Палестину признали, признаем и Хамастан.

[nedosionist]

ООН признало Палестину государством-наблюдателем. Это, несомненно, крупное дипломатическое поражение Израиля. Что можно по этому поводу сделать? Наиболее уместным и своевременным ответом выглядит признание Хамастана – одностороннее признание независимости Хамастана-Газы от ПА, предложенное мной два года назад после Литого Свинца и Мармары.

Известные мне реакции на вчерашнее делятся на три группы: «это ужасно, и ничего не поделать», «пустяки», и «надо что-нибудь построить или аннексировать». Проблема с первыми двумя в нереалистичной оценке – признание одновременно еще ничего реально не меняет, и в то же время ощутимо неприятно среднесрочно, поскольку ведет к дальнейшей дипломатической изоляции. Проблема с избранным Нетаньяху первым ответом, строительством жилья в Е1, в том, что это неудачно как реакция. Это строительство на контролируемой территории, оно стратегически мало что меняет; если такое строительство было в национальных интересах вчера, то оно должно было быть одобрено раньше, и строительство жилья для своего населения не должно быть разменной дипломатической монетой, какой оно уже давно стало.

Признание независимости Хамастана является дипломатическим контрударом на дипломатический удар. Оно приближает формальности к реальности, и создает более прочную юридическую почву для военных операций, блокады и прочего дифференцирования действий. Это подчеркивает, что проблема с признанием Палестины не только в неурегулированном территориальном споре с Израилем, но элементарно в том, что ПА не контролирует территорию, на которую претендует. Фиксация разделенности Палестины затрудняет дальнейшее ее признание. Напротив, упорный отказ называть вещи своими именами , - что Хамас, а не ПА, контролирует Газу, - облегчает поддержание иллюзиии единого палестинского государства, и тем его дальнейшее признание.

Это признание разделения Газы и Фатхленда стратегически выгодно Израилю, и имеет смысл ловить момент, и его зафиксировать, пока те не воссоединились политически – что они имеют возможность сделать, когда им угодно, и на что Израиль имеет минимум влияния. Удачные моменты выдаются где-то раз в полгода-год, и это не может продолжаться вечно. Обпачный столп подчеркивает разницу в израильских подходах к Газе и ПА, признание ООН создает дипломатический предлог. Основной формальный барьер на пути признания независимости Газы – договоренности Осло-1, согласно которым Газа и Западнобережье должны рассматриваться как единое целое (О1-4, О2-31.8). Одностороннее признание Палестины ООН уже подрывает Ословские соглашения (О2-31.7, О2-9.5), и тем самым сейчас мы имеем очень короткий момент (window of opportunity), когда такая модификация дипломатически значительно облегчена.

Более того, можно заметить, что мы к тому движемся. В последние дни Нетаньяху признал двусторонние контакты с Хамасом, Либерман заговорил было о частичном выходе из Осло, а Лапид – о существовании двух палестинских государств. Чем раньше независимость Хамастана будет признана, тем меньше будет дальнейший дипломатический ущерб Израилю от контрпродуктивного поддержания фикции единой Палестины.

Comments

Re: terrorist Hamas

[nedosionist.livejournal.com]

As a quasi-independent belligerent, at that. However, the problem with belligerency is that this status should revert back - to what?, - at the end of hostilities.

Re: terrorist Hamas

[brotherinlaw.livejournal.com]

To what did the CSA status revert in 1865? (But such an end is in our case neither attainable nor happy.) independent automatically, as long as Israel and PA don't declare war on each other. Borders are irrelevant: most of the Civil War was on the Confederate territory, and by US jurisdiction Confederate states had lost their statehood. Negotiations, when held, were between opposing commanding generals, not state officials. This in part forced Jefferson Davis to make Lee Commander-in-Chief (instead of himself) late in the war. A final status was never subject to negotiation, Lincoln considered it a matter of principle (despite some opposition in the Cabinet and in the person of Gen. Sherman). Actually, little was ever discussed apart from prisoner exchanges and terms of surrender in purely military sense. (Maybe a couple of local armistices, I don't exactly remember.) So I'm close to becoming a fan of the belligerent party idea.

Re: terrorist Hamas

[nedosionist.livejournal.com]

A good popular review of IHL and belligerency with some analogies to CSA was done by K. Heller over at opiniojuris, 2010, 2011, and he has some good links from there.

I'm close to becoming a fan of the belligerent party idea. - me too, sort of. :)
There are several issues here in my view. First, it seems that it would make Israel legal position stronger to declare Gaza a belligerent at the onset of hostilities, such as Lead Cast or Pillar of Cloud. But the real issue is the status in the interim, related to when does the status of belligerency end. I estimate that it may take 1.2-2 wars with Gaza over 15 years for peace to hold. It is implausible to maintain status of belligerency for so long. Likewise say with Hezbollah usual fear-mongering presumes that hostilities theoretically may resume at any moment, but we can't claim state of belligerency vis-a-vis them at present. It was 4 years between the two ops with Gaza, and in the interim presumably Israel would have to repatriate at least some of the POWs. Would we want to claim a formal return to hostilities each time a Qassam from IJihad lands? (It may well be that we're approaching a point at which Hamas-Gaza tolerance of war damage is sufficiently low, and hence it may even become acceptable to repatriate POWs as a price of transforming the conflict, but I'm not yet ready to argue for that.)

Civil War ended with capitulation of the insurgents, conquest of the belligerents and reunification of the former compatriots. None of this is likely to happen upon the resolution of the next miniwar with Hamastan, assuming the return to the current status-quo. That's why CSA may be a good analogy for jus in bello, belligerency and blockade but not sufficient for ending the hostilities. Unlike Gaza conflict, American Civil War was a one-off affair.

The route I'm advocating in this series - merely asserting/proclaiming/establishing that Gaza has a different legal regime, different government and different status in both conflicts - with PA and Israel, - sufficient for it to be considered a separate entity is designed in part to preserve Israeli strategic ambiguity as to whether this is IAC or NAIC, and to hold in between hostilities as well.

Re: terrorist Hamas

[brotherinlaw.livejournal.com]

Why is a continuous years-long state of belligerency implausible? After all, such is the state with a universally recognized country of Syria. It would be just long periods of armistice, conditions of which may vary, sometimes unilaterally, from strict observance to relaxed versions, as expediency would suggest and as is the established de-facto state of affairs.

Re: terrorist Hamas

[nedosionist.livejournal.com]

On one level perhaps, long-term belligerency may be a solution. It does work, as you say, for frozen IAC.

My concern is with the sustainability of this combination of NAIC/non-state actor and long-term belligerency. As I said, I doubt that Hezbollah is a proper belligerent today vis-a-vis Israel.

Who/what is actually the other belligerent party in Gaza conflicts? Perhaps part of the issue is that not only should we differentiate between Hamas-Gaza and rump PA for these purposes, but also between Hamas-Gaza and Hamas Intl, so to speak. Then the belligerent is not Hamas, who happens to be attacking from Gaza, but Gaza that happens to be governed by Hamas (Hamastan). (And this helps with POWs, however, as you noted above, in that case the distinction drawn is even more tenuous.)

Re: terrorist Hamas

[brotherinlaw.livejournal.com]

I am acronym-challenged. What are IAC, NAIC?

Re: terrorist Hamas

[nedosionist.livejournal.com]

Actually it's my typo, sorry. IAC - international armed conflict, NIAC - non-international armed conflict.

The difference is that IAC can happen only between states. Conflicts with non-state organizations like Hamas Intl are clearly NIAC. Israel is trying to preserve ambiguity and not to cross into recognizing the conflict as IAC.

Re: terrorist Hamas

[brotherinlaw.livejournal.com]

Well, then, again, a state of belligerency allows one both to retain the name of NIAC (as logic requires) and to conduct warfare according to the rules of warfare (as opposed to the rules of police enforcement/criminal prosecution), which rules would of course include state of armistice, i.e. conditional nonbelligerency.

Re: terrorist Hamas

[brotherinlaw.livejournal.com]

The problem is, however, that Hamas has no standing army (perhaps just to avoid the belligerent party scenario). This would necessitate some definition that would distinguish between their combatants, noncobatants, and disguised subversives. Not sure about feasibility of such a definition.

Re: terrorist Hamas

[nedosionist.livejournal.com]

This I'd consider a secondary issue, because it's not unique to the Gazan conflict. Distinguishing between formal and informal non-state combatants and civilian population is an actively developing issue in IHL, between Iraq, Afpak, Russia, Israel, ICTY and many African conflicts and there is considerable body of precedents.