Bob Owens cites the five criteria for a conflict to be deemed a civil war and notes which conflicts do and don’t fit the bill:
According to Global Security, there are five recognized criteria for a civil war:
civil war: A war between factions of the same country; there are five criteria for international recognition of this status: the contestants must control territory, have a functioning government, enjoy some foreign recognition, have identifiable regular armed forces, and engage in major military operations.
1. Both Hamas and Fatah control territory.
2. Both Hamas and Fatah have their own political organizations and function (dysfunction) as part of a recognized government.
3. both enjoy some foreign recognition via support from governments such as ours (Fatah) and Iran (Hamas).
4. both have identifiable and mostly uniformed armed forces.
5. both have engaged and continue to engage in major military operations.
By this definition (and others), the Palestinian Civil War in Gaza is clearly underway, and has been for some time.
A supermajority of the world media organizations refuse to recognize this conflict as the civil war that it is.Anyone want to guess which conflict is regularly referred to as a civil war despite the fact that it does not meet the five criteria?
