According to a write up published in The Jerusalem Post, moving
Palestinians to the Sinai Peninsula has been termed the ideal solution to
resolve Gaza crisis.
The writer believes, the Sinai Peninsula comprises one of
the most suitable places on Earth to provide the people of Gaza with hope and a
peaceful future.
The 365
km² Gaza Strip has remained a flash point in Israel-Egypt relations since its
conquest by the Egyptian Army in 1948 as part of Egypt’s failed attempt to
annihilate the newly-born State of Israel.
Egypt invaded Israel along two main axes, reaching the
outskirts of Jerusalem and only 20 km. short of Tel Aviv, but the Israel
Defense Forces pushed off this offensive. These battles generated a wave of
refugees that found haven in the Gaza Strip, which remained under Egyptian
military control until 1967.
Since 1948, and up until the current partial release of some
of the Israeli babies, children, and women taken hostage by Hamas
terrorists, the Egyptians have been significantly involved in the politics and
economy of the Gaza Strip.
The
Egyptians locked the residents of Gaza and the refugees of the 1948 War in the
Gaza Strip, and, with the backing of the United Nations, still deny them the
right to rebuild their lives in all Arab countries, including in the adjacent
Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. This harsh policy was one of the major and long-term
catalysts for the intensifying human stagnation of now circa 1.8 million inhabitants
within the Strip.
According to the writer, beyond the abduction, mutilation,
burning, rape, and murder of 1,200 Israelis and other nationals, the Hamas
terrorist invasion of Israel on October 07 destroyed many Israeli
agricultural villages. This barbarian murder-fest led the IDF to conquer the
northern Gaza Strip and the Hamas-infested Gaza metropolis as part of Israel’s
goal to destroy Hamas terror capabilities. As civilians were ordered to move
south, the southern Gaza Strip became a haven for most of Gaza’s residents.
The
battles in the northern Strip generated significant damage and destruction of
buildings utilized by Hamas. Damage to the immense terror-tunnel system further
destabilized the metropolis’s substrate. Major portions of the metropolis are
considerably incapacitated and cannot be simply fixed. Rather, the damaged and
destroyed structures must be completely torn down. The tunneled – and
consequently exploded and bulldozed – soil must undergo extensive environmental
and engineering rehabilitation.
In other words, the metropolis has to be fully evacuated,
redesigned, monitored, and only then rebuilt to provide habitable and economic
conducive conditions. Such an effort requires unique expertise and immense
funding and will take considerable time that cannot be calculated.
Therefore,
the war is anticipated to end with a unique humanitarian challenge of how to
construct a better future for the people of Gaza.
Since Israel’s unconditional turnover of the Gaza Strip to
the Palestinian Authority in 2005, Gazans have completely failed to generate a
productive Palestinian-administered entity, despite generous economic support,
mainly from America, Europe, Qatar, and the UN.
This may be associated with the coupled effect of an
intrinsic hatred-focused, fanatic, anti-Israel Islamic culture, and links with
Iran, along with limited geographical conditions, poor natural and human
resources, and a high population density.
This situation raises serious doubts that any type of future
self-sustainable efforts will yield a stable and free socioeconomic culture and
promising future in the Strip. A creative solution is needed ASAP.
The
adjoining Sinai Peninsula, in essence, is the exact opposite of the Gaza Strip,
comprising one of the most suitable places on Earth to provide the people of
Gaza with hope and a peaceful future.
Covering 60,000 km² (165 times larger than the Strip), its
population is barely around one-third of Gaza’s, making it one of the emptiest
places in the Mediterranean region.
Although under Egyptian governance, it is an integral
geographic-geological continuation of Israel and the Gaza Strip, with which it
shares a 200 km. and 14 km. long border, respectively.
Therefore, the geographic setting of the Mediterranean coast
of northern Sinai is also a physical continuation of the Gaza Strip with ample,
shallow groundwater in the northeast.
Due to the intensive smuggling of arms to Hamas via Sinai in
the last few years, Egypt fully destroyed the residential infrastructure
bordering the Gaza Strip, and expelled the local population.
In northwestern Sinai, Egypt has invested immensely in
building for agriculture, including freshwater canals.
Furthermore,
Egypt has surprisingly wired Sinai with excellent infrastructure, overshooting
its civilian and industrial needs. These include an array of paved roads and
highways connected by tunnels beneath the Suez Canal to mainland Egypt.
The facts demonstrate that the northern Sinai Peninsula is
an ideal location to develop a spacious resettlement for the people of Gaza.
Its open areas, along with the existing infrastructure, can easily host
large-scale development projects that, if led by the Chinese and supported by
local labor, for example, can easily mature in just one to two years.
Firm American and international guidance lined with
financial and operative support can surely pave the way to this creative and
prosperous solution and jointly help Egypt’s dire demographic and economic
situation that is challenging its political authority.
Israel
will also be cooperative in sharing its hi-tech-oriented agricultural
capabilities with Egypt as it did following the Peace Treaty in the early
1980s.
If Egypt bravely chooses to change its rigid, old-fashioned
policy of keeping Palestinian Gazans in constant distress and consents to such
an endeavor, its geopolitical gains will be threefold: It will be hailed by the
international community as the savior of the dire plight of Gazans; it will
strengthen its status as a leader of the Arab world; and it will finally
fulfill its 30+-year-old plan to settle the Sinai and strengthen its control of
this zone.
However, history has taught us that Gazans, despite their
complaints about their humanitarian situation, may object towards genuine
rehabilitation programs. This stubbornness substantially relies on their desire
to destroy Israel, which repeatedly comes at their own expense.
The ongoing obliteration of Hamas, which terrorizes
Palestinian Authority officials and many Gaza residents, may pave the way to
the emergence of the proposed Sinai solution, if presented in a wise and
discrete manner that conforms to the Middle East mentality.