    @TommyDeSeno

    Mark:

    Tommy De Seno:

    I know I haven’t received much support for this on Ricochet in the past, but I remain resolute in my assertion – the hostility between Palestinians and Jews centers around both having a desire to control East Jerusalem. That’s why it never matters what land the Palestinians are given and the fighting continues. Ask any Jew or Palestinian who is from there if they can support a deal where the other side controls East Jerusalem and the answer will be no.

    In 2000, 2001 and 2008 the Israeli government made proposals under which East Jerusalem would be divided, there would be joint sovereignty for the holy sites and the Palestinians would have a capital in their section of the city. In 2000 and 2001 Arafat refused to negotiate over the proposal and launched the Second Intifada while in 2008 the Palestinians never responded.

     That appears to prove my point. 

    • #19
  20. Tommy De Seno Member
    Tommy De Seno
    @TommyDeSeno

    It appears to be a deal-breaker for Netanyahu as well:

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176145#.U88BuJtOXb0

    • #20
  21. Mark Coolidge
    Mark
    @GumbyMark

    Tommy De Seno:

    Mark:

    Tommy De Seno:

    . . . – the hostility between Palestinians and Jews centers around both having a desire to control East Jerusalem. That’s why it never matters what land the Palestinians are given and the fighting continues. Ask any Jew or Palestinian who is from there if they can support a deal where the other side controls East Jerusalem and the answer will be no.

    In 2000, 2001 and 2008 the Israeli government made proposals under which East Jerusalem would be divided, there would be joint sovereignty for the holy sites and the Palestinians would have a capital in their section of the city. In 2000 and 2001 Arafat refused to negotiate over the proposal and launched the Second Intifada while in 2008 the Palestinians never responded.

    That appears to prove my point.

     And for the past two decades it has gotten even worse.  Israel acknowledges the presence of the Islamic holy sites and even lets a Moslem group, the Waqf, administer the Temple Mount and limit access of Jews to the area.  Palestinian propaganda however does not recognize the existence of the Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem calling it a myth.

    • #21
  22. Mark Coolidge
    Mark
    @GumbyMark

    Tommy De Seno:

    It appears to be a deal-breaker for Netanyahu as well:

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176145#.U88BuJtOXb0

     By now it very well may be.  There was an opportunity in the earlier proposals but time may have passed it by. 

    • #22
  23. Douglas Inactive
    Douglas
    @Douglas

    EJHill:

    I once read an article* about the difficulty intelligence agencies have in infiltrating Muslim terrorist networks. The upshot is that pan-Arabism is largely a myth. They are more tribal and family-centric than anything in the west. They mistrust anyone outside of the small tribal circles, even other Arabs.

    *And since I read it in the internet it has to be true.

     “I and my brother against my cousin. I and my cousin against the world.” – Arab proverb

    • #23
  24. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    There are two well-night intractable problems in the Arab-Israeli conflict. One is Jerusalem, as Tommy De Seno says. The other is the Palesinian refugees. A very large number of them still have their hearts set on returning “home”, which they cannot do.

    On the question in the OP: as Son of Spengler says, the Arab states largely want the Palestinians to stay where they are, as a thorn in Israel’s side. Also, they don’t like Palestinians all that much. 

    For what it’s worth, my anecdotal experience does not bear out Dr. Rahe’s suggestion that the great majority of Palestinians would refuse to settle for anything less than the total destruction of Israel. I spent a summer in Gaza in 2000 (admittedly, awhile ago, and much has happened since then), and like the clueless undergraduate I was just went around polling people for their opinion on the matter. Very few people told me “the Israelis have to go, end of story.” Many, many people said they wanted peace and to get on with their lives. The other very common thing was for people to tell me that they wanted to “return home” (to wherever their people were living in 1948) and didn’t care so much about the details of the political arrangement so long as they were able to do that.

    Again, answers might be very different today. But I think we should be careful about assuming that all Palestinians are intractably bent on the destruction of the State of Israel. In the summer of 2000 (at the time of the Camp David negotiations hosted by Bill Clinton), there were many Gazans who were hoping fervently that Arafat would reach some sort of settlement that could lead to lasting peace. They knew of course that that settlement would not involve Israel ceasing to exist. Nor would they get all or most of Jerusalem, nor would their refugees all get to come home. But many of them were still hoping.

    Gaza is not a nice place, even when it isn’t a war zone. A lot of them just want out.

    • #24
  25. A Beleaguered Conservative Member
    A Beleaguered Conservative
    @

    Tommy De Seno:

    I know I haven’t received much support for this on Ricochet in the past, but I remain resolute in my assertion – the hostility between Palestinians and Jews centers around both having a desire to control East Jerusalem. That’s why it never matters what land the Palestinians are given and the fighting continues. Ask any Jew or Palestinian who is from there if they can support a deal where the other side controls East Jerusalem and the answer will be no.

     Wasn’t Israel willing to give up large portions of East Jerusalem at the 2000 Camp David summit?

    • #25
  26. Tommy De Seno Member
    Tommy De Seno
    @TommyDeSeno

    A Beleaguered Conservative:

    Tommy De Seno:

    I know I haven’t received much support for this on Ricochet in the past, but I remain resolute in my assertion – the hostility between Palestinians and Jews centers around both having a desire to control East Jerusalem. That’s why it never matters what land the Palestinians are given and the fighting continues. Ask any Jew or Palestinian who is from there if they can support a deal where the other side controls East Jerusalem and the answer will be no.

    Wasn’t Israel willing to give up large portions of East Jerusalem at the 2000 Camp David summit?

     I think there have been proposals by Israel to share.  Neither want the other in complete control.  Not being an expert in the history of it, I don’t know if Israel made the proposal at a moment in time where they knew any deal was dead anyway.  I’d have to research.

    • #26
  27. Mark Coolidge
    Mark
    @GumbyMark

    Tommy De Seno:

    Wasn’t Israel willing to give up large portions of East Jerusalem at the 2000 Camp David summit?

    I think there have been proposals by Israel to share. Neither want the other in complete control. Not being an expert in the history of it, I don’t know if Israel made the proposal at a moment in time where they knew any deal was dead anyway. I’d have to research.

     The proposal in 2000 was not made when negotiations were dead.  It was made to Arafat in person when he was meeting with Bill Clinton and Ehud Barack.  He turned it down (this was the point where he informed Clinton, to his astonishment, that there had been no Jewish temple in Jerusalem and therefore that the Jews had no historical claim, made no counterproposal and returned to the West Bank and launched the Second Intifada.

    In retrospect this may have been the last point where a two state solution was possible even though similar offers were made by Israeli Prime Ministers in 2001 and 2008.

    • #27
  28. Tommy De Seno Member
    Tommy De Seno
    @TommyDeSeno

    Mark:

    Tommy De Seno:

    Wasn’t Israel willing to give up large portions of East Jerusalem at the 2000 Camp David summit?

    I think there have been proposals by Israel to share. Neither want the other in complete control. Not being an expert in the history of it, I don’t know if Israel made the proposal at a moment in time where they knew any deal was dead anyway. I’d have to research.

    The proposal in 2000 was not made when negotiations were dead. It was made to Arafat in person when he was meeting with Bill Clinton and Ehud Barack. He turned it down (this was the point where he informed Clinton, to his astonishment, that there had been no Jewish temple in Jerusalem and therefore that the Jews had no historical claim, made no counterproposal and returned to the West Bank and launched the Second Intifada.

    In retrospect this may have been the last point where a two state solution was possible even though similar offers were made by Israeli Prime Ministers in 2001 and 2008.

     I’d like to read about those proposals.  Do you have any book recommendations?  Or an online source I can read?

    • #28
  29. Mark Coolidge
    Mark
    @GumbyMark

    Tommy De Seno:

    Mark:

    In retrospect this may have been the last point where a two state solution was possible even though similar offers were made by Israeli Prime Ministers in 2001 and 2008.

    I’d like to read about those proposals. Do you have any book recommendations? Or an online source I can read?

     Tommy – the best book on the 2000 peace talks is The Missing Peace by Dennis Ross.   The best summary of Olmert’s 2008 proposal can be found at Yaacov Lozowick’s blog.   His blog is valuable because it tracks the change in someone who was a Labour/Peace Now supporter in the 90s who ended up voting for Sharon after Arafat launched the Second Intifada.   Arafat’s decision created a new generation of embittered Palestinians and destroyed Israel’s peace movement.  Lozowick no longer blogs actively (he was formerly Chief Archivist at Vad Yashem and is now Chief Archivist for the State of Israel) but his archives, organized by subject, are a good source.

    I may have some time later tonight to point you to some more online sources.  

    • #29
  30. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Mark: (he was formerly Chief Archivist at Vad Yashem and is now Chief Archivist for the State of Israel) but his archives, organized by subject, are a good source.

    Heh, an archivist whose archives are well-organized?

    • #30
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