Mar-a-Lago on the Med

When, as is frequently the case, peoples belonging to different tribes or religious sects prove unable to live in close proximity without throwing themselves at one another’s throats, physically separating them can be the least bad solution to the many terrible problems that are certain to arise. This is why, a century ago, more than a million Greeks and other Christians had to leave Anatolia and about 400,000 Muslim Turks went in the opposite direction. In the days that followed World War II, even bigger population exchanges became routine, with up to 15 million Germans getting “ethnically cleansed” from what had become their ancestral lands, and Hindus and Muslims going their different ways amid scenes of gruesome violence after the partition of India in 1947. While all this was very painful for the people involved, it was generally agreed that it was better than any realistic alternative. As the old saying Robert Frost included in a well-known poem put it: “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Why, then, is Donald Trump’s suggestion that it would be better for all concerned if the inhabitants of Gaza moved to Egypt, Jordan or some other neighbouring country where people share their religious beliefs, language and cultural norms, being derided as hopelessly far-fetched and reactionary? Governments of all stripes, including some, like those of China, Turkey and Iran that are more than willing to displace large numbers of people for what they think are good reasons, as well as democratic ones in Europe that go on about the need to respect “international law” as interpreted by the UN and how wicked it is to force people to abandon their homes, lost no time in condemning what, given the unhappy circumstances, was a fairly sensible proposal.

For some, the mere fact that it was put forward by Trump, a man they loathe and think incapable of getting anything right, was reason enough to reject it out of hand. They took it for granted that what he wanted was to grab some prime Mediterranean real estate and fill it with gaudy Trump towers after getting rid of the local inhabitants. Perhaps he really does have such a deal in mind when he talks about a “Middle Eastern Riviera,” but it would be hard to deny that, properly managed, Gaza could become a wealthy coastal hub or even, as some Israeli visionaries imagined before Hamas took it over, a Middle Eastern version of Singapore which, thanks to Lee Kwan Yew, transformed itself in a remarkably short time from a seedy backwater into one of the richest cities on the planet.

For many, awareness that Israel would be certain to benefit made Trump’s idea unacceptable. As for the Palestinians, though the politicians, activists of one kind or another and commentators who are protesting pretend they are motivated only by concern for their welfare, few really care that much about what happens to them. What most want is for them to continue to be pawns in the geopolitical and sectarian game people have been playing, whether in their heads, in diplomatic encounters or on the ground in the Middle East, ever since the foundation of the State of Israel in May 1948.

From day one, the Arab approach to the appearance of what many dismissed as an ephemeral “Zionist entity” was, one might say, unsophisticated. Most governments in the region, egged on by local religious authorities, simply refused to tolerate the formation of a Jewish nation in a land that had long been dominated by Muslims and therefore should stay that way forever. As time went by and the Israelis not only prospered but also showed themselves to be formidable soldiers, attitudes softened, with a growing number of Arab governments tentatively reconciling themselves to what had become the status quo.

Needless to say, the resulting truce is fragile and would come to an end the moment Israel’s many enemies think they are in a position to put an end to her existence. Some saw the brutal pogrom carried out by Hamas in October 2023 as a sign that it would be safe to renew the holy war against the Zionist intruder, but since then Israel has dealt hammer blows not only to Hamas but also to Hezbollah and Iran, thereby facilitating the fall of the savage dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Despite everything, Israel is emerging from the ordeal even stronger than before.

By now, those Arabs who, advised by Soviet propagandists, rebranded themselves as Palestinians in order to make Westerners regard them as a small indigenous ethnic group that was being persecuted by a much bigger neighbour and not just part of a people numbered in the hundreds of millions that were determined to exterminate a handful of plucky Jews, should have grown accustomed to being victims of their alleged friends.

Unlike almost every other country that allowed people much like their inhabitants who sought refuge to settle permanently, those who reluctantly opened the doors when the fighting was going on adamantly refused to let them become citizens. As a result, the great-grandchildren of people who fled in the 1940s are still considered refugees, unlike the descendants of almost a million Jews who were expelled from Arab countries and made their homes in Israel.

Unfortunately for the Palestinians, the policy towards them of their Arab “brothers” does not seem about to change. As Trump soon found out, neither Egypt nor Jordan are willing to admit them even for a short time, let alone grant them citizenship. From their governments’ point of view, in addition to being troublemakers who would probably encourage Islamist terrorism, by staying in Gaza the Palestinians will continue to serve a useful purpose by telling the world that Israel is exclusively responsible for their plight.

Once upon a time, the international consensus was that peoples that were deemed to be excessively prone to behave violently should be ruled by others until they could be trusted to govern themselves in a civilized fashion, which was why in 1920 the League of Nations asked the UK to administer Palestine. We have come a long way since then. In today’s world all cultures are considered equally valuable so if a majority wants to be under the sway of a murderous terrorist organisation such as Hamas, or a bunch of religious maniacs like the Taliban, no outsider has a right to intervene. Unless this changes, the Middle East will continue to be a charnel house, but it would seem that most people believe it should be left to their own devices, which is why Trump’s attempt to “think outside the box” has been greeted with such outrage.