The Gaza Strip seems very poorly served by the Palestinian Authority, let alone Israel. But, the area has relatively stable borders and it would likely have a stable government in Hamas. So, what if Gaza just declared independence as the government with sole control over the Gaza Strip?
Would Gaza get recognized by other countries? Could it parlay the recognition into forcing a permanent peace with Israel as becoming a recognized country puts Israeli treatment of it into more known sections of international law?
I’m not an expert in middle eastern politics.
My uninformed take is that if the Gaza Strip was to self organize as a state, they will implicitly recognize Israel as a state as they will have to decide on borders.
Being unrecognized allows the Palestinian authority to claim all the former Palestinian land as their own.
Yeah, but I’m also saying that the government in Gaza would not be the Palestinian Authority, but something else. The recognition of Israel would be problematic given local politics, but I don’t see Palestine pushing all of Israel out.
I don’t see Palestine pushing Israel back an inch. They just launched their biggest assault in 50 years and all they achieved was killing a bunch of civilians. As far as I can tell they hold no territory outside of Gaza and it’s only been a couple of days.
Edit: Reuters is reporting there are still some Hamas fighters holed up in Israeli territory but with no realistic means of resupply or relief it’s only a matter of time before they’re dead.
This is already the defacto situation for palestine. It is already recognized by many countries. Treaties have been signed. We’ve been close to a two state solution in 2007 when PLO was in power. Hamas however is not about being at peace with the situation and aims at the dismantling of Israel. It wants an Islamic state from the east to the west. At multiple occasions has it sabotaged a two state solution through violence. Hamas is everything but stable, it is an Islamic extremist faction. The threat of hamas/isis has put religious extremist nationalist factions into power in Israel also fueled by people with a religious conviction. Just that the land of the palestinians belongs to the jews. They are not particularly interested in peaceful coexistence as seperate countries either.
I think most people have given up hope of a two state solution. It looks further away than ever.
Nothing would change. For a start, PA doesn’t control gaza so can’t service it, and secondly israel and Egypt are both blockading Gaza. Independent Gaza would continue to have nothing.
Except that a blockade is an act of war and a lot of other international laws start applying to the conflict.
That’d be the good ending, but without the world recognizing their independence (and they won’t) that ain’t happening.
The Gaza strip is effectively ruled by Hamas, which rule without election since 2006. If they’re to declare independence, aren’t they need to elect a legitimate government first?
‘legitimate government’ isn’t really a thing. Many recognized countries are ruled by hereditary governments, or by autocrats who gained power in a coup. The legitimacy of such governments, andthe nationhood of the states, is recognized by other countries based on the foreign policy (mostly self interest) of those other countries. So, if you want to guess who would recognize a Gaza nation with Hamas as the ruling clique, ask yourself what governments would benifit from doing that.
Australia is ruled by an illegitimate king and it’s still recognised.
You would need an election to happen, and I don’t know if Israel would let one happen.
Palestine, like Taiwan, has a non-voting representative in the UN. It’s effectively its own country save for the key players of the Security Council recognizing them.
But I’m not talking about Palestine declaring themselves a country, but the Gaza Strip as independent of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
They are not going to declare independence from the whole Palestin, very unlikely so. Even though they are separated from the West Bank, they have a lot of supporters there. People in the West Bank even voted in majority for them in 2006. The only reason they can’t rule the West Bank is because Fatah has greater number of henchmen there and Fatah got the support from Israel and the West to cling to power.
Currently if you study the maps of their movements, their forces is moving towards the West Bank, at one time just 10km from it. And they have been making many pleas in the social media to invite those in the west bank to join them. So, they’ve been quite a number of incidence of attacks in the areas around the west bank, indicating that they are gaining more supports.
So the trend now is for them to unite instead of separated into different entity.
They can declare whatever they want, but if the major nations of the world do not recognize their declaration as valid and support them then it’s a hollow victory. The PLO declared an independent Palestinian state back in 1988. Many nations recognize it as an independent state today, and many nations do not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_the_State_of_Palestine
A “Gaza country” would lie between Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada the list list of countries by size (place 185). and between Lithuania, and Qatar in the list of countries by population size (Place 140). With no agriculture to speak of. How could such a county exist?
A lot of other countries in the Middle East are net importers of food. Also, it isn’t like they would be making their food situation worse.
Those countries have oil or other natural resources to sell.
It’s already a de facto independent state, led by Hamas. However, both of its neighbours dislike the state and have put up sanctions and other limitations.
There’s not enough agriculture, not enough electricity, and as a result, nowhere near enough fresh water, and no natural resources to sell. This is why Israel cutting off resources after the recent brutalities has had such an extreme impact on the people living there; without Israeli resources, Gaza as it exists now will collapse.
In the unlikely even that Israel will recognise its neighbour, there’s very little reason for them to keep the providing cheap power and water they’ve been delivering for years. With the government being listed as a terrorist organisation all over the world, trade options will be very limited. You’d end up with a tiny strip of Afghanistan with even fewer resources.
Palestine as a state needs the West Bank at the very least if it wants to support itself, but the Palestine Authority controlling the West Bank isn’t in control of the Gaza strip. During the last elections (over a decade ago), they didn’t even win; Hamas was the last elected majority government of Palestine before the democratic system was dismantled.
This provides a question of legitimacy as well: other countries will have to choose between recognising the terrorists who won the election (and are in de facto control. Of the territory), or the minority government which abandoned democracy when they lost. There are plenty of well-known undemocratic countries in the world (Russia, China, North Korea) but at least those countries have a clear government. The West Bank/Gaza strip governments have been joining and separating every few years.
As for international law: maybe it’ll apply, if everyone agrees on it being a country. Palestine is already in a Taiwan situation, and Taiwan sure doesn’t get much protection from international law either.
Regardless, a separate Gaza government won’t change much. Hamas would rule the newly recognised country as a theocracy, and it’s very much intent on complete obliteration of Israel and its inhabitants. The first action the government of the new state would take is start a war.
Why do you think Hamas would be interested in peace with Israel? They very explicitly have never been and are not.
I don’t. This is just a what if, questioning what is happening.
“it would likely have a stable government in Hamas”
…re-read that to yourself a few times.
