Didn Jordan have the same immigration problem a few decades ago?

This idea is only slightly less ridiculous than the idea of relocating all Israelis to the Baja peninsula. Not only are the logistics of any sort of "screening program" unworkable, none of the parties involved would go for it. There are no simple solutions to a problem as complex as this one.

There is an old joke of which this is variation, "The solution to the Palestinian problem is to give them Utah."

I actually think it is a funny joke, but not a real solution.

I thought that the Palestinians were upset because they perceived land was stolen from them. They're upset enough to encourage their children to blow themselves up, they seem to despise Jews to the core and they apparently hate America enough to dance in the streets whenever Americans are killed by Islamofascists. So all of a sudden we should tell them to leave their lands and come to the land of the supporter of their oppressor? Europe's having a bad enough time with the Moslem fundamentalists who voluntarily leave lands that aren't in dispute... and people in America want to adopt millions of Moslems who were trained from birth to hate us? This is one of the stupidest ideas I've seen in a while. How about we devote the money and energy to finding new energy sources instead of making the rest of the world's problems our own.

Only if the first 5,000 psycho's move to his neighborhood.We are the world's banker,armoury,farm and therapist.Now we should be take every disgruntled group in the world?Why stop with the Palistinians?How about the descendents of the Moors of Spain who recently made a claim for a right of return?How about the Tamil Tigers,they're even bigger suicide bombers than the Palis!Let's take them,too!Or how about the muslim militias of Indonesia.The multi-cult has now imported nearly every racial/ethnic,cultural,economic,geographic and historic blood fued in the world to our country.Why stop now?By all means,let's get the complete set.Be the first on your block to to adopt a jihadi,he can mow the lawn,wash the beamer and his AK-47 will guarentee the neighbor's dog never poops on your yard again.

Lunacy.

Inspired lunacy. But lunacy nonetheless.

In 1882, Russian proto-Zionist Judah Leib Pinsker wrote:

“If we would have a secure home, give up our endless life of wandering and rise to the dignity of a nation in our own eyes and in the eyes of the world, we must, above all, not dream of restoring ancient Judaea. We must not attach ourselves to the place where our political life was once violently interrupted and destroyed. The goal of our present endeavors must be not the "Holy Land," but a land of our own. We need nothing but a large tract of land for our poor brothers, which shall remain our property and from which no foreign power can expel us.”

Wasn't Mr. Pinsker sensible? He knew that, however symbolically important Jerusalem and the ancient lands of Israel were to his people, the area was crowded with incompatible histories, rife with turmoil, and soaked in blood.

Herzl, Nordau, Ruppin, and the rest of the early Zionist leadership didn't listen to Pinsker. Neither did the Zionist settlers, for the same reason that the Palestinians would never go for Hraka's carrot: blood and soil. History and memory. God and honor.

Not a chance in hell.

Respectfully, I have a better solution posted over at my blog cobalt jacket (http://cobaltjacket.blogspot.com).

I agree with Glenn that Hraka's solution won't work. (1) the Palestinians view the land as theirs -- telling them they can imigrate to America isn't going to help that! (2) how can they agree lawfully to bind their heirs into perpetuity not to go back to Palestine? and (3) do we really want people who are poorly educated and who have a propensity for violence to emigrate? I thought we were trying to keep them out!

In normal times this would be a horrible idea, for reasons set out above. But now that Islamofascists have targeted us, it is an even more absurd idea to for the US to import thousands of people who would have a propensity to harbor Islamic terrorists and create a fifth column here.

I'm afraid that lady is nuts.

Silflay Hraka is no lady.

This country was founded and populated through immigration by people who rejected the blood and soil ethos. The multiculturalists are causing us a world of (cultural) hurt by reviving the blood half of the equation through their insistence on identity politics.

Bringing a bunch of people over here who have embraced blood and soil to such a psychotic degree is more like metastasizing a cancer than curing it.

No thanks.

Wasn't Mr. Pinsker sensible?
Well up until 1939 and that little thing called the Holocaust. Tell us where all the Jews should go? France, Great Britain, or Utah?

I want to comment on one of the many bad assumptions behind Hraka's proposal. Namely, that the Palistinian trouble is "over there" and that America is a near-monolith of classical liberalism - or at least of pro-Israel sentiment. The counter-evidence is phenomenal. There are ardent pro-Palistinian communities in the United States. There are ardent Pali activists, particularly associated with college campuses. Just today (8/2/02), a young, smiling female *Palistinian-America* wrote an editorial in USA TODAY upholding the Palis cause. She specifically referred to the beginning of the latest "intifada" as "the 2000 Freedom Uprising" (!!!), and the Palis Territory as "occupied land." That example is at random; consider the Palis living in the Northeast who was interviewed by NPR a couple months ago, snarling that he supported the suicide bombers and would be proud if his own son were a bomber. Or consider the "multiculturalists" here (already referred to in others' comments). Think of the numerous garden-variety pro-Palistinian people, from Libertarians to lefties, whom you run into on any political chat group (if you don't, then get out more!).

The cancer has already metastasized to America. Hraka's proposal raises the question only of whether we should drink Drano on top of it.

Re.: the USA TODAY reference. Sherri Muzher is the editorialist to whom I referred. Maybe she and the refugees could be neighbors?

Here is the link (warning: if you want to have a happy Friday night, don't read it now):
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002-08-02-muzher-mideast_x.htm

This is the most weird idea I’ve yet to hear. As an Israeli I’ll say take as many of the Palestinians as you want, we don’t like them. As a friend to Americans I’ll say are you crazy?!!

In Bigwig solution he didn’t deal with the Palestinian main claim: They don’t want to go back the new Palestinian state that will be in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel has no problem with them returning to their new state. The Palestinians want to get their people back inside Israel: Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and so on. They want to demographically whip out the Jewish majority in Israel and create a third Palestinian state (Jordan – with more than half the population Palestinian, Palestine and Israel). There is no way any Israeli will agree to that. Bigwig offers the Palestinians to get back to the West Bank and Gaza – That will not satisfy them.

I think Hraka is requesting nothing short of a miracle when it comes to the rapid cultural assimilation of Palestinian immigrants to the US. I can't help but think of France's difficulties.

A leftist Israeli-born American friend of mine proposes this solution: Force the Palestinians to convert to Judaism and let them become Israeli citizens under the right of return. They were once converted to Islam under the sword, simply convert them to Judaism under the sword.

I couldn't tell if he was being ironic or if he was serious.

Dave--

I think you may have missed the point a bit.

The Jewish people were well on the way to establishing a state in Palestine by 1939. They'd been at the task since the late 19th century. The tantalizing possibility is that, had they begun establishing their state somewhere else, they might not be facing such extreme challenges today. Pinsker, as it turns out, was absolutely right: what he feared would happen is exactly what *is* happening. The "Holy Land" is too fraught with history and the inevitable animosities that accompany such history.

When Pinsker wrote that "...We need nothing but a large tract of land for our poor brothers, which shall remain our property and from which no foreign power can expel us,” he meant that it was not necessary for the Jewish state to be located in Palestine. There were viable alternatives at the time.

He thought that only after forming a Jewish directorate and carefully weighing all of their options should the Jewish people

“…acquire a tract of land sufficient for the settlement, in the course of time, of several million Jews. This tract might form a small territory in North America, or a sovereign Pashalik in Asiatic Turkey recognized by the Porte and the other Powers as neutral.”

Certainly, if the Jewish people can make the deserts of Palestine bloom, they could have done equally well somewhere in British Columbia or the American Midwestern territories (yes, that includes Utah). North America was still quite a frontier in 1882, when Pinsker published his “Auto-Emancipation” tract. I’m not so sure how things would have turned out for them in Asiatic Turkey, but that’s the nature of historical speculation.

Consider this: Zionists bought significant portions of the Jewish state from Arab landowners. If they had instead made those purchases from the British or the young Americans, do you believe that—even in the face of the historical reality of anti-Semitism—they would be persecuted today with such merciless, inhuman regularity?

Moot, certainly, but it is an interesting illustration of the consequences of cultural and religious imperatives. And, again: it is those same imperatives that would prevent the Palestinians from settling elsewhere.

Y'know, maybe I'm just a useful idiot myself, but my parents' Palestinian neighbors sure don't seem like fifth-column mad bomber metastatic psychotic cancer walking bomb types to me. They seem downright friendly, in fact.

(I know, I know, that's exactly what they want me to think; you can never tell; they dress like students, they dress like housewives, or in a suit and a tie.)

Yes, there are radical Islamists and suicide-bomber sympathizers here. Twenty or thirty of them might be al-Qaeda sleeper agents. But I haven't seen anything in America like the situation that, from everything I've read, pertains in Europe; our culture doesn't keep Arabs alienated for generations.

Which is not to say that this particular utopian plan makes any great practical sense.

I've addressed a lot of the comments here.

Does this guy realize just how hard it is going to be to displace a population of five million people, and then settle them in this country? I realize that this plan was made with the best of intentions, but it just won't work. Why not demand that Jordan and/or Egypt give back that part of land that was supposed to help constitute an independent Palestine when it was created along with Israel in 1948? Why not demand that Lebanon, the Gulf states, and Iraq treat their Palestinian populations better, and not like second class dirt? If they do these things, it would be a lot easier to cause Palestinians to move elsewhere (although it still will not be easy). But relocating most or all of them to America? If only it were that simple.

Not Israel, and not Utah. Cuba.

This sounds suspiciously like a "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative". I wish Silflay hadn't mentioned Canada as a possible destination. We just might try it. Only there would be no restrictions, no monitoring and no deportations for violations of Canadian law. Just a couple of million Palestinians training and mobilizing in Ontario with the financial support of the federal gov.

A response to their response to my response to their response to.....oh the hell with it. It's here

Ian, you write: "Consider this: Zionists bought significant portions of the Jewish state from Arab landowners. If they had instead made those purchases from the British or the young Americans, do you believe that—even in the face of the historical reality of anti-Semitism—they would be persecuted today with such merciless, inhuman regularity?" What about the nazi Germany? Did not the Jews rightfully own their property there?

Alisa--

Yes, they did, but it's not the fact of property ownership that's at issue. It's the nature of the state in which the property is held, and this necessarily includes the nature of that state's citizenry.

I'm the "smiling female" editorialist referred to in USA Today.

And while this whole discussion is amusing, I am disappointed at the language being used to describe Palestinian refugees who were violently dispossessed of their homes. Just as we repatriated the Kosovar Albanians, so we should we be repatriating the Palestinians. It is Israel which must be held accountable for its crimes, and not third parties. When Jewish terrorist gangs, like Stern, Haganah, and Irgun [forefathers of Israel] went around murdering with the intent of scaring away the populace, was there really no expectation that there should be amends for these crimes?

And while some Israelis say that Palestine was always the homeland, I wonder why it is that Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, bounced around the idea of Uganda and Argentina as homes for a future Jewish state?

Ultimately, we live in a world where people should be held accountable for the crimes they commit. Jews understandably continue to bring Nazis forward to pay for their sins and such rationale should also be applied for others, as well. After all, nobody has a monopoly on suffering.

This answer seems extremely fictional! the answer lies with the co-operation of the Israelies! It seems fairly ironic that the Israelies would quickly forget the persecution of their own people in the early 1900's. Instead they take the same action of their percecuters and harbour the Palestinians in refugee camps! Espiecally since the Palestinians occupied the land far before Zionism was even a word!