Shouldn’t Refugees Want to Leave an Open-Air Prison?
This week there has been a lot of talk about Donald Trump’s surprising suggestions for Gaza. Numerous political figures, human rights spokesmen, and for that matter Jewish organizations have condemned it and declared that any attempt to move Gaza residents is a crime.
I feel a more authentic human rights view has to put the desire of Gaza residents themselves front and center. Here’s a comment I wrote:
For everyone saying that moving Gaza’s citizens to another place is a travesty or gross violation of their rights, here’s another way to look at it. Human rights are numerous, and include both economic matters such as health, shelter, and sustenance, along with political freedoms too. Right now in Gaza almost none of them are being fulfilled. While resettling in another country would result in forfeiting some rights related to cultural and group identity, it would at the same time likely also be a boost for other rights too.
Clearly, forcing Gaza residents to move against their will is wrong. But if Gaza residents decide they would like to make this trade off and resettle in another country, no politician, United Nations Spokesman, or human rights organization is entitled to rule out that possibility based on their own opinions and views. That option should be respected and the decision must be made by Gaza residents alone.
I also recommend for you an excellent article by Natan Slifkin who gives a clear explanation of why, after decades of conflict with no good plan for peace on the horizon, ideas like this should be listened to:
Below is an article of mine that was just printed in the Algemeiner. Say what you want about Trump’s proposal, the knee-jerk opposition to it from human rights groups shows that their hypocrisy knows no bounds. It makes plain that the true goal of Palestinian advocacy is not to help Palestinians, but rather to keep them forever as long-suffering refugees in order to use them as weapons against Israel.
Bivracha,
Shlomo
Shouldn’t Refugees Want to Leave an Open-Air Prison?
The United Nations considers most Gaza residents to be refugees displaced by the creation of Israel way back in 1948. Of course, few if any individuals from that time are still living, but the UN has declared that all their descendants maintain that refugee status as well. UNRWA, the UN agency created to assist Palestinian refugees, is in fact quite deliberate in referring to the areas in Gaza where Palestinians live as refugee camps. Even though these places have fixed structures, paved streets, and are in every other way ordinary cities, UNRWA wants to remind us that these are supposed to be mere temporary living places for uprooted people, waiting generations to return to the land that is now Israel.
Even before the recent war, life in Gaza was difficult. Hamas attempted to smuggle arms and attack Israel, and Israel tightly restricted the inflow of supplies to Gaza in order to fight this. Palestinian advocates frequently referred to Gaza as an “open-air prison.” Human Rights Watch released a report describing in detail the enormous difficulties Gaza residents face when attempting to travel for personal, professional, or even medical reasons.
It’s against this backdrop that we should understand reaction to President Trump’s recent statement that Gaza is currently not suitable for habitation, and that the most humane solution is to relocate the population either permanently or temporarily to facilitate massive rebuilding.
One would expect that refugees, whose only geographic interest is supposedly returning to the land they left behind, would be largely indifferent to such a proposal. They would evaluate the offer on practical terms, asking where their economic, social, and security needs could best be met and whether the new opportunity might give them the chance to once and for all finally put down new roots.
One would also expect that people who have been subjected to decades of living in what they’ve termed an open-air prison would welcome any opportunity to leave and be grateful to whatever country makes it possible. They would be enthusiastic about the chance to finally have freedom of movement, and would be happy to relocate to a new country where they would no longer suffer the consequences of Hamas arms smuggling and the corresponding Israeli restrictions attempting to thwart it.
But of course, this is not what we’re hearing. Instead, Arab political leaders have condemned Trump’s plan and human rights experts have declared it a terrible violation of International Law.
None of these politicians or human rights spokespeople seem to have even entertained the possibility that Gaza’s Palestinians might like Trump’s idea and should be given the opportunity to decide about it for themselves. They also ignore that the Geneva Conventions specifically allow for population transfer when necessary for the security of the civilians involved, and due to the lack of housing and basic services, ordinance, and threats of further violence that exception could certainly apply.
But they also seamlessly shift from describing Gaza residents as long suffering refugees hoping to someday return to their homes to a native population firmly and comfortably entrenched in place. Riyadh Mansour, the Palestinian representative to the UN, went so far as to be quoted saying that Gaza was a precious part of a state of Palestine. He added, “We are not going to leave Gaza … There is no power on earth that can remove the Palestinian people from our ancestral homeland.”
Human rights activists are trying to have it both ways. When they want to use Gaza to accuse Israel of creating a refugee crisis and denying said refugees the right to return, they say Palestinians in Gaza are living in squalid refugee camps. When they want to accuse Israel of violating international law and collective punishment, they call it an open-air prison.
But now, when Trump gives a suggestion that would resolve Palestinians’ status such that they could no longer be weaponized for use in the decades-long campaign against Israel, they change their tune. Suddenly Gaza becomes a place where Palestinians are firmly rooted and can’t bear to leave. Gaza is no longer an open-air prison, but instead the beloved place where for many years Palestinians have been living a wholesome, fulfilling existence that would be shattered by having to move anyplace else.
No matter what claims politicians make, people in Gaza should not be forced to leave against their will. But they also should not be forced to stay if another country is willing to accept them and they would like to go.
Whatever becomes of Trump’s idea, it has already accomplished something important. It has helped to further expose the lies and hypocrisy of those advocating for Palestine. We see clearly how they altered their portrayal of Palestinians as refugees and their description of life in Gaza at a moment’s notice simply to fulfill their goal of constantly accusing Israel of crimes and blaming it for problems. The purpose of Palestinian activism is again exposed as unfortunately not a desire to help Palestinians but rather as an obsession with using them to attack Israel. That’s the greatest violation of Palestinian human rights and the biggest obstacle to peace of all.
Photo of the Rafah refugee camp taken from UNRWA.
Shlomo—I agree that what the Palestinians do is up to them. Yes, Gaza is a bleak place to live right now—that’s what happens when bombs rain down on a place for long stretches of time. What happens in war zones. That doesn’t mean the people who live(d) there don’t want to reconstruct it.
The Trump proposal was meaningless. It didn’t even pay lip service to democracy. It was Trump’s usual transactional model, sounding more like a real estate deal than anything else. It seemed designed more a shiny object to distract from what Musk and DOGE are doing to the US federal government.
Back in 2018, I participated in a journey called "The Longest Walk". This event occurs every ten years and was started in 1978 by Dennis Banks, an activist with AIM (American Indian Movement). We did not actually walk that much, but I traveled halfway across the U.S. with a group of Native Americans, going from reservation to reservation. Think of it as an extreme sort of cultural immersion. I learned some things. One of them was that the connection to the land is paramount. No matter how tiny the reservation, no matter how inhospitable it is, no matter how the U.S. government screwed these tribes, the indigenous people remain on the land (not all, but most of them). Why? Because the land is sacred to them, and they have an intense visceral relationship with it. I have Palestinian friends, and their perspective is very similar to that of the Native Americans. They won't leave. Even if it's a desolate wasteland, it is their home.