Egypt has flatly refused to open the Rafah crossing for emigration. Jordan and Lebanon are even more adamant in rejecting a new wave of Palestinian Arab refugees. Western governments, under the sway of progressive elites and human rights NGOs, are loath to be seen as complicit in "ethnic cleansing."
Even the so-called "moderate" Arab regimes, such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, know that facilitating Palestinian Arab emigration would be political suicide at home and would delegitimize them in the broader Arab world.
Israelis who place their hopes in this plan are investing in fantasy.
Even if such a plan were feasible, encouraging and funding the emigration of Gazans could backfire catastrophically. Numerous surveys, including a 2023 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, show that Gazans who do not support Hamas are significantly more willing to emigrate than Hamas supporters. According to the data, 48% of non-Hamas-affiliated Gazans would consider emigrating, compared to just 13% of those who identify with Hamas.
This means that the very people who are least open to dialogue, to liberal values, and to peaceful coexistence are those most likely to remain—while the educated, the more secular, and the ideologically less poisoned will leave.
Far from solving Israel's problems, mass emigration could deepen them.
The past two years have proven something terrifying: Even in the face of military collapse, the human infrastructure of Hamas continues to fight with a fanatical fervor that not even Stalin or Hitler could have engineered. What Israel faces in Gaza is not a rational opponent with tangible goals, but a generation indoctrinated with fierce hatred since infancy.
You cannot permanently suffocate an ideology with airstrikes. You can only neutralize it through cultural and educational counter-programming. The foundation of any long-term security and coexistence in the region is a systematic secularization of the minds of young Gazans.
After Oslo, Israel handed over the responsibility of educating Palestinian Arab youth to Yasser Arafat’s cronies and to the ideologically anti-Zionist UNRWA. The results have been deadly.
Research by David Bedein has shown how textbooks used in both Gaza and the 'West Bank' glorify martyrdom, demonize Jews, and reject the very existence of Israel. In light of this, the question must be asked: Why is Israel still allowing these curricula to shape the minds of future terrorists?
Israel must not repeat this mistake. The disintoxication of Palestinian Arab youth is not just an educational concern—it is a national security imperative.
To wage an effective battle against jihadism, Israel must play by the rules of Western discourse. The fictional dichotomy between Islam and "Islamism," propagated by academia, the media, and international NGOs, shields Islam from criticism while merely condemning the excesses of "Islamism".
This distinction is theologically, ethically, and historically untenable. It is akin to distinguishing a peaceful National-Socialism from a violent Nazism or an idealistic Leninism from a cruel Bolshevism.
If Israel is serious about promoting secularism and tolerance, it should demand that all Palestinian Arab textbooks explicitly condemn "Islamism"—defined as any Islamic teaching that justifies violence, misogyny, homophobia, religious intolerance, and antisemitism.
Israel should challenge the international community, UNRWA, and the Palestinian Authority to endorse this distinction in writing and in schoolbooks.
Why would this work? Because if the Palestinian Authority or the Arab League accuse Israel of undermining core Islamic doctrines, their duplicity in insisting that Islam and Islamism are distinct will be exposed. If official letters by prominent muftis and sheikhs denounce the promotion of women rights, denounce respect for the lives and limbs of Jews, secularists, and LGBTQ community members, and question the sanctity of peace and human lives, then Israel wins.
The lies and half-truths about Islam proclaimed at Harvard, Columbia, Oxford, the BBC, CNN, the New York Times, and their lesser copycats around the world, will unravel.
Israel must start waging the ideological war with the same resolve it has shown on the battlefield.
Bombs can destroy tunnels, but only truth can destroy lies. A reformed Gaza must not merely be rebuilt in concrete—it must be rebuilt in consciousness.
Rafael Castro - is a Yale and Hebrew University graduate. An independent political analyst, Rafael may be reached at rafaelcastro78@gmail.com