A plan to resolve the Palestine conflict permanently, with everyone a winner

President Trump says he wants to move all Palestinians out of Gaza and resettle them permanently in Egypt and Jordan. Motivation? Real estate grab.

- J. MANUEL GONZÁLEZ

Justification? Impossibility of rebuilding Gaza while millions are homeless in its 350 square kilometers. Further justification? No one has proposed any better idea for what to do with the Palestinians. The Middle East, as usual, is wringing its hands, unable to come up with a realistic "better idea."

By itself, Mr. Trump's Gaza Grab is just that—a grab, a five percent-baked idea. Here's the 95 percent inspiration lacks to be a humanitarian breakthrough: don't just move refugees. Move Palestine. We're not talking about the Mississippi River or the Swiss Alps, after all, but (as far as the Palestinians are concerned) a pile of rubble on flat land with no resources, no rainfall and no plausible hope for the future. "Palestine," like Hemingway's Paris, is moveable.

A year ago I guest-wrote an editorial, "The only remaining possible solution to the Palestine problem," in the leading newspaper in the Philippines, on the face of it an unlikely country for this subject. I went on to produce 80 minutes of YouTube video detailing the plan (Google "YouTube non zero sum solution Palestine") and even had the videos translated into Arabic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZtBEU0ijbM). I not only offered several fallback options, but also rebutted every reasonable objection. The Arabic videos have accumulated half a million views (but, regrettably, so far not by King Abdullah or any other Arab potentate).