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What happened to French Algerians in Algeria? Germans in Czechoslovakia? Germans in Poland? Germans in former Germany that then became Poland? Poles in former Poland that then became Ukraine? Or the other Palestinians who got kicked out by Israeli expansion? They absolutely can expel another couple million people by seizing their land, credibly threatening them with execution and kicking them out, it's within their power (provided the IDF gets their act together) and they've done it before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949%E2%80%931956_Palestinian_expulsions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Palestinian_exodus
As you suggest, this has been tried in the past. It led to incredible amounts of chaos in Jordan and Lebanon. In the Lebanese case Israel then had to try to go and invade the country they chased the Palestinians to and get bogged down in a massive fiasco. Jordan came very close to turning into a radical Arab republic due to the Palestinian groups, similar to Syria/Iraq/Egypt at the time and this would be a catastrophe for Israeli security.
All of these expulsions you mention were carried out by absolute victorious states of massive bloody wars which had almost omnipotent control over the expulsed populations. This is not the case here and likely never will. Arab states played a very bloody and cynical gambit after 1948 by not allowing Palestinian populations to be resettled in a proper manner inside their countries. But in the long term it has paid off and Israel now has to deal with an insurmountable problem that constantly threatens to break the country. Why would Egypt/Jordan/Syria/Lebanon now give up and just accept a population of infinitely more radicalized Palestinians?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_insurgency_in_South_Lebanon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September
US bribery. Aside from Syria, the US funds them to be friendly with Israel. US foreign aid to Egypt massively increased after they signed a peace agreement with Israel and has stayed high since.
This is the path Israel chose. Territorial expansion is not without its costs, it makes a lot of people very unhappy if you come in and take their land.
What's the alternative, Israel returns to the former status quo of bombing Gaza every so often? Executing the fighting age men, as suggested above? I'm not confident that's a long-term, sustainable solution. They're hardly likely to engage in serious negotiations or stop building new settlements while they have a fawning superpower sponsor and their enemies don't.
Returning to permanent occupation of Gaza, probably.
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I don't know, it is certainly difficult to see one. In general I am a firm believer that making your very populous neighbor(s) hate you and basing your security arrangements around a distant superpower always favoring you is not a great idea overall (Israel is not unique in this regard, Russia's little neighbors also make this mistake). America might lose its power or interest at some point, but Arabs will always be right across the border. We have seen how much it freaked out Zionists when the US foreign policy establishment got the idea that perhaps normal relations with Iran is more beneficial to American Empire.
Note that Russia's little neighbors in general were already hated by Russia and trying to get some help from anyone else is preferable to getting better with Russia (which goes nowhere as Russia will invade you anyway once it will be judged as possible by Russia)
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The only alternative was to not found Israel in the first place, but the alternatives there were probably worse too. Once it existed, radicalization was inevitable, there’s no world in which coexistence with Arabs was possible, it’s not like the Baltics or Ukraine where they could conceivably decide to join the Russian sphere and accept the consequences. At best it would simply be a return to the pre-1920 status quo of being at the mercy of a hostile, lower IQ foreign authority with zero leverage.
Probably yes. Perhaps if the first generation of Palestinian refugees in camps did not grow up in such horrible conditions with constant reminders of their humiliation, then things could have been different. My understanding is that they drove almost all of the radicalization in the conflict. But that is not entirely on Israel either. The hosting Arab states almost deliberately didn't allow the refugees to have normal lives and kept trying to use them as geopolitical chips..
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What are you referring to?
Territorial expansion by Israel and progressive taking of Palestinian land.
What territorial expansion? Are you talking about Israeli settlements in the West Bank?
Yes. Also other things, for example wall building effectively annexed more land.
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French Algerians went back to France.Germans went to Germany. Poles went to Poland. There's nowhere for Palestinians to go, unless Israel really wants them in the West Bank. Moving them to another Arab state isn't an option—first, since Israel isn't wont to take advantage of strategic depth and starts building settlements on any territory they control, all this does is push the problem back geographically; instead of Hamas firing rockets from Gaza into Israel they're firing them from the Sinai into Gaza. More importantly, though, it pretty much closes the book on any rapprochement with additional Arab states. Since the last couple years of the Trump Administration, the US has been brokering deals between Israel and other Arab states in an attempt to undercut Iran's influence in the region. Driving Arabs out of Gaza and into Egypt would put those Arab states, whose populations are generally pro-Palestinian, into a situation where it would be difficult to move forward. There's already speculation that today's attacks were arranged by the Iranians for the express purpose of throwing a wrench into plans for Saudi recognition of Israel. A reaction such as you describe would only play into those schemes. Secretary Blinken is en route to Saudi Arabia as we speak to smooth over any problems these attacks may have caused. If the Israelis go the route you suggest then there's nothing he can say that will do that, not to mention that other states that already recognize Israel and are maybe even allies would find this course of action hard to swallow, the United States included. They'd diplomatically isolate themselves for short-term gain. I'm generally pro-Israel, but I'd seriously reconsider my support if they took this approach.
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