MAKING GAZA INTO A MEDITERRANEAN SINGAPORE - Creating an opportunity to resolve the refugee problem in Gaza
By: Joseph Puder
Friday, January 5, 2024
It is said that “In every crisis, there is an opportunity.” The current war in Gaza between Israel and the terrorist organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is in fact an opportunity to end the Palestinian refugee problem in Gaza.
The destruction of vast tracks of northern Gaza Strip, including the refugee camps, clears the way for resettling these refugees and non-refugee Gazans. The building of modern housing units and creating industrial parks in a five kilometer between Gaza City and Israeli Kibbutz Nahal Oz, and another large industrial park in the southern Strip, in Rafah, on the border with Egypt and Israel, would provide for massive employment opportunities for Gazans.
An international consortium, made up predominantly of American and European investors, with a capital portfolio of $25-$35 billion, in partnership with the United Nations, would begin by negotiating a lease for 99 years of a parcel of Egyptian land southwest of Egyptian Rafah. The consortium would then build a brand-new city (might be called Dar al-Salam) to accommodate 50,000-100,000 Gazans in high rise apartments with modern appliances - fully electrified and with water provided by an Israeli desalination plant to be built at Kerem Shalom.
Along the Gaza City shoreline, the consortium would construct luxury hotels and resorts, a mall, and green space for parks and recreation. Behind the shoreline a complex of towers 20 stories high built to accommodate both middle-class Gazans as well as refugees from adjacent refugee camps. Twenty such apartment buildings might accommodate an additional 100,000 people, and easy Gaza’s over crowdedness.
The US would urge the governments of Kuwait and Qatar to each take 50,000 Gazans. In the aftermath of the Gulf War Kuwait expelled approximately 500,000 Palestinians, it would therefore be fair for Kuwait to take in just 10 percent back of the Palestinians it expelled. Qatar hosts the leaders of Hamas who live in great luxury around Doha. It would be poetic justice for Qatar to settle 50,000 unfortunate Gazans in Doha next to their leaders. Some Gazans might choose to immigrate to other Arab countries or to Europe.
Gaza’s schools have been dominated by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency). These schools have spawned todays terrorists...and tomorrows. The curriculum delivered by Hamas affiliated educators stressed Islamic triumphalism, and hatred for Israel, Jews, and Christians. This must change. The new curriculum would focus on skills for a 21st Century economy, as well as employ lessons on tolerance, peace, democracy, religious freedom, and human, civil, and women’s rights. In addition, Hebrew, Judaism, and lessons on the Holocaust could be added to the curriculum.
Gaza will remain a terrorist infestation unless the educational system is overhauled, and new mindsets are created for the children of Gaza. Instead of striving to be a Shaheed, youngsters would dream of being architects, engineers, or computer programmers. If Gaza is to be rehabilitated, the next generation must learn to appreciate the promise of a peaceful life. American and European teachers would have to be invited to teach in these schools.
Back in February 2017, Avigdor Lieberman, then defense minister in Netanyahu’s government, proposed turning Gaza “into the Singapore of the Middle East.” He suggested “building a seaport and an airport, and creating industrial zones that would help create 40,000 jobs in the Strip. https://www.bicom.org.uk/news/lieberman-offers-turn-gaza-singapore-middle-east/> .” Lieberman conditioned it on Hamas agreeing to demilitarization, and to dismantling the tunnels and rocket systems it had built. Lieberman’s proposal could now become a reality with Hamas’ military and political infrastructure in Gaza being dismantled.
The Gaza refugee camps were the recruitment centers for Hamas and PIJ terrorists. This is where it was easy to find volunteers for suicide bombing missions. The poor and uneducated refugees who lived in sewage infested streets, and in crowded households, considered becoming a martyr an ideal. Manipulated by Hamas and PIJ to buy into the fantasies of “72 black-eyed virgins awaiting them in Heaven,” the youth of Gaza (and the West Bank) readily became suicide bombers since they saw no better alternatives. They were infused with hatred for Israel and Jews in their schools, mosques, and media, all directed by Hamas.
For Israel and the international community, particularly in the west, turning Gaza into a Mediterranean Singapore, is now an achievable dream. It is also an opportunity to eliminate one of the major sources of grievance against Israel - the refugee problem. Solving the refugee problem in Gaza might embarrass the Arab world to rehabilitate their Palestinian refugees and make them equal citizens. There is no justification for the Arab states to separate Palestinian Arab-Muslim refugees from their citizenry. The Palestinian refugees speak the same language, and share the same religion, and culture.
One of the most contentious issues preventing the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the insistence on the part of the Palestinian Authority on the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel. For the Jewish state it is a non-starter, it is a prescription for the demographic destruction of Israel.
A thriving Gaza with modern apartments, plush hotels, a booming economy, and a rising standard of living, is ultimately an antidote to jihadist zeal and violence. With the squalid refugee camps no longer in sight, Palestinians would have much to lose if they sought to revert to terror and war against Israel. So, I call on the international community to seize the opportunity created in the midst of the misery of war and destruction brought about by Hamas’ atrocities on October 7, 2023, to build a Singapore-like Gaza on the Mediterranean.