Belfast Lessons for Israel | The mistake of …

When I first went to Israel in 1976, after studying for three years in Northern Ireland, I was struck by the similarities. It seems fitting that at the same time as this conflict breaks out in Palestine, a commission is operating in Belfast on a massacre committed by the British military half a century ago. The Ballymurphy massacre happened between August 9 and 11, 1971, when ten Catholics were gunned down in this working-class neighborhood of Belfast. For years the UK government and military have said the dead were armed IRA militants, but this week it was determined that they were innocent civilians and that shooting at them was “unwarranted. “. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has openly apologized for the deaths.

The most important parallel between Northern Ireland then and Gaza today is that excessively excessive military force is used in both cases and is used to solve political problems. In Ireland, the massacre only served to make the government lose its legitimacy, stir up hatred and help the IRA to recruit. Israel also lives by announcing that it is winning remarkable victories and killing enemy commanders, as if the leaders of the motley Hamas and Islamic Jihad were irreplaceable technicians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the militants “will pay a high price for their belligerence.” Of course, but the highest price is paid by civilians in Gaza, as in 2014, when 2,000 Palestinians and 73 Israelis died in a 67-day “war”. Nothing seems to change, which is remarkable after the administration of Donald Trump, the most pro-Israel president in history. Together with their son-in-law Jared Kushner, they enthusiastically supported Netanyahu’s thesis that you could have a firm peace while keeping the Palestinians subordinate and defeated.

It wasn’t going to work, but the idea fell so quickly after Trump left that it was a surprise. The Palestinian question is back on the international agenda, unresolved and explosive as it always has been for a century. Trump’s biggest effect may have fueled the self-destructive pride of the Israeli government, which has been tempted to expand settlements in the West Bank, expel Sheik Jarrah’s neighbors, and quell them with gas grenades and guns. rockets, even in the Al Aqsa Mosque.

There is one aspect in which this crisis is more intense and broader than the 2008/9 and 2014 “wars” in Gaza, and that is that the two million Israeli Arabs, a fifth of the country’s population, are now participating. In mixed cities like Lod, Jaffa, Acre and Haifa, there have been attacks on people, shops, cars, synagogues and mosques. In Lod, where the fighting was serious, live 47,000 Jews and 23,000 Muslims.

Which adds another parallel to Northern Ireland, as Israel must now contain two hostile populations living together in a small space. In Northern Ireland, Catholics and Protestants number one million each, while between Jordan and the Mediterranean live seven million Israelis and seven million Palestinians. There will be borders and fortified walls, but the region is a political unit as evidenced by violence from Jerusalem to Gaza, Israel and the West Bank.

In 1971, the British government made the disastrous decision to use the military to support what was sometimes called the Orange State. This meant that Catholics accepted second-class citizens in a Protestant-controlled state, which Catholics would never accept, even if they did not opt ​​for arms. It was obvious from the start, but it took thirty years for London to accept it and do something about it. In 1998, the Good Friday agreements allowed a division of powers between communities very different in terms of identity, culture and loyalty.

It would be nice to think of something like this one day between Israel and Palestine, but there is a crucial difference. The Irish compromise stemmed from the recognition, especially by the British government and Irish nationalists, that neither side could achieve a complete victory. But in the Middle East, the balance of power seems overwhelmingly favorable to the Israelis, who do not feel the need to negotiate because they have absolute military superiority and the support of the other American powers.

The weaknesses of the Palestinians, many of whom are self-inflicted, include very poor leadership and political organization. Hamas can fire a lot of rockets at Israel as a challenge, but this is politically negative because it allows the Israeli government to present itself as defending the country and fighting terrorism. There have been no elections in the Palestinian state for fifteen years, so its authority is really weak. Palestinians must mobilize to peacefully demand civil rights and end discrimination against them.

They have an asset up their sleeve that Israel cannot win until they declare that they have lost. This week shows that won’t happen. Israel has strong cards in political and military poker, but it cannot say it won because the game never ends.