An Irish Solution

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An Israeli strike over Gaza City on Tuesday

What Israel and Hamas could learn from the British Government and the IRA.

No wait come back.

Eamon Delaney writes:

The Israeli operation in Gaza is only the latest installment in a bleak and unending conflict. In 2009, Israel invaded Gaza with Operation Cast Lead, in 2011 there was Operation Pillar of Defence, and now there is Operation Protective Edge. They sound like the names of computer war games, but the outcome is always the same: Israel dampens down Palestinian resistance, Gaza goes back under siege and then the pressure cooker builds until Hamas decide to fling a few more rockets into Israel. And off we go again.

The present conflict is actually worse than before in that the old parameters are gone. The US has much less restraint over Israel now and little interest in getting more involved, being overstretched elsewhere and with a deteriorated relationship with Jerusalem. It remains Israel’s most steadfast ally, but the US is fed up with constant Israel settlement building in the West Bank and fed up with the insincere and meaningless ‘peace process’.

Meanwhile, the Egyptians have much less leverage over Hamas, now that Mubarak is gone, and the Muslim Brotherhood government (who were in power for the last Gaza escalation) has been replaced by a reactionary military government. So Hamas will feel, with Gaza effectively under long term siege by Israel, that it has nothing to lose and might as well go on firing rockets into Israel and showing at least token Palestinian resistance.

This is hugely challenging for Israel which now has the nightmare of an open ended, unending war with a well-resourced militant group. Especially, when the Israeli response is usually so disproportionate and results in the civilian casualties that appall the world.

And this is the crucial thing: the current proliferation of cameras, social media and rolling news has given Israel no hiding place and exposes what they do to universal condemnation, even among those who generally support them. The Israelis cannot go on fighting these disputes the way they used to. There is a huge propaganda war about Gaza on Twitter and Facebook and Israel is losing it.

But Israel insists on finding a military, and not a political, solution to the problem. It says there cannot be negotiations with Hamas as the latter doesn’t recognise Israel’s right to exist. But Sinn Fein and the IRA have never accepted British rule in Northern Ireland yet this hasn’t prevented them from doing a peace deal with the enemy. But such an approach would require a sea change in official Israeli thinking which in recent years has tacked further to the right and to non-compromise.

In fact, Hamas is a disciplined and stable organisation, unlike the old PLO, and could well be the sort of adversary that Israel could work with. It is not a wild jihadi organisation which Israel well knows and which is why it wants to curb Hamas but not destroy it. In volatile Gaza, Hamas is a preferable counterweight to the genuine (and growing) jihadi extremists.

Meanwhile, in Ireland and elsewhere, the Israeli actions provoke condemnation but much of this protest is highly selective and opportunistic. Where are these protestors when atrocities are committed by Syria or Sri Lanka or other countries? Has there ever been a march on the salubrious Iranian Embassy in Blackrock? And what about Russia, which recently absorbed the Crimea? No, instead it is really only the Zionist hobby horse, and of course, the US itself, that gets these protestors out with their placards. You will rarely see them highlighting the horrendous atrocities in African countries such as the Congo or Mali, for example.

Interestingly, when I made this point to Richard Boyd Barrett TD some time ago he appeared to acknowledge the disproportionate focus on Israel and assured me that the protestors would also be vocal on other conflicts such as Syria. But this doesn’t seem to have happened. And indeed, given the language of Boyd Barrett speaking about Gaza outside the Dail last week, you’d have to wonder how there could ever be a peace in Gaza. Boyd Barrett is not only opposed to the Israeli occupation of captured territories since 1967, as many protestors are, but to the very existence of Israel itself which he says was ‘born in apartheid and racism’. But this in itself is surely a racist statement, about a State set up in 1948 by the United Nations.

Israel may be showing a disproportionate response in its current actions- it always does- but it has had over 1500 Hamas rockets landing in their country in the past week. And only for its Iron Dome defence system, there would certainly have been many casualties. What would the Irish or French Government do if that happened to their territory? They would certainly not stand idly by.

Eamon Delaney is a journalist and former diplomat

(AFP)

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33 thoughts on “An Irish Solution

  1. Jack Ascinine

    One of the best articles I’ve read since this whole episode has started. Good job Eamon.

    1. bisted

      …are you sure you haven’t read this somewhere before? In fact, are you sure you haven’t sung a few verses of this yourself? Eamo seems to have cut and pasted the hymn sheet differently.

    2. HansLanda

      Agree wholeheartedly.

      Is there anyone in ireland more hypocritical than Richard Boyd Barrett?!

      1. scottser

        there are plenty. try a fingleton, or a quinn. how about a drumm? no? can i tempt you with a hogan or a gilmore?

    1. Medium Sized C

      They are both wrong.
      It isn’t historical fact, apartheid is a specific system of enforced racial segregation formed in South Africa which came into force around the same time as the end of British Mandate. The plans which created modern day Isreal and Palestine were made before apartheid was conceptualised and were the result of people from that area wanting seperate states and its aim was to resolve conflict between Jewish and Muslim people. Not to ensure ethnic superiority of either faith.

      And its not really racist, more religious bigotry.
      Anyone of any ethnicity can be either Jewish or Muslim although I’d venture to say that sharing nationhood, culture and religion is a strong grounding for ethnicity. So by accusing a nation of people of homogenous religion and similar culture of being founded in “apartheid and racism” is probably a little bit racist.
      But you could debate it till the cows come home.

      1. droid

        You should have a look at jabotinsky, the irgun, the haganah and the early zionists. The racial contempt for Palestinians and arabs is obvious from almost the conception of zionism.

        It may be inaccurate to describe it as ‘Apartheid’, but it has the same racist roots as European colonialism, and the real world ramifications are similar.

  2. Medium Sized C

    He seems to be missing the fact that this is a modern developed nation with an extremely well equipped army bombing civillians with aplomb.

    Which is sort of different in many ways from every other conflict he points out.
    Also he is basically pretending the protests against some of those other nations actually happened.
    The Syrian civil war is now very very different from the Israli/Palestinian conflict.

    Bringing the Congo into it is fatuous.

    But otherwise its a pretty solid article.

  3. Clampers Outside!

    “What would the Irish or French Government do if that happened to their territory?” But… it’s not Israeli territory, it’s Palestinian.

    And what Medium Sized C said. The current conflict comparisons are not comparable as the Israeli / Palestinian struggle is the only one with an occupier and that occupier imposing oppression on those who rightfully lived on that land. Civil wars are not the same as land grabs.

  4. munkifisht

    Reasonable article other than the last few paragraphs. I can only speak personally of course as to why the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is more prevalent and important to me, but what I see is a destabilising regime continuing an illegal occupation of another sovereign state, back up militarily and politically by the worlds strongest power. Essentially Israel is kinda the pretty weedy, pretty small, but horribly sadistic kid in a school yard and is able to torment all the other kids because it’s best mate is the school enforcer.

    Futher, The fall out from this conflict has been the solidification of anti western sentiment, personified by the worlds best representation of a comic book super villain organisation, al qaeda and essentially the most important issue in global politics for the past 13 years, the global war on terror. While conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Serria Leon, etc are horrific and genuine tragedies, they don’t have the same global resonance as a rocket fired in Gaza.

    I personally feel that if a stable peace had been found between both sides 20 or so years ago, that peace would probably have had the biggest influence on world politics over any other event. You would have to feel that as the military power in the region, Israel need to be the ones who have to step off and allow peace talks to happen.

    Really it’s really no surprise that the world focuses on this conflict over all others.

    1. droid

      Its a propaganda tactic. If the question is valid, then you must also ask – why south africa when there was East Timor, Cambodia, Bangladesh?

      The answer is simple. The injustice is vast, the solution obvious, and the crimes are being carried out by an actor which we (in theory) have some influence over.

  5. droid

    “Gaza goes back under siege and then the pressure cooker builds until Hamas decide to fling a few more rockets into Israel. And off we go again.”

    Stopped reading there. Whats the point if the author cant even get the basic facts right? A cursory examination of the sources would instantly prove this assertion to be false. Im assuming it gets worse.

  6. Friscondo

    Just to take Syria. What’s happening there is a vicious civil war with an influx of foreign extremists fighting on the rebel side. Each side seems to outdo the other interns of atrocities. Who to support and what influence has western public opinion in this conflict. I would suggest none. Unfortunately civil wars tend to be some of the most intractable and brutal conflicts as we know only too well in this country. Gaza has a nuclear armed modern state waging pitiless war on a trapped mostly civilian population to prevent any semblance of Palestinian unity. Israel needs to keep Palestinians weak and divided.

  7. mauriac

    so wrong about u.s. influence over Israel.they have so much leverage that Obama could tell the I.d.f. to stop the atrocities today but won’t because of political cowardice.plus I think people forget the role of Egypt in creating the terrible conditions in Gaza..i.e. another u.s. vassal state …

    1. droid

      How could anyone with a brain assume otherwise? In fact a change in US policy is the only hope for an end to the conflict.

  8. scottser

    ‘Sinn Fein and the IRA have never accepted British rule in Northern Ireland yet this hasn’t prevented them from doing a peace deal with the enemy’

    the northern irish political leaders signed up to the peace process cos they were told, in no uncertain terms, that the conflict has ‘unwinnable’, that there was no point hanging your political hat on it and that at least peace meant we could all make a few bob. and boy did they make a few bob. i’m not convinced that israel would go for it, given they’re one of the richest states in the world.

  9. Odis

    Eamon Delaney asks why aren’t people protesting about Crimea, Syria and Iran?
    Possibly, because they have minds of their own, and they think the American State Department and their media stooges, are self serving liars, something like that Eamon.

  10. Dick

    Sorry, Eamo but Israel is a developed, advanced, progressive (in some aspects at least which do not relate to Palestine) country supported by the EU and the US. It is the single largest beneficiary of US aid (the bulk of which is military aid). It is a de facto Western nation despite its geographic location. So when you say “Where are these protestors (sic) when atrocities are committed by Syria or Sri Lanka?”, they EXPECT that sort of activity and behaviour from these countries. Israel is 16th in the global HDI table (2012). Syria is 116th while Sri Lanka is 92nd. These countries are riddled with problems and are years behind their developed counterparts in virtually every aspect of statehood. It is this, and the fact that Israel is so heavily sponsored by the US et al (which are almost all in the top 20 in terms of HDI) that we are outraged when the IDF again bombards the Gaza Strip and again stretches the boundaries of acceptable collateral damage. Your point here is categorically flawed.

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