A lethally flawed analogy

Wednesday, 24th October 2007

The former Northern Ireland First Minister, Lord Trimble, has produced today an important and timely pamphlet which shreds the glib analogy by which Northern Ireland’s ‘peace process’ is promoted as the template for ending the Israel/Arab impasse. The argument is that, just as Northern Ireland was pacified by the fact that British government suddenly changed tack and started talking to the IRA without preconditions, so the Israel/Arab conflict will only end if Hamas are brought into dialogue and negotiations. A variety of individuals and organisations in Britain, the US and elsewhere are spouting this ahistorical and ignorant view which has gained significant and alarming traction in the upper reaches of the British establishment. I am glad to see that in his pamphlet, Lord Trimble specifically singles out by name the ‘conflict resolution’ groups Conflicts Forum and Forward Thinking, as well as Peter Hain, Daniel Levy and Michael Ancram, who are busy promoting this view, every part of which is false. It is a lobby that I have previously written about here, here, here, here and here.

Much of the Trimble document is an account of the Northern Ireland peace process itself, and not everyone will agree with the conclusions he draws about whether it has actually left the province in the gratifyingly satisfactory state that public opinion generally deems it to be. Whatever one thinks about Northern Ireland, however, the points Trimble makes to show that the analogy with the Middle East are wholly false are entirely sound.

Broadly, there are two key differences. The first is that, whether or not people disagreed with the aim of a united Ireland and abhorred the terrorism used to achieve it, the goal itself was perfectly respectable, unlike the goal of Hamas to eradicate Israel and Islamise the region (I would add that Fatah shares the former aim). Much more important, however, is that that far from the Brits suddenly reaching out to the IRA, it was the IRA that suddenly told the British government ‘the war is over’ and asked to be brought into the political process. And that was because, as Trimble says, it had been beaten into a permanent stalemate. That is entirely different from talking to Hamas which is still attacking Israel through rocket attacks and suicide bomb attempts. In fact, as Trimble says, the British government did talk to the IRA in 1972 when it was still very much at war. The result was disastrous and merely intensified the IRA’s belief that everything was up for grabs.

As Trimble says, it is supreme folly to imagine that peace follows from talking to ‘biddable extremists’, and not just across the Irish sea or in the Middle East.

In Northern Ireland, this has helped to create an account of the past as Irish republicans would have it. The British Government, notwithstanding its achievements in Northern Ireland, has been remarkably acquiescent in this process; indeed, at times it has even encouraged it. In this regard, it is striking that the temptation to ‘buy off’ the loudest and most bombastic is also in evidence in the Government’s approach to the Muslim community in the United Kingdom. After 9/11, as Martin Bright has shown, the Government embarked on an ‘engagement’ with the British/Muslim community that rested on choosing interlocutors who were not genuine moderates but radicals, often of foreign origin. In an attempt to achieve the quiet life, it has made short-term and unsustainable deals, undermining more moderate partners on whom it must rely in the long term.

Absolutely. Appeasement has undermined relative moderates in Northern Ireland, in the Middle East and in Britain and has only served to strengthen and embolden the enemies of freedom and democracy. All those currently pushing ‘engagement’ with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Islamists worldwide are merely helping them do their dirty work. The Northern Ireland paradigm is a lethal illusion.