The anti-Israel world was in an uproar these past days like they hadn’t been since the beeper operation. At issue: President Donald Trump’s proposal to exit the Israeli-Gazan bloodshed cycle by opening Gaza’s borders for emigration.
The outcry reached the heavens – how could this be?! After all, Gaza is their land, homeland, crucible, and the joy of two million people who, strangely enough, are the only ones who see it as a temporary refugee camp and search for any way to escape it.
Among the antisemites’ responses worldwide, the response of Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares caught my eye. Under Albares, Spain has become a world leader in hatred of Israel, having joined the lawsuit against Israel in The Hague, rushed to impose an arms embargo on Israel, plus sanctions on Israelis, cutting ties, and more delicacies for the antisemitic palate.
“Gaza belongs to the Palestinians and they must stay there!” announced Albares. They must! This, coming from a representative of a country that once expelled hundreds of thousands of citizens just because they were Jewish.Albares is just one on the list of leaders who jumped in panic, and he, at least, doesn’t bother to arm himself with moral arguments. The Gazans must stay, in his opinion, alive or dead, and it’s clear why.
It is not moral opposition to transfer that stands behind the declaration. After all, the world’s nations don’t oppose population movements: In 1948, when all Jews of Arab countries were expelled from their states with only their clothes on their backs, Spain didn’t claim it was a moral injustice. There was no Spanish opposition when Jews were evacuated from Sinai in 1982, nor when Israelis were evacuated from Gush Katif in 2005.
In fact, Spain has willingly absorbed quite a few Syrian refugees who fled their burning country, viewing it as a humanitarian act. Ukrainians and Eritreans fleeing their country enjoy sympathy for the moral and justified idea that embraces people fleeing a war-torn area.
The Gazans are unique in the world, being imprisoned in their valley of tears, bleeding, miserable, condemned to lives of poverty and disgrace under a dark terrorist organization. Even when they flee, they encounter closed gates behind which stand moral faces like Albares and his ilk who announce with bone-chilling composure: “No exit, you must, must stay.”
Refusal to accept the State of Israel
Albares doesn’t care about the Gazans, moral values, or world peace. Before his eyes stands one well-known fact: a comprehensive and unequivocal solution to the Gaza problem is tantamount to accepting the long-term existence of the State of Israel.
Solving Gaza’s problem through migration means not only erasing for generations Israel’s hardest and bloodiest border but also signaling to West Bank Arabs that without a viable peace, their future might be similar. This – the antisemites must not agree to.
It’s hard to believe that the idea of migration from Gaza will be implemented, despite its presentation as a moral and humane solution that brings hope not only to Israel but also to the Gazan people wallowing in their despair and ruins.
Still, Trump has achieved an impressive feat: he succeeded at once in making all those who plot Israel’s downfall jump up in panic from their lair. He exposed their double standard, according to which the arbitrary imprisonment of two million innocent people is more moral than their absorption into organized states of their brethren in the region.
After all, the war against Israel’s legitimacy requires a narrative of a suffering people, and the Gazans – that’s their role. And so, in keeping with this line of thinking, they must continue to suffer. They must.
The writer is the president of WIZO.