Harel: Palestinian refugees are a threat to Israel's existence

Israel Harel
Haaretz
Published 01:37 19.05.11



http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/palestinian-refugees-are-a-threat-to-israel-s-existence-1.362676

The American aid, Netanyahu should stress in his Washington speech, is financing one of the most evil and strategically sophisticated plots of our times: cultivating entire generations, millions of people, with one primary goal - destroying the Jewish state.

Next week, the prime minister will address the U.S. Congress. Many congressmen, especially from the Republican Party, are friends of Israel. The Republicans don't like spending taxpayers' money on foreign aid, and especially not when their country's economy is doing so poorly. That includes, and perhaps even especially, aid to the United Nations.

Benjamin Netanyahu therefore ought to argue that the United States, being the UN's principal financial supporter, bears great responsibility for the failure to solve the problem of the Palestinian refugees. Had it not financed a significant portion of UN Relief and Works Agency's budget from 1950 to the present, the problem would have been solved long ago.

Over the course of the 20th century, solutions were found for tens of millions of other refugees, especially after World War II. These solutions included population exchanges.

This American aid, Netanyahu should stress, is financing one of the most evil and strategically sophisticated plots of our times: cultivating entire generations, millions of people, with one primary goal - destroying the Jewish state.

If America is committed to ensuring Israel's continued existence - and of this, there is no doubt - then it must stop funding those whose lives are dedicated to Israel's destruction. If America and its allies see to the closure of UNRWA and its ilk, the process of truly rehabilitating the refugees, backed by suitable financing, will finally be able to begin.

Originally numbering some 700,000 people, who could have been compensated and helped to acquire productive lives, the refugee population has since grown to about five million. It is almost impossible to find a peaceful solution for that number of people - which was precisely the plotters' intent.

Israel, which also failed to dismantle the refugee camps under its control, now finds itself facing a challenge that it is neither mentally nor morally equipped to handle. If Israel's army was afraid to use force against a mere few hundred people, the planners of the next march on the country's borders are doubtless saying to themselves, it's easy to predict how it will behave when faced with hundreds of thousands, or certainly with millions.

This week, the shopworn mantra was reiterated once again: Negotiations would have prevented the breach of the border fence. That is utter nonsense. The refugees' opposition to any compromise that doesn't return them to Jaffa and Haifa is unyielding.

And that is why (as shown by the angry demonstrations against him following Al Jazeera's revelation of alleged Palestinian concessions in the talks ) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas smashed the "peace process" to bits by refusing to return to the negotiating table.

But the message sent by those who burst over the border at Majdal Shams was also aimed at the PA: Don't even think of giving in. Israel, as the lack of resolution evinced by its government and army (once again ) proved, is getting weaker and weaker. We are on the brink of total victory.

This time, too, the government will do what it ostensibly knows how to do: give its forces better tools for dispersing demonstrations, and of course engage in "public diplomacy" (though even this with its characteristic incompetence ).

But it lacks the leadership and ideological, moral and operational courage to deal with the fundamental problems that threaten Jewish survival in the Land of Israel. And that would be even more true of a government led by Kadima or the other leftist factions.

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