New organization aims 'to empty the state of Arabs'

Aug. 26, 2002
By Haim Shapiro [This article first appeared in the Jerusalem Post]

Meir Kihan says that, in the present situation, thousands of Palestinians want to leave the country. He wants to help them.

Kihan is the president of Hamotzi-Assisted Emigration Services, an organization which he says promotes an innovative solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: helping Arabs leave the country.

"We don't want to force anybody," Kihan says.

According to the organization, since the beginning of the present conflict in October 2000, 380,000 Palestinians have emigrated from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Kihan says that he got the figure from "various sources," which he cannot identify by name.

However, he notes that in at least one village with which he is acquainted, Ein Yabrud, near Ramallah, hundreds of people have left. They were able to go, he says, because they had money. Others would like to leave, but do not have the wherewithal to do so. [Ein Yabrud is right next to Ofra. From what I recall, Binyamin and Talia Kahane HY"D were murdered there in December 2000. C.S.].

The organization's Web site, at www.emigrations.net, cites a survey conducted by the Center for Palestinian Research and Studies in September 1999, about a year before the violence began, in which 27 percent of those questioned said that current Palestinian conditions forced them to consider permanent emigration. The survey had a margin of error of 3 percent.

The Web site offers help in financing, including advice on indirect ways to sell property to Jews, legal services, travel arrangements, and social services. Three countries are listed as possible destinations: the US, Argentina, and Brazil.

However, Kihan says that although many people have applied for help, the organization cannot give them any, because it has hardly any money.

He insists that most of the Palestinians he knows do not want to be involved in a war with Israel. Now that there is a war, they want to leave, he says. While he admits that Palestinians who contact his organization endanger their lives, he says the group promises complete secrecy.

He says the organization's goal is to help 200,000 Palestinians emigrate from the West Bank by 2004 and then another 200,000 every year after that. To achieve this, he says, Hamotzi needs to raise $1,914,600 by December.

Kihan, who lives in Shavei Shomron, says that he cannot reveal who else is involved in the organization. Although he says it is apolitical, he admits that practically all those involved are on the right of the political spectrum, although he says at least one leftist has joined for humanitarian motives.

However, Kihan makes no secret of the fact that his aim is to change the demographic balance of the country. When asked whether this was not an unrealistic goal, he says that 60 years ago the demographic situation made it seem unrealistic to establish the State of Israel. "Our aim is to empty the state of Arabs," he says.