US President\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s plan to allow Gazans to emigrate from the war-torn enclave has provoked fierce rejection from the Palestinians and the Arab countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Egypt recently proposed its postwar plan, according to which Hamas would cede power to an interim body until a reconstituted Palestinian Authority can take control of Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite Arab and international opposition, the United States has reiterated its commitment to President Trump\u2019s emigration plan. The Palestinians and Arab states reject the plan because they understand it means a resounding defeat for the Palestinian national movement. Ironically, only such a defeat can pave the way to peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is driven by Palestinian irredentism \u2013 the belief in reclaiming lost land at any cost. The Palestinian national movement is not merely about statehood but the total reversal of 1948, as reflected in\u00a0Hamas\u2019s rhetoric and actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The popular chant calls for the liberation of Palestine \u201cfrom the river to the sea.\u201d There is a universal consensus among Palestinian groups, ranging from secular to Islamist, that Jewish sovereignty is inherently illegitimate and will ultimately end in \u201cPalestine\u2019s liberation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This mythology of \u201creturn\u201d and \u201cliberation\u201d serves as the ideological fuel for the century-long Palestinian war against Zionism and the State of Israel. During the October 7 attacks, Hamas terrorists referred to Israeli border towns as \u201csettlements\u201d and their residents as \u201csettlers,\u201d framing their actions as a step toward reversing the Nakba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is no surprise that most of the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre were graduates of UNRWA\u2019s education system, which emphasizes the ultimate \u201cright of return\u201d to the villages from which Gazans\u2019 grandparents and great-grandparents left during the 1948 war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sumud<\/em> (steadfastness) ideology plays a key role in this struggle. Hamas\u2019s 1988 Charter declared, \u201cThe land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf <\/em>consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day,\u201d prohibiting any territorial compromise. The 2017 revision maintained that \u201cPalestine is a land seized by a racist, colonial Zionist project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mahmoud Darwish, the revered Palestinian poet, captured this sentiment in \u201cThose Who Pass Between Fleeting Words,\u201d a poem calling for Jews to \u201cleave our country\u201d \u2013 a vision of total Palestinian sovereignty from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Palestinian imagination, Jews are settlers who merely \u201cpass\u201d through occupied Palestine, as opposed to the indigenous Palestinians who are deeply rooted in the land. As Darwish so vividly wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cO those who pass between fleeting words\u00a0Carry your names, and be gone\u00a0[\u2026]\u00a0So leave our country\u00a0Our land, our sea\u00a0Our wheat, our salt, our wounds\u00a0Everything, and leave\u00a0The memories of memory\u00a0O those who pass between fleeting words!<\/em>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Even amid Gaza\u2019s destruction, Hamas celebrated displaced civilians\u2019 \u201creturn\u201d to northern Gaza as a nationalist victory. One Gazan stated, \u201cIt\u2019s the joy of return\u2026 We had thought we wouldn\u2019t return, like our ancestors.\u201d Hamas sustains these myths to keep Palestinians committed to an endless war against Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite sumud<\/em>\u2019s propagation by Palestinian nationalists, the facts show that Gazans overwhelmingly yearn to escape Hamas\u2019 failed and repressive rule. According to a survey carried out before the outbreak of the war by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 44% of Gazan youth between 18-29 were considering emigrating from the Strip. Nearly a third (31%) of the total population considered emigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While there is no official data, it is estimated that 250,000 people have left Gaza since Hamas took control in 2007. By allowing those who reject Hamas\u2019s rule to go, Israel and the international community can expose sumud as an artificial construct that only serves Palestinian revanchism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recently revealed documents captured from Hamas\u2019s Khan Yunis Brigade show that Hamas considers emigration a serious threat to its rule. The terror group has carried out an ideological campaign warning young people against emigrating, claiming that this would be a betrayal of Islamic values and the Palestinian cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his widely acclaimed book “Embracing Defeat”, historian John W. Dower demonstrates how Japan\u2019s utter defeat in World War II wholly discredited Japanese militarism and fascism. Japan\u2019s unconditional surrender to the Allies in 1945 shattered the myth of military invincibility and undermined the legitimacy of Japanese expansionism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The destructiveness of the Allied response, culminating in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, left Japanese society devastated. The repudiation of Japanese militarism was key to rebuilding Japan and embracing pacifist and democratic values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n