Transfer: A Moral Discourse (Part 3 of 3)

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The authors of the Road Map have not only seemingly failed to consider the moral implication for the Arabs themselves of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha) but also completely disregarded other fundamental issues. One of them is the viability of such a state. Already in the 1970s, Israeli Professor Yehoshafat Harkabi, an internationally known expert on the Arab-Israeli conflict, unequivocally proved in a series of articles that an Arab state created in Judea and Samaria cannot be viable. The main reason for this is that this state will need the support of Arab countries to survive. However, if this state is created without Jerusalem and if the "right" of the Arab refugees to settle in Israel is not realized, the Arab countries will not offer their support to this new artificial state entity. Perhaps they might recognize it on the surface, but they will never forgive the Palestinian Arabs for forsaking the common Arab demand for Jerusalem and the return of the refugees.

How, then, can we make a judgment about the morality of the transfer option? The dictionary defines "moral" as "relating to, dealing with, or capable of making the distinction between right and wrong in conduct." So if something is right - it is moral, and if it is wrong - immoral. Is it therefore not absurd to use statements like "I want this and that" or "I want it here and now" as the chief measure of the morality of an issue? Yet, this is what objectors to transfer do when they claim that transfer is immoral because it goes against what the Palestinian Arabs "want" (and we have also already seen that it's at best unclear where exactly they want to live). In order to truly judge the moral aspects of transfer one should ask: "Is it right or wrong to move people from their homes in this particular situation?" To answer this question, it is clear that the mere desires of some people to live in certain places are not sufficient in and of themselves for a moral judgment on the issue of their relocation. All other considerations must be taken into account as well. We can analogously ask if it is moral to relocate thousands of people living next to a volcano, in spite of their desires to stay put, knowing that an eruption is inevitable. Obviously, the act of relocation would certainly be right, because it would save many lives, and therefore would be a moral action. It is noteworthy that if the stubborn volcano-dwellers remain where they are, they harm no one but themselves, whereas leaving the Palestinians where they are is likely to harm not only them, but the Jews living in Israel as well - therefore making transfer an even greater moral imperative in the latter situation. Thus, if the relocation of Arabs allows the resolution of the conflict between Arabs and Jews, it is certainly moral, since it is right and long overdue to bring the conflict to an end.

http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2003/sept/b1.htm