Same market but with resolution at the end of 2023:
Gaza is currently, in a "de facto" sense, governed by Hamas. The organization's foreign policy has led to blockades by all neighboring countries. Given this situation as my baseline perspective, I intend to evaluate the market based on Israel meeting most of the criteria in the list below by the end of the year, or other indications that would lead a reasonable person to infer that Israel as complete control over the territory. I will employ my own judgment, supplemented by input from other stakeholders, in cases where there is ambiguity.
This list was added here to elucidate some people who were arguing that israel already had control of Gaza at the begining of the conflict. It as generated lots of controversy and apprehension in the betters. It serves as a guide and not as a checkbox I will be strictly following at resolution time. if there is still something I should further clarify please add some more comments. I am trying to go by some sort of common sense definition of political (not only military) control, including being able to defend and provide for the population in an organized and CONTROLLED faction.
"De Facto" Control Over a Territory implies:
1) Governance and Legal Systems: The ability to make and enforce laws [while allowing citizen participation in decision-making processes (this is optional)].
2) Security and Border Management: Ensuring internal safety and defending against external threats, while regulating who comes in and out of the territory.
3) Public Services and Utilities: Providing essential services like healthcare, education, and utilities such as water and electricity.
4) Economic Oversight: Control over financial systems, including tax collection and monetary policy.
5) International and Environmental Relations: Maintaining international relationships, disaster preparedness, and resource management.
Possibilities that have generated confusion and their resolution:
1) Distopic military dictatorship style control, resolves YES.
In this case criteria only the citizen participation section of criteria 1 would not be enforced.
2) Terror attacks by Hamaz are happening in a otherwhise controlled territory, resolves YES
In this case the internal safety section of criteria 2 would be lacking but everything else would still lead me to resolve it as YES.
3) Hamaz having a section of Gazan territory still in its control, resolves NO.
4) Population self governing (with or without IDF present), resolves NO.
5) Population in anarchy (with or without IDF present), resolves NO.
Also I should refer that at the end I will look for information on wikipedia, major news outlets and other similar reputable sources to make my decision. I will also take into consideration market discussions in case of possible ambiguities.
Related questions
From Twitter. Negotiations are not fully dead yet and it seems Hamaz will keep a toehold:
Jacob Magid
@JacobMagid
Qatar quietly asked Hamas leaders to leave Doha last month amid frustration with the terror group’s handling of the hostage negotiations, two government officials told
This was the first time since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war that Qatar took such a step, aiming to pressure the terror organization to agree to a compromise in talks that have yet to bear fruit since a weeklong hostages-for-truce deal in late November.
The Qatari directive came shortly after an April 17 announcement by Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani that Doha had decided to launch a review of its mediator role, the officials said.
Al-Thani’s frustration was seen as primarily directed at Israel, following repeated criticism of Qatar by Netanyahu & other Israeli leaders amid hostage talks. Jerusalem has taken particular issue over what it considers Qatar’s failure to adequately pressure Hamas.
But the officials speaking to The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity revealed that the review announced by the premier also stemmed from frustration with Hamas, namely the group’s refusal to sufficiently compromise in successive rounds of hostage negotiations.
After being told to leave Qatar, Hamas leaders traveled to Turkey where they remained for several weeks, meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has hailed their efforts in fighting Israel.
Roughly two weeks later, though, Egypt launched its own initiative to broker a hostage deal.
As those negotiations began to stall, Qatar informed Hamas’s leaders that they could return to Doha in hopes that this would prevent the talks from collapsing altogether.
However, the talks still fell apart after Hamas returned to Qatar. Weeks earlier, Hamas said that it had accepted a ceasefire proposal crafted by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
The announcement sparked celebrations in Gaza, but the US later clarified that Hamas had merely issued an amended response to the proposal crafted earlier by mediators and green-lit by Israel. The Hamas response included demands US and Israel have said were unacceptable.
The negotiations subsequently disbanded and have yet to reconvene, with the sides unable to bridge the gap on the fundamental issue in talks: Hamas is looking for a hostage deal that permanently ends the war, while Israel is only willing to agree to temporary ceasefire
The 2 officials said part of reason talks didn’t succeed was that Egypt presented separate proposals to Israel and Hamas. The one discussed w/ Israel was closer to Jerusalem’s stance leaving window for it to continue the war after truce & hostage deal was implemented.
Meanwhile, the one presented with Hamas was closer to its demand for the initial truce to be turned permanent.
The officials said this strategy was not coordinated w/ other mediators & particularly angered CIA director Bill Burns, who has been one of the main brokers.
Despite the latest breakdown in talks, Hamas’s leaders have remained in Qatar, which is continuing to urge them to return to talks. Doha’s initial directive for them to leave's no longer in place & Al-Thani said talks at stalemate due to IDF op in Rafah.
In April, Blinken told Al-Thani Doha should expel Hamas’s leaders if they continue rejecting hostage deal proposals, a US official said. The message was still conditional & clear directive from US urging Doha to pull trigger on formal, public expulsion hasnt followed.
Qatar is prepared to take such a step if a direct request is made, per source familiar A senior Israeli official said Qatar should not only be threatening to kick Hamas out of Qatar but also be freezing their assets in order to pressure the terror group. (15/15)
From the FT. I agree with that:
The public mood has darkened, Some 62 per cent of Israelis now believe “total victory” is no longer possible, against 27 per cent who still think it realistic, according to polling this month that delivered the exact opposite results from a January survey, according to the Midgam Institute.
“There is a complete sense of strategic drift, and no plan for where this is going,” said a former senior Israeli government official. “There is no thought for how this is all supposed to end . . . and no sense about what victory would actually look like.”
@JonathanRay It's hard to be an occupying power. Recently the US had difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it's not impossible. The counter-insurgency advice relies a lot on "winning hearts and minds" of the occupied civilians.
That is still possible. Israel would need to reliably treat Palestinian civilians better than Hamas does. Not a high bar, very achievable. Israel has shown it can do this and more in how it treats Arab-Israelis.
Sadly that's not been the approach used in Gaza during the war, and I completely agree that with Israel's current approach it will not be able to govern. Probably it does not have a plan beyond Netenyahu staying in power for another year.
@MartinRandall Gaza is already maxed out on antisemitism and getting them to not hate jews is a very high bar that probably can't be accomplished even if the occupation was up to Starfleet standards
I think this question title is confusing given what's written in the description. The criteria seems to be beyond "de facto" control.
most people would argue that Israel has de facto control over gaza in May 2024, outside of Rafah perhaps
Maybe the title could be altered to "control monopoly" or something?
@RemNi They've withdrawn from Khan Younis and Gaza City. I wouldn't call that Israeli de facto control.
@ElmerFudd Huh, didn't realise they've withdrawn from those locations. Any idea what the rationale is?
@RemNi Their behavior makes perfect sense if you assume the destruction itself is the goal, not the replacement of Hamas
@MartinRandall much less people here, also it is likely Israel is not going to able to control Gaza before the end of the year.
If there is widespread crime and resistance such that the laws which are enforced are a very selective subset of laws, would condition 1 be met?
More concretely, I suggest there are areas where police don’t go except in groups of three or more because of concerns of safety of the police, that condition 1 doesn’t apply.
And I feel like if condition 3 is unclear about whether those services are provided to all residents or whether the capacity for those services is available; I expect that Israel will have the ability to provide those services and choose not to or to limit access to them as part of their political goals.
@DanPowell As for the first concern, bad or dificult policing still equates to policing so it would resolve YES. By a similar metric mexico government would not be considered in control of large parts of their contry, which I don't agree with. Also in most contries there are difficult sections of large cities were policing is difficult. If the army was still involved and a guerrila warfare was going on I would need to ponder on the specific details of the situation.
If israel was the means to provie services but chooses not to do it this would imply that israel as "control" on how to allocate its resources so it would resolve YES still.
@JoaoPedroSantos Under the “ability to provide/allow third parties to provide but chooses to prohibit” meaning, Israel is already in control of most of the resolution criteria, right? They can apply collective punishment to groups of people, exercise the property rights of abusus, regulate who is allowed in or out even on the Egypt border, deny public services, and do international relations.
The only thing that they don’t have yet is taxation.
@DanPowell Even in your skewed definition they would still have a massive military force (Hamaz) controling large swats of gazan territory, in no world is this control. At least not for me.
@JoaoPedroSantos Hamas does not have the ability to meaningfully enforce laws, cannot perform border management, cannot provide healthcare, power or water, and is unable to garner significant international resources.
Granted, all of those failings are the direct result of Israeli-based interference in them.
If your assertion right now is that nobody has de facto control of Gaza right now, sure. But Israel meets more of those criteria than Hamas does.
@JoaoPedroSantos Would you say that any entity has had all five of those criteria met over Gaza since 1968?
@DanPowell Larger debate than what I would like to have in a chat based platform and also only tangentialy related to the question at hand. But in essence yes, Israel some chunks of time and Hamaz some other chunks of time.