SHOSHANA BRYEN: Trump Has A Rare Opportunity To Totally Transform Gaza

President Donald Trump was contemplating, and, as he often does, set off a firestorm.

Gaza is, he said, “literally a demolition site, almost everything is demolished, and people are dying there.” On the other hand, “Gaza is interesting. It’s a phenomenal location, on the sea. The best weather, you know, everything is good. It’s like, some beautiful things could be done with it, but it’s very interesting.”

That was the simple part. But then he said he would clean out Gaza and that Jordan and Egypt take some Gazans. How many? A lot of them. Temporarily? During a rebuild? Or permanently?

Without pretending to know what is in the president’s mind, it is clear that he has hit on some very sensitive and never-discussed points. But if he succeeds in forcing an assessment of the reality of “Palestinian refugees,” he will have done a service for the Palestinians and for the rest of us.

First is the question of why there are multigenerational refugees at all. The long answer is in the brilliant book, “The War for Return” by Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz. The short answer is that the Arab States told the original refugees that their dispossession was temporary; that Israel would be erased.  Therefore, no Arab country would agree to have Palestinians except as temporary “refugees.”

But that raises another difficult question. If Palestinians believe the West Bank and Gaza are (at least part of) the Palestinian State-in-waiting, shouldn’t all the people living in those places be citizens of (part of) “Palestine?” They are governed by Palestinians and there hasn’t been an Israeli living in Gaza since 2006 – except for hostages the past 15 months.