Abstract
Following the end of World War II, conflicts worldwide have changed greatly. “War,” according to the classical definition, occurs with less and less frequency. Countries avoid involvement in formal warfare or categorizing conflicts with other entities as war. The field of Conflict Resolution developed after World War II seeking the reasons for the outbreak of conflicts and clarifying new ways to settle them. More recently, a new approach called Conflict Transformation suggests converting the relationship between parties as the way to settle a conflict. Israel is a party to many interlocking conflicts, one of which is the protracted and intractable conflict with Hamas in Gaza. This conflict is an extension of Israel’s ethno-social conflict with the Palestinian people. The prominence of the conflict’s violent dimension brings society to exhaustion and to develop a psychological infrastructure preserving and empowering the conflict’s vitality. In an era in which war was an acceptable means to solve disputes between countries, the 1907 Hague Convention obligated nations to declare war preceding the opening of hostilities. Israeli law governs declarations of war, but policy makers prefer to conduct large-scale military operations without a formal declaration. However, it is wider than a narrow legal act and is considered by Austin (1963) a Speech Act, as well as a ceremony (Turner, 2004). Because a declaration of war contains a credible threat regarding the ability to “hurt” the other party, it serves as leverage to establish the necessary conditions between parties to reach a lasting peace. Although the idea of a declaration of war seems to conflict with the logic of Conflict Resolution, in actuality, applying the paradoxical principal of strategy—action against linear intuition—has the potential to settle the conflict through its transformative power. Through those various paradigms of declaration of war, we conceptualize mollifiers and fomenters for the possibility to declare war in order to transform the conflict towards its resolution.
Highlights
The directive to declare war is ratified in the Hague Convention (1907) as a prerequisite act of law prior to the onset of hostile activities between two parties
By means of an interdisciplinary analysis and the application of legal tools, together with the theoretical infrastructure of conflict resolution, we suggest that a declaration of war can transform a protracted conflict (Lederach, 2003), such as the one between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and serve as a necessary preparatory stage for its decisive resolution or management
We believe that transforming the conflict by means of the ceremony of a declaration of war, has the power to change the existing structure of power thereby creating the necessary conditions for resolving the conflict
Summary
The directive to declare war is ratified in the Hague Convention (1907) as a prerequisite act of law prior to the onset of hostile activities between two parties This refers to an era when war was an acceptable way of resolving disputes between nations. As we understand it, a declaration of war is broader than a narrow legal act and is even recognized by Austin (1963) as speech act, or words that constitute the implementation of action, even if no “performative” action ensues It is perceived as a rite of transition (Turner, 2004), representing a collective that is undergoing a change or some alteration of status or social conditions. In all such conflicts, including the one between Israel and Hamas, the predominant element is violence This results in the erosion of the public and the development of a psychological infrastructure that creates a repertoire of behaviors for coping with the stress, while simultaneously justifying wartime actions taken by the leadership.
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