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| No | 32% | 25 votes | Total: 79 votes | |
| Yes | 68% | 54 votes |
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Add to FavoritesBloody though the last few days in Gaza have been, this is not a civil war. It is a factional squabble which many western countries have helped to bring about by their attitude towards the Palestinians caged up in Gaza. Remember, the vast majority of people there live in abject poverty.
Hamas became popular with many Palestinians more for its social programs, such as health care, than for its violent actions towards Israel. Fatah was corrupt and did little practical good for Gaza's poor. In the last elections, Hamas won a majority and formed the government.
Was this exercise in democracy applauded by the USA and Europe? After years of promoting Israel as,'the only true democracy in the Middle East' the Palestinians were castigated for 'voting for the wrong people' and their embattled enclave of Gaza had its aid frozen. The USA and Europe refused to recognize the democratically elected Hamas politicians. Poverty got even worse. Attempts to form a government 'acceptable' to the USA and Europe ( the major aid donors) were made, but the boycott of Gaza went on.
Desperate people with no hope turn to violence. The Israelis must be laughing their socks off. The USA and Europe have done what Israel could never do, turn Palestinian against Palestinian. Yet this is not a civil war. Most Palestinians want no part in a fratricidal conflict. They want hope. They want fair treatment and an end to double standards and it is to our shame that they have to go through yet more misery
in their struggle to attain them.
Learn more about this author, Mark Hopkins.
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Yes
A civil war is defined as "A war between factions of the same country; there are five criteria for international recognition of this status: the contestants must control territory, have a functioning government, enjoy some foreign recognition, have identifiable regular armed forces, and engage in major military operations."
(source: www.globalsecurity.o rg/military/library/ policy/army/fm/100-2 0/10020gl.htm)
The Palestinian conflict certainly fits these criteria. The struggle between Fata and Hamas is driven by the politics of power and the drive to control the development of a nation, or separate nations.
The battle for territorial control has been going on for centuries in the Middle East, long before Israel became a nation. What were tribal struggles have now become national struggles, with Israel as a convenient scapegoat for the failure of the Palestinian leadership to unit their people. Fata and Hamas represent the extremes political ends of this battle.
It is an "inconvenient truth" that the nation of Palestine could have been established at the same time as the nation of Israel, but Arabs nations refused to recognize Israel's right to exist. This lack of vision is being played out in the Gaza strip today in the form of a civil war, with some Arab nations backing one side against the other. Palestine may fragment into two nations, or may exist as a nation with two regions with very different governments. Whatever the results of this civil war the nations of the Middle East will need to think in terms of accomodation with Israel rather than destruction.
Learn more about this author, Rob O'Hannon.
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