The Gaza strip is such a small piece of land that creating a sufficient buffer zone - minimum 40 km for present day's hand-made rockets - is impossible. Occupation would cost human lives and require funding for years, and such a human catastrophe would offer no hope for a better future. If ethnic groups hate each other, and when both can base their views and claims on selected parts of hundreds or thousands of years of history, there are only two peaceful solutions: to train new generations in tolerance while developing similar living conditions, or to separate the groups according to ethnic lines. The Balkans have experience with the second option and may provide a solution to the Gaza conflict.
Balkan examples:
In recent history the vast movement of populations provoked by the 1991-95 war in Croatia and Bosnia was nothing new in the Balkans. For example, in 1690 Patriarch Arsenije lead 30,000 families (Serbs) into exile from their lands, which had been occupied by Turks.
Especially after the Serbian-Turkish wars of 1876-78, migrations and population exchanges were even bigger; some two million people, divided between Serbs and Muslims, fled their original homes. The Ottoman government absorbed more than a million refugees between 1878-1897 who would not live under the new Christian authorities.
During the period 1912-23, as many as two and half million people in the Balkans were displaced from their homes due to wars and population exchanges. In 1912 Greece and Turkey formally agreed, under the Treaty of Lausanne, to exchange most of their remaining minority populations. Between 1912 and 1952 inter-governmental agreements resulted in the further emigration of 175,000 Muslims from Yugoslavia to Turkey.
The Dayton Agreement was signed in 1995 in Bosnia after a bloody war from 1992-95 had almost completed ethnic cleansings/ the transfer of populations. This made it possible to draw administrative boundaries according to ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansings in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo are the main reasons that Serbia, even today, has one of the biggest refugee problems in Europe with 326,853 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees.
Not only Balkans:
Recent history provides examples of population movements outside of the Balkans. After WWII, Germans moved, for instance, from Poland to new territories. Finland settled some 10 % of its population from territories occupied by the Soviet Union, which itself transferred new populations to new regions.
Israel has been mainly settled by immigrants - in the last twenty years over half a million people with some Jewish origin have come from the former Soviet Union. On a smaller scale, more-or-less forced population transfers have been emptying Jewish colonies in Gaza and the West Bank.
The pros and cons of forced population movement:
Forced population movement can include some negative aspects such as:
- It violates human rights, especially the freedom of movement;
- Politically, it can be seen as ethnic cleansing;
- Property rights are violated;
- It does not solve the Jerusalem and West Bank question;
- If not supported by effective re-settlement programs the problems only shift locations;
- It violates Western ideals of multi-ethnic, tolerant societies.
One can, however, also defend the application of this kind of solution in the Middle East as follows:
- It changes the focus of societies from security/violence/defense questions to economic/social concerns;
- While planning a Gaza solution, questions regarding Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights should be addressed and integrated into a master plan;
- Palestinian statehood can be further developed by bolstering the administrations of new settlements;
- When both peoples can live, and ultimately live in peace, they can plan their futures and implement their individual dreams and visions.
The bottom line:
Emptying Gaza via internationally supported population movement is an extreme action, but what is the alternative - continuing wars, intifadas and human catastrophe? It is a pragmatic solution. Good planning is needed so that new settlements are made sustainable with potential for a variety of economic activity and employment. Implementation must be effectively backed with sufficient financial resources for infrastructure, housing and socio-economic development programs.
Ari Rusila is a development project management expert from Finland with a special interest in the Balkan region. His other interests include civil crisis management issues and the Middle East.
Related materials from the Atlantic Community:
- Manuela Paraipan: Leadership In Gaza: Craven and Dysfunctional
- Richard N. Rosencrance & Ehud Eiran: In the Name of Peace
- Christian Mölling: Think Tank Analysis: Comprehensive Approaches to International Crisis Management
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January 11, 2009
Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)
Emptying Gaza? Into where? The West Bank, perhaps some of those Israeli settlements which have been or will be emptied?
Offhand I won't reject it, but let's not forget that in mass resettlements the devil is surely in the details, and botched forced resettlements have death tolls which make the toll of the current Gaza War look like a children's game of 'Cowboys and Indians' by comparison.
Consider the separation of the British Raj into India and Pakistan - toll 7 million and rising, and that without malefic intent by most of the participants, at least initially. Or consider the various forced migrations the old USSR undertook, with little regard for limiting human suffering in many cases. Same problem.
The idea of moving Paestinian civilians out of the line of fire in an area which Hamas provocation and Israeli response has made into a battleground is a worthy one, but had you considered the problems?
- Hamas is unlikely to agree because their war plans involve the creation of 'war crimes' by the Israeli's by posing as civilians themselves and by interposing civilians between themselves and the Israeli forces. A Gaza War with no civilians would very quickly mean no Hamas remaining - in Gaza anyway.
Israel is unlikely to agree to a mass exodus through Israeli territory, anticipating that such an exodus would be used as a vector for a suicide bomber offensive on Israel itself. A sea exodus might work, however.