Since some of you think I am Destro, I found a recent posting of his and I think it is rather genius if I do say so myself.
Destro: My compromise idea for solving the Israeli-Palestinian "Right of Return".
First for a background read Palestinian right of return
The problem in a nutshell is that Israel will not allow the almost 1 million Palestinian Arabs to return to Israel no matter what the border agreement is reached.
Israeli negotiations have proposed a compromise where the compensate the Arabs for the theft of their property (financed by the USA and Europe?).
The Arabs will have none of that and in fact have the recent ruling of international law on their side when Cyprian Greeks sued and won several court cases against Turkey for the confiscation and denial of their land.
In pondering what can be done to satisfy both sides in this my solution is as follows.
While Arabs would not be allowed to return to Israel they would still own the land 100%. In so doing they can decide to sell the land on their own or rent it (which is what most would do I assume).
The benefits of the Arabs earning rent from their land now occupied by Israelis living on or operating businesses on that land are twofold.
The first benefit to the Arabs is they will be compensated for the use of their land (including back-rent) without losing their title to it. Property rights are thus de-linked to national borders. A Canadian for example, can own land in America without having that land considered territory of Canada and owning that American land does not give the Canadian the right to live in America as a citizen.
This would be an instant boost to the economic well being of a vast refugee population with direct payments to individuals and thus avoiding the pitfalls of depending on a corrupt bureaucracy distributing foreign aid to Palestinians.
The other benefit applies to Israel. The Palestinian Arabs, earning rent income from Israelis would now have a vested interest in making sure Israel prospers.
I am just kicking ideas around, I am sure no one in power is reading this or if they were, adopting it. But I like the idea's simplicity.
