When there is war, people flee. It has happened in Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan, as well as in northern and southern Israel.
There are about 120 million refugees around the world, according to UN statistics. Over 10% of them are in Europe.
One group is denied the basic human right to flee a war: The Gazans.
They are needed under the rubble in Gaza – not just by Hamas, who uses them as human shields, but also by Europe and its proxies, who use them as pawns in their age-old opposition to the Jewish state, and as a proxy assault on America.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza was caused by Hamas, which sabotages food distribution, steals it, and then uses it to blackmail Gazans into joining its ranks. Moreover, Hamas needs images of hungry Gazans as a lifeline, so there is international pressure to stop Israel from obliterating the terrorist group that perpetrated the massacre and hostage taking on October 7, 2023, that started this war.
Yet, Hamas is not the only culprit.
European countries are opposed to Gazans leaving Gaza, forcing them into this peril. This summer, the apparent reason for this was revealed: Gazans are needed for the European fantasy of a Palestinian state. After all, how can you have a Palestinian state without Palestinians?
European leaders, led by French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, announced their plans to ceremonially recognize a Palestinian state in September – an act that bears no significant impact on the Middle East, but has already fueled dangerous Muslim national sentiments in their home continent.
This happens as leading Palestinian sheikhs from the Hebron region expressed their strong opposition to a Palestinian state, arguing it would bring disaster. Instead, they wish to join the US-led Abraham Accords as clans.
Indeed, Europe is attempting to sabotage President Donald Trump’s shift from legacy “divide the baby” peace frameworks that perpetuate war (“two-state solution”) to win-win deals that bring sustainable peace (“Abraham Accords”). Moreover, in an act of defiance and disrespect, European countries chose to make the ceremonial recognition of a Palestinian state on US soil, in New York.
This is reminiscent of Germany announcing its unification in 1871, on French soil, after conquering Paris, in one of the many European forever wars.
Europe's domestic difficulties
To state the obvious, the recognition of a Palestinian state has nothing to do with Palestinians, and will not benefit them. It has to do with Europe’s domestic problems.
Indeed, Europe is rapidly turning into a threat to global stability.
Vice President JD Vance told the Munich Security Conference in February that: “the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values – values shared with the United States of America.”
This threat is now translating into European leaders openly inciting the world against the Jewish state, giving back wind to modern-day blood libels.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed last week in a press conference what those European leaders shared with him privately: “We know the facts, we know the truth, but we cannot stand against the public opinion, and our media.”
This sounds erringly familiar. As discussed in my book, The Assault on Judaism, there are stunning similarities between the last century’s European-led attempt to eradicate Judaism – then physically, trying to kill Jew-by-Jew, to this century’s ideological attempt – trying to negate the idea of the Jewish state, and through it, the idea of Judaism.
In the decades leading to the Holocaust, the conventional wisdom was that European leaders would protect the Jews from angry European masses. Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, understood back in 1895 that they cannot: “Even if we were as near to the hearts of princes as are their other subjects, they could not protect us,” he posited. “They would only feel popular hatred by showing us too much favor.”
In Starmer’s and Macron’s defense, it should be said: the same is the case today. They too have to cave to angry indoctrinated European masses.
Public pressure on European leaders
While much of the “starvation campaign” is fabricated, we have to acknowledge: The global mindset has been formed. The public is highly disturbed by images coming out of Gaza. This is not just in Europe, but also in the US, including among natural Israel supporters.
Yet, their frustration should not be directed at Israel, but at those standing in the way of Trump’s relocation plan, including European leaders.
This is especially so since relocation has been a core ethos of Gazans, the majority of whom are “1948 refugees” – those who fled Tel Aviv, Herzliya, and various other parts of today’s Israel during the 1948 war, based on the promise of their surrounding and war-mongering Arab brethren that they would be able to return as soon as the nascent Jewish state was defeated.
For decades, Europe, through its support of UNRWA, indoctrinated Gazans that they are only temporarily in Gaza as refugees, and one day they will be relocated back “home” to Israel.
It is time to face two truths:
1. Gazans are not going back to Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel. Hamas tried to make this happen on October 7 and failed.
2. Gazans are not going back to Gaza – it will take as estimated 20 years to clear up the “demolition site.” Even Sen. Bernie Sanders acknowledged that “92% of housing in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed.” Buildings are booby-trapped, and a massive network of underground tunnels is riddled with explosives.
The European suggestion that for the next twenty years Palestinians should live in tents by the Gazan shores, or under all of that booby-trapped rubble, is arrogant and coated with Islamophobia.
Public pressure must be put on UK’s Starmer, France’s Macron, and other leaders: If you really care about Gazans, set them free.
Give them the choice to relocate.
The US has leverage over countries who could receive Gazan refugees – be it the Middle East, other Muslim countries or Europe, which is already home to over 50 million Muslims. There are only about 2 million people in Gaza, and not all of them will opt to leave; even if a quarter of them relocate to Europe, they would only add 1% to its current Muslim population.
A vision of peace
In this column, I offered a vision for peace that would leverage Gazans labor skills, including in the building of the “California of Middle East” in the eastern desert. This can provide extraordinary opportunities not just for Gazans who chose to partake in it, but also for other individuals and nations in the region.
It would also address strategic needs of the United States, Arab countries, Israel, and even Europe – moving the West’s defense line from the shores of Europe and the Jordan River further east towards Iraq.
There are other ideas that could turn this crisis into an opportunity – for Gazans and for the region.
Now that there is public awareness of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, it should be leveraged to garner support for Trump’s Gaza relocation proposal – which could lead to safety and prosperity for Gazans, and peace for the entire region.
The public message must be clear: Let the Gazans be free – let them flee.
The writer is the author of The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat Is Coming from the West. He is chairman of the Judaism 3.0 think tank (Judaism-Zionism.com), and author of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism. For more of his analysis: EuropeAndJerusalem.com.