“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
While I was in Belfast attending a Model United Nations Conference, representing Pakistan, shortly before I flew home I went on a legendary Belfast Black Cab tour. These tours which are often staffed by former paramilitary members from Northern Ireland (NI) The Troubles era are intimate tours of the city's infamous past (and sometimes present) trouble spots. At the first stop on the tour was the Divis Flats, reportedly the sight of the first casualty of The Troubles in Belfast; a sleeping 8 year old boy killed by a stray police bullet. While pondering at the irony that the first victim of The Troubles was an innocent person I noticed a Palestinian flag flying from one of the Flats’ windows. My tour guide was largely dismissive of this when I asked about it, saying that person probably displayed it just because another Nationalist did. Even more intriguingly, further into the tour I notice Israeli flags clearly on display in a Unionist era.
This experience led me to wonder; are these two conflicts in any way comparable? In NI a body count threshold seemed to have been reached as well as a threshold of international concern to almost lock into place a peace process which at least seems durable. And thus the 1998 Belfast Agreement and power sharing between the previously violently conflicting parties was signed. This begs the question; could a similar process happen in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?
That both conflicts have deeply rooted historical backgrounds is not in doubt. The oldest of those histories is undoubtedly that of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict since the Jewish Zionist movement, that forged the concept of a modern Jewish homeland in the region of Palestine, cites the Jews as a people as originating from this region. This was well before the birth of Christ, vastly outdating the Norman landings on the island of Ireland and the Ulster Plantations being established in the north during the 1500s AD. It is disputable how much of a difference this makes practically since the opposing sides of both disputes are as likely to mythologise events that happened 50 years ago as much as they would for ones happening 500 years ago. But the past does not stay buried for long and both conflicts have historical baggage that will be very hard to clear up, if that is even possible at all.
For the sides of both conflicts nationalism is a very serious force, as is religion. Religious differences trumped nationalistic ones in Ireland for many years since the formation of Irish nationalism is only really a concept that is at most a few centuries old, next to older religious identities. Inter-communal violence has taken place in NI since at least the late 18th century when Protestant Peep-O-Day boys fought against the Catholic Defenders. Zionism is the next youngest self-determination movement, having it’s roots in the late 19th century. Palestinian nationalism is even younger, coming to the fore with the rise of Arab nationalism during the post-war period. It is arguable that nationalism, Zionist and Palestinian, merely hardened group identities and communal grievances rather than created them. But now nationalism is present it may be hard if not impossible to put the genie back in it’s bottle in both cases.
There are intriguing similarities and differences between the opposing factions in the different conflicts. While the Unionist governed province of the UK, NI, recognised the existence of the Republic of Ireland (and the Free State before that), much of the Irish Civil War was fought over the acceptance in the majority Catholic south about the NI's right to exist as a separate political entity. There is a similarity to the widespread Palestinian rejection of the 1947 UN partition plan to divide Palestine up into two states, although the rejection seemed more widespread in the Palestinian case. Differences in culture, historical background or the leadership of the Palestinian’s with the highly structured and recognised leadership of the First Dail may account for the difference, although this is far from certain.
It is worth noting that while the most prominent Palestinian political groups have been founded on the principle of armed action against Israel, starting with Fatah who formed with this specific objective in mind, nationalism in Northern Ireland has taken on two recognised moulds: Constitutional Nationalism and militant republicanism. Constitutional Nationalism in NI seeks to improve the rights of ordinary Catholic nationalists while the majority of them push for a united Ireland, all by peaceful means. Militant Irish Republicanism stands for pushing for a united Ireland, the perceived ultimate guarantor of Catholic rights, by any means including armed struggle.
What is interesting is that while a militant Palestinian nationalist tradition is clearly visible, it would seem that a Palestinian Constitutional Nationalism is largely absent. In many ways this is what Fatah has become by default as the Islamist militant party and militia Hamas has stolen their thunder as the standard bearer of militant nationalism. Unlike the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in NI which grew out from the Catholic civil rights movement, the SDLP was born in tradition, while Fatah merely found it’s way there by circumstance, in many ways much like the former militant Sinn Fein party.
The Protestant Unionist and the largely Jewish population of Israel in many ways have similarities. The main difference is though that as bad as inter-communal violence got during The Troubles, there was hardly ever an intention to wipe out Protestants in NI as a people. While the IRA directly called for the overthrow of the NI State, their propaganda never reached the blood curdling proportions of Hamas who look favourably on the Holocaust and the wholesale killing of Jewish civilians. By contrast recent evidence has revealed that while the IRA too often practiced sectarian killing, they eschewed it where they could to minimise their potential supporters becoming upset. However in the heat of battle these differences can look academic. There are some striking similarities between the siege mentalities of both the Israelis and the Unionists. In many ways the former was more justified since they faced national armies challenging their existence. At the height of The Troubles the Irish Government authorised the planning of Exercise Armageddon as an emergency measure to protect Nationalists, but this was never implemented and only conceived as a measure to protect Nationalists. Because of this no other state forces entered this conflict apart from the UK’s.
Not all conflicts have a singular silver bullet, especially when it comes to the conflicts discussed. When I asked an Israeli friend of mine about their opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he was pessimistic that a solution would be found soon and cited a difference of narratives on both sides. This is the ultimate link between the two conflicts. Neither side can wholly connect with the other, in the context of both conflicts. In NI recognition, albeit begrudging, between the two sides and their narratives have been established. This was one of the main issues that made the difference between the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement failing and the 1998 Belfast Agreement succeeding (just).
Putting aside the different scales in the different scenarios the one thing the NI Nationalists had going in their favour more than the Palestinians was an articulate but determined Constitutional Nationalist movement that won praise by championing the promotion of civil rights over armed struggle while practising a degree of empathy with their opposite numbers. As long as Fatah and Hamas are in a competition to look the most defiant against Israel , as oppose to looking for a long term peace, the killing will surely continue.
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