South Sudan Reportedly Could Become a Landing Spot for Palestinians Wanting To Exit Gaza

Each time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks of the endgame in Gaza, he raises the prospect of non-forced emigration of civilians out of the enclave — but where in the world would they go? “All those who are concerned for the Palestinians and say they want to help the Palestinians should open their gates and stop lecturing us,” Mr. Netnayahu said this week in an interview with Israel’s I24 television, perhaps hinting at action by Egypt, which resists any forced exile out of Gaza. “They’re not being pushed out, they’ll be allowed to exit,” he said. The premier says that Jerusalem is in contact with several countries to host Gazans. When asked, though, he says that naming those countries would harm the quiet diplomacy under way with them. On Tuesday, though, the Associated Press cited six unidentified sources who said Israel is discussing the matter with Africa’s newest country, South Sudan. “The South Sudanese are far from enthusiastic” about taking in Gazans, a former Israeli ambassador, Haim Koren, to the country’s capital, Juba, tells The New York Sun. South Sudan is a poor country that can hardly feed its own people, and “compared to South Sudan, Gaza is Singapore,” he says. Israel has been negotiating resettlement of Gazans with other countries. Some, like Sudan, Morocco, and others, have already rejected the idea, while others, like Somaliland and even far away Indonesia, are yet to respond negatively, Israeli sources tell the Sun. Will countries that struggle internally, though, be willing to be saddled with a new, problematic population that could threaten stability? One precedent is the 1971 expulsion of the Palestinian Liberation Organization to Lebanon, following the bloody Black September conflict with Jordan’s King Hussein. It became the main catalyst for an even bloodier and ruinous Lebanese civil war.With America’s support and encouragement, South Sudan gained independence in 2011, when the United Nations recognized the mostly Christian region’s independence from Muslim-dominated Khartoum. It followed a war that killed up to a million people and displaced many more. After independence, clashes between northern Arab Muslims and Christians in the south further bled South Sudan until a cease-fire was reached in 2015. Israel’s relations with Sudan’s Christians goes back to the late 1960s. “The Sudanese rebel leaders came to Golda Meir, and told her, ‘Like you, we’re surrounded with Arab Muslims who want to murder us,’” Mr. Koren, who now teaches at Israel’s Reichman University, says. “We were the only country that helped them, and they never forgot. They love Israel.”Yet, Juba is resisting resettlement of Gazans in the country. “South Sudan should not become a dumping ground for people,” a local head of a civil society group, Edmund Yakani, told the AP. By comparison, neighboring Somaliland is much more stable and prosperous than South Sudan, Mr. Koren says. Unlike Juba, which needs much outside aid just to feed itself, Somaliland craves diplomatic recognition. As yet, no capital other than Taipei has relations with the breakaway region that has declared its independence from Somalia.Will Somaliland take in Gazans if Washington pushes for recognition? It could be part of a larger deal, as the Horn of Africa and the Sahel are fast becoming a global battleground, where America competes for influence with Communist China and Russia. Unlike with other war zones, the idea of allowing refugees to leave Gaza is being pilloried internationally. Arab countries call it “ethnic cleansing.” Syrians, for one, fled battle zones in the decade-long civil war, leaving to neighboring countries and Europe. In contrast Egypt, which shares a border with the Strip, has vowed to block Gazans who want to leave. Jerusalem and Cairo share many interests. This week, Israel’s Leviatan signed a $35 billion deal to export natural gas to Egypt. Yet, “the Egyptians feel quite comfortable making us uncomfortable,” Mr. Koren, who served as Israel’s first ambassador to Cairo, says.Like other Arab and Muslim countries, as well as an increasing number of Western democracies, Egypt strongly believes in the ideal of an independent Palestinian state. That vision could be undermined if more than a million Palestinians leave the Strip.President Trump, who first floated the idea of transforming Gaza into an eastern Mediterranean “Riviera,” has been mum in recent months about evacuating the Strip to allow construction there. Mr. Netanyahu, in contrast, sees emigration as an opportunity to separate the population from Hamas. “I think that the right thing to do, even according to the laws of war as I know them, is to allow the population to leave, and then you go in with all your might against the enemy who remains there,” the premier told I24.

South Sudan Reportedly Could Become a Landing Spot for Palestinians Wanting To Exit Gaza

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