Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Jonathan Freedland: Amid the horror and doom of Gaza, the IRA precedent offers hope, The

Guardian, Jan. 14, 2009

The Northern Ireland example is instructive. Through dialogue even the most implacable of enemies can make peace

The smart money in the Middle East is always on pessimism. Events can be relied on to get worse and worse. But perennial gloom has a flaw. Its unstated assumption is that the war between Israelis and Palestinians is somehow unique – that it is the only conflict in the history of the world that cannot be solved or even ended.

Yet even as the horror continues in Gaza, it’s worth recalling that people were once just as fatalistic about battles now long settled. Whether it was apartheid in South Africa or the 30-year bloodshed in Northern Ireland, there were plenty of dark days when the blood seemed as if it would never stop.

Which is why the mention of Northern Ireland, once a byword for strife, is now an invocation of hope. If republicans and unionists – who once wished each other dead – can sit in government together, then surely Israelis and Palestinians are not fated to fight for ever.

That message is in the air just now, with both the Irish prime minister and Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams urging the warring parties of the Middle East to learn their lesson and begin “dialogue”. Meanwhile, Tony Blair has been citing his own Northern Ireland experience as a useful precedent. Is he right? And if he is, what exactly are the lessons?

It’s a statement of the obvious that the two conflicts are not the same: none ever are. The wildest elements of the IRA were never committed, even rhetorically, to the destruction of Great Britain. Yet Hamas’s charter does call for the eradication of the state of Israel. (Those close to the organisation insist the document has in effect lapsed.)

Moreover, whatever brutalities were meted out by the British forces in Northern Ireland, they never pounded Belfast from the air using fighter jets. There was state collusion in killings, but the British army did not bomb entire buildings in the Falls Road because it suspected an IRA cell lurked within.

Nevertheless, there are important similarities. The two sides were fighting over the future of a small piece of territory. The unionist majority often complained that it stood alone, uncomprehended by the rest of the world. Demographics mattered, the notion that one group might soon outnumber the other. And religion was never far below the surface.

Amb. Marc Ginsberg: Gazans in Peril, Huffington Post, Jan. 13, 2009
So much as been written about the fighting in Gaza and its political and military consequences, but surely not enough has been written about the terrible humanitarian conditions that have befallen its unfortunate non-combatant inhabitants.Every party — yes, any party remotely involved in instigating or failing to prevent the latest outbreak of war in Gaza — is partly the cause as well as the source of any durable solution to this growing humanitarian calamity — and there are not enough fingers to point. Debating whether Hamas is justified in firing missiles into Israel or whether Israel is justified in its response is really not this blog’s principal focus, please. Neither is the plight of Israel’s southern cities and its inhabitants who have been terrorized far too long by Hamas’ brand of war-like coexistence.

My goal, however treacherous, is to set aside the political blame game that has characterized the debate, and to focus on the terrible civilian conditions inside Gaza with the hope that the plight of Gazans will foster expedited preparation for an emergency international relief effort to address the humanitarian crisis that grips Gaza now and which will surely get far worse in the days ahead.

Whenever Gaza’s guns go silent, tens of thousands of Palestinians caught in the crossfire between Hamas militants and Israeli forces will haltingly emerge from the rubble to survey the terrible destruction that has befallen them as winter rains add more misery to the situation.

Entire blocks of stores and homes have been destroyed; services have been disrupted; and families have endured a barrage of fire and counterfire rendering what passes as normality in Gaza a distant memory. If Gaza was destitute and replete with misery before the latest Middle East war, it surely will face an even bleaker existence in the days ahead.

Conditions throughout Gaza were bad enough for its inhabitants before the fighting — an economic blockade by Israel, and Hamas’ Islamic extremist economic disorder had collectively transformed Gaza into a state of perpetual depression.

But things have gone from very bad to much worse in recent days as fighting has escalated.

At this hour, Gazans have almost no electrical power, and are under almost a round-the-clock blackout. Store shelves are empty, urgent medicine is in short supply, and only a few homes have running water since there is no fuel to run the water pumps. Sewage is flowing in the streets, and medical authorities, who cannot cope with the flood of civilian victims, are concerned that this witch’s brew will breed a terrible post-conflict pandemic of assorted maladies that will only lead to more deaths. Under such conditions, most would flee becoming refugees again, but in Gaza there is nowhere to run. The borders are sealed and there is no escape.