Q&A: Question
Question
Question
Hello Rabbi, once you said that it was a shame they didn’t expel the Palestinians from here already in ’48, and that it was a mistake for generations; to this day we are suffering from it. Don’t you think that’s disproportionate?
If you were prime minister, would you drop an atomic bomb on Gaza? I’m sure that one atomic bomb on Gaza and you wouldn’t have terror attacks for the next hundred years. I also assume you wouldn’t do that. So it follows that you too act with proportionality, even though that could save many Jewish lives.
Thank you very much.
Answer
Obviously I wouldn’t do that, and indeed there are considerations of proportionality. But expelling them from here seems to me entirely proportionate. They did this in other places in the world as well, even in situations where troubles of the sort they cause us were not expected.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand the question. What do you mean, within a few years?
There were quite a few expulsions after victories in wars. The victor expelled the defeated population. Many have already pointed this out; see for example here: https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%98%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8
And who would build houses for you?
Who would do jobs for you at half price through some triple-dealing arrangement?
In short, the guys in forty-eight knew what they were doing.
They knew the lazy Jew,
whose industriousness evaporates the moment the excitement ends.
And they left him with this on the hotplate,
so that the land would not lie desolate.
Ilan, what kind of precedents are there where a people arrives and expels others within a few years?