A simple solution for Gaza — A Martian view
If one of your neighbours comes over and beats your entire family until they all have to go into the hospital and maybe burns down your house, you’d be unhappy about that and I predict that you would take some action to make it stop. If you lived next door to someone who occasionally fires a shotgun into the side of your house, sometimes causing injuries in your family, you would be unhappy about that and I predict that you would take some action to make it stop. If you are an outsider and you saw two neighbours acting like this, you might say; “Why doesn’t one of you move far away and bring the cycle to an end?”
There have been reports that Israel has been pushing for Gazans to move into Egypt, but this is a non-starter, first because a relatively poor country like Egypt can’t take in 2 million desperately poor people without cratering its own economy and secondly because if you are one of those desperately poor Gazans (average income about $5.50 USD/Day) giving up what little you have for an uncertain welcome and a refugee tent doesn’t make sense.
Some Gazans would like to force the Israelis out but this just isn’t realistic. There are 7 million of them and they are much wealthier, with much more powerful weapons including nuclear weapons.
I’ve never been to Gaza but I don’t think it could objectively be described as a super desirable place, and its tiny, about ninety thousand acres. My idea is that Israel buys the Gaza strip. At fifty thousand dollars per acre this is only 4.5 billion, certainly less than this war will cost and it would save thousands of lives. Split up 4.5 billion among two million Gazans and everyone gets about 2200 dollars, roughly an average year’s income currently.
This does not solve the important issue of where the Gazans would go to. I’m no expert on the immigration politics, but surely an important part of this problem is economic. Most countries are fairly welcoming to immigrants that can pay their own way.
There are 195 countries in the world today, if each one agreed to take a share of Gazans, it would be only about ten thousand per country, a drop in the bucket for most populations. If Gazans prefer to go to Muslim countries, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has 48 member states with Muslim majority populations. If each of these countries could help out it would be less than forty-two thousand people per country.
Of course, many of these countries are not wealthy and might struggle with even these relatively small numbers of poor immigrants. How about if Israel would pay for their upkeep for a few years? Let’s call that five thousand dollars per person per year, and lets say that the commitment is for 2 years, that’s another twenty billion. Still not much money in the grand scheme of things.
Would Gazans agree to this? I don’t have any personal knowledge on this subject; I would agree if I were one. Of course, there are almost certainly some for whom the land is too sacred, or they have buried family there or for other compelling reasons they would not consent to leave. These people must be accommodated by Israel. I think that a few hundred thousand people in this category would be feasible and I hope that people of good will in Israel would do their best to make that work.
Would Israels agree to this? I don’t have any personal knowledge on this subject; I would agree if I were one. A choice between a perma-war with the certain loss of sons and daughters and a small increase in your tax rate makes that choice seem obvious. Of course, there are likely people who are so blinded by rage that they will never agree to giving anything to Palestinians, I hope that people of good will can convince them otherwise.
Everyone wins here, the Gazans can start a new life in a safer place with some resources, Israel ends up with neighbours who (mostly) aren’t firing rockets into their cities. And clearly the rest of the world wins.
