Thought-provoking, Rocco.
I suppose there's something of an issue with applying Hague convention proscriptions of "conventional" warfare to Islamic terrorism. I'll make the point that Islamic thought has for centuries divided the world into
Dar al-Islam (the House of Submission) and
Dar al-Harb (The House of War). Islam and its allegiants have
always regarded themselves as at war with the rest of us. It's a fundamental aspect of Islamic doctrine well supported by the
koran, the various
ahadith, and the proclamations of imams and Islamic scholars.
Islamic terrorism is the spearhead force for Islam's worldwide
jihad. The ever growing numbers of Moslems who've been allowed ingress to Western nations are the forces in echelon -- activists willing to riot and demonstrate -- and forces of occupation -- large numbers of Moslems concentrated into exclaves in which Islamist ideology rules
de facto. Their logistical support is provided by the twenty-two or so nations currently under Islamic regimes, and by covert sympathizers in many other lands.
Finally.... finally, to get to your comments, I would suggest that Hamas meets the requirement of a central government (acknowledging your observation that there are two - competing governments in the disputed territories) as Hamas was an elected governing body.
The "chain of command" requirement is a bit more difficult to quantify. Whether the islamic terrorist groups you noted:
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine [AKA: Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)]
Al-Quds Brigades or the
Jerusalem Brigades, of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)
are subordinate to some Islamic Terrorist General Staff somewhere In the bowels of Hamas planning out attacks with completely conscious, completely intentional purposes is unlikely. If the Islamic terrorists and their dispatchers within Hamas have an articulated theory of warfare, it's more likely to be
Inshallah (cf. the Latin
Deus vult) than any version of the above.
Regarding the Hague regulations you posted:
Article 1 of the Hague Regulations provides that the laws, rights and duties of war apply; fulfilling four conditions:
1. To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
2. To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance;
3. To carry arms openly; and
4. To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
1. As applied against the islamic terrorist groups noted above, not fulfilled
2. Not fulfilled. Noting however, the ability of various islamic terrorist groups Hamas, the "Hizzbullies", etc., to somehow manage the means to acquire uniforms for Islamic terrorist parades.
3. Requirement fulfilled.
4. Not fulfiled.
To address the following:
- one question:
• When rockets and mortars are being fired from Gaza into Israel, --- what central authority can order operators to cease-fire?
It appears that there is no such central authority. And, I think more importantly, whatever we may wish to call a central authority as it relates to Hamas as a "governing body", we must also understand that Hamas materially supports and promotes rockets and mortars being fired from Gaza into Israel. As such, they are as complicit in acts of Islamic terrorism as the groups noted previously.
Warfare by way of islamic terrorism works by way of an infiltration-oriented army vs. any conventional land war between nation-states. The key to confronting islamic terrorism is to understand that Hague Conventions of war don't necessarily apply in an era of global islamic terrorism. There needs to be a certain removing of the intellectual and emotional barriers that cause us to insist that Islamic terrorism is ideologically distasteful to the great majority of Moslems and has nothing to do with Islam
per se.
