Lost Opportunity.

Submitted by Reynald de Chatillon (United States), Jun 4, 2018 at 01:36

Abba Eban once said: "Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity". The same thing could also apply to Israel during the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War. After Israel's unexpected victory in 1967, many Palestinians fled across the Jordan River. It would have been in Israel's long term interests to send the remaining Palestinian Muslims there as well. In 1967, the population of the West Bank and Gaza (according to an Israeli census that year) was 661,700 and 354,900 respectively. Now in 2018, there are an estimated 4.43 million Palestinians in the occupied territories alone, and growing fast. Israel's population now is 8,452,841. However, 20.7% of this population are Israeli Arabs of dubious loyalty. In years to come, Israelis will rue the day they failed to act on this when they had the chance.

From 1948 to the early 1970s about 900,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries, approximately 600,000 settling in the newly created Israel. Had Israel removed the Muslim Palestinian population in 1967, (they would only be doing what their enemies had already done to them), the Israel-Palestinian conflict would probably have run its course by now. Look at the example of Greece and Turkey. There was no further conflict between these two countries after the population exchange which immediately followed the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1923. Another plus for Israel would be that the IDF would free to focus on the enemy without (Iran), instead of being tied down policing a hostile population.

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