A relatively new demand has been made regarding Peace Negotiations in the Middle East - the future of the Palestinians. Do they have a right to return?
Over two million Palestinians live in rudimentary, temporary housing in the overcrowded areas of Gaza, the hostile neighborhoods of Lebanon and the exploitative migrant-labor camps throughout the Middle East and Asia. If Israel won't take care of them, who will?

Put simply, U.S. and world financial institutions should establish an international voucher system. Like the domestic educational voucher whose purpose was to get school districts to compete for students and their funding, an international citizenship system would provide incentive to both the emigrant and the state of final residency to compete for bodies and funds.
This proposal has historical antecedents that can give us an idea about the possibilities of success. In the 19th century, Japan annulled the privileges of the samurai class. From then on, they would no longer have special legal status, economic subsidies or unique privileges.
In 1872, they became a dispossessed class. To soften the blow they were given government bonds that would mature in 15 years with a significant profit. They had three choices: Some cashed in the bonds and almost immediately fell into poverty; some held onto the bonds and used them as collateral to invest in family or small businesses; and others waited until maturity and then used them to buy up government industries at a great discount. They became the leaders of industry in 20th century Japan. Of course, some refused to accept their declassification and rebelled. They were subdued or killed by the new draftees who fought in the non-elite army.
Similar historical precedents for dealing with displaced or declassed people can be found again in Japan after its defeat in World War II, or in Taiwan after the Nationalist Chinese took the land away from the native Formosan landowners.
How does this apply to Israel and the Middle East?
The above historical examples provide evidence that social problems can be resolved if both sides get something out of it. Take the Palestinian refugees and unprotected migrant workers.
Let us estimate that the average Palestinian family income is about $2,000 per year. Let us then presume that we give the family, not the individual, a 12-year bond that will mature at the value of $30,000. The family must wait for 12 years to cash the bond, and it must refrain from any terrorist activities. It can have a few normal criminals, even felons, in the family, but members cannot be engaged in armed revolution or terror.
At the end of the first five years, the family will decide which country it wants to settle in. It will fill out forms and applications stating its background and the reasons that it wants to emigrate. Within three years it will receive an answer to its request. At that time, it will move to its new country.
The recipient country will inform the financial authorities of the number of people who have been approved for citizenship. At that time, the state will turn in a feasibility study to the appropriate banks to show how the country's infrastructure must be improved to handle the new citizens.
For instance, there will have to be construction for roads, development for health and educational services, and industrial plans to accommodate the new blue- and white-collar classes. The state will prefer to offer citizenship to those with an education, and to those in good health. The countries that house the refugee camps will not want to lose their best human capital. They will compete to build up their standard of living to keep the refugees from emigrating. Each family that seeks citizenship will bring a subsidy to the state of $100,000. This sum would encourage states to compete with each other for the new source of wealth and human resources.
How will we pay for this? Currently, the Palestinian Authority managed by Yasser Arafat generates its income through the sale of the labor of its migrant workers. A large percentage of their salary is remitted directly to the Palestinian Treasury. The establishment of a state of Palestine would result in the immediate cessation of this form of indentured payment. The state would survive on taxes.
The Arab League and various countries in the Middle East and Asia provide money to the Palestinians, and to armed forces that claim to work for the Palestinian cause. These payments must be stopped, or at least funneled into a transparent account used to develop the well-being of the new state of Palestine. The United Nations must phase out its support for the refugee camps. Within eight years the refugees will have identified their favored state, and will be notified of their acceptance. This state will include the Palestine Authority, the Arab States, and Israel. By then, the United Nations' fiscal obligation, and the tremendous corruption that has accompanied it, will cease.
A world financial institution will be established with money from the Palestinian state, the Arab League and its supporters, and other major financial institutions. This new international bank would have the authority to investigate the bondholders and all recipients of their payments. The money would be paid back through a long-term tax that would take effect 12 years after the bonds are due.
The very existence of the Palestinian refugees has kept the Middle East from finding a resolution to its social and economic problems. If the Palestinians had been accepted within the Middle East as full citizens, they would have been leaders in industrial, cultural, economic and international progress. They are educated and highly professional, yet powerless and denied the rights of citizenship.
Of course, there are always some people who will hold onto unrealistic and suicidal ideas. They will accept only the return to their own plot of land. In a world where hundreds of millions are in transit, in refugee camps or in a diaspora returning home is not a realistic ideal. Obtaining rights is a first step.
Let the Palestinians and the nations in the Middle East (including Israel) compete with each other to find a place that is worthy of becoming a new homeland. Let them not live helplessly in refugee camps.
The very existence of the Palestinian refugees has kept the Middle East from a resolution. Discussion of this International Peace Voucher may lead to a practical solution, and to a consensus that the rights of citizenship trump the rights to ancestral land.

Richard C. Kagan
History Professor at Hamline University
St. Paul, MN U.S.A.