« Previous · Home · Next »
Would a Palestinian Civil War Benefit…the Palestinians?
By Charlie
If you are a nation-state, blue on red, symmetrically thinking type, the current Palestinian crisis presents a profound quandary. Ignoring the divisions in the Palestinian government for a moment –let’s look at the current border issue. Israel is set to dictate (unilaterally) its permanent borders before the end of the Bush administration, and the Palestinian authority isn’t going to be able to sit at the table where this decision is made. That should worry some Palestinians. Once Israel gets US approval for its plan (which it probably will), its security barrier will go up, artillery pieces and army QRF units will deploy forward, and the game will be over.
Will there still be attacks, incursions, and suicide bombings? Probably. Will there still be UN Resolutions, International condemnation, and threats from foreign governments? Yep. But once those final border lines are drawn, the intensity of the Arab-Israeli conflict will drawn down and eventually be replaced by the next world crisis. While this is a positive step for Israel, the Palestinians will be left-literally-outside the wire.
For the Palestinians, their claim to legitimate governance of themselves was forfeited when they elected a terrorist organization to “represent” them. This is a failure of Fatah, of course, for its incompetence in executing “tin-pot government task 1A: election rigging.” So Fatah and Hamas seem to be locked in a death struggle for control over the PA (or the Islamic Republic of Palestine…) that is intensifying, and may erupt into full-on Fanatical Muslim/Fanatical Muslim violence any day now. This leaves Israel, no matter how loathed on the international scene, with no “partner for peace” in the mid east. You can’t negotiate anything with someone who wants to kill you, has done so in the past, continues to do so currently, and swears to do so in the future –and to teach his kid to kill you too.
So, back to my nation-state/nation-state premise: If the Palestinian Nationalists in the form of Fatah (or whoever) can wrestle back control of the government from Hamas, they could lobby the very sympathetic international community and probably get an intervention of some sort before Israel draws its final border and puts up its wall. This would require, however, a full-scale civil war (as mentioned above) –that Fatah would have to win. IF Hamas wins the war, it will continue its warlike stance toward Israel, who will draw their borders and put up the wall anyway.
So –there’s my point: if Hamas can be defeated by Fatah, they can get a say in the borders of their country, keep the post-intifada status quo, and keep on killing Israelis by “conveniently” forgetting about their monopoly on the legitimate use of force once in a while. If the current violence continues, or if Hamas dominates, it works to Israel’s advantage because they can push ahead and establish their own borders.
Thoughts?
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://op-for.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/154
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Would a Palestinian Civil War Benefit…the Palestinians?:
» Good Question from MilBlogs
Charlie at Op-For asks, "Would a Palestinian Civil War Benefit…the Palestinians?"... [Read More]
Comments
Post a comment
Potential comment conditions listed here. Oh, and you may use basic HTML for formatting.
I usually have a rule to not comment on politics, but I'll break it. I don't think there will be a Palestinian civil war - at least not until AFTER the wall is done.
The majority of Palestinians want Israel to disappear. Until it's obvious to all that Israel won't, they will stick with Hamas.