GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor, considers whether lessons for the Middle East can be derived from the peace process
JUST BECAUSE they may appear paranoid, some Israelis will tell you, it doesn’t mean there are not people within its disputed borders, around its borders and beyond its borders who are seriously out to get them.
Just look at Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon, and how they are at one with President Ahmadinejad of Iran in wishing to see Israel and Israelis swept into the Mediterranean.
Most of the politicians, academics and community activists that we met on this visit to Israel fear that Ahmadinejad is fanatical enough to drop the Big One on Israel, should Iran ever develop nuclear capability. They see no double standard in Israel itself having the bomb because, they say, their nukes are a deterrent. They say Iran won’t be allowed to develop the bomb. It’s said quietly, but you tend to believe this threat.
They argue that the much maligned barrier they erected to separate Israelis from Palestinians living in the West Bank – where Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah organisation appears rather precariously in control – is absolutely necessary. It’s tough on the Palestinians, but there are fewer dead Israelis from militant suicide bombers and sniper attack, they say.
Many of the Israelis we spoke to wonder about President Barack Obama: is he being too weak on Ahmadinejad? There are mixed views on the argument that Obama’s current softly-softly approach to Iran, and the Muslim world generally, helped create the post-election pressure that Ahmadinejad is now suffering and also contributed to Hizbullah faring poorly in the recent elections in Lebanon.
Israelis don’t like bad PR. But they can live with it. The recent arrest of Irish Nobel Laureate and Peace People member Mairead Corrigan on a “mercy ship” to Gaza was just another bad headline, as were recent suggestions of a “shoot first, ask questions afterwards” policy in Gaza.
You tell them that Irish people do know about the rocket attacks on Israel, but that most Irish people shudder at what they feel is Israel’s disproportionate and bloody response.
You then hear many Israeli expressions of regret and acknowledgement of mistakes about the killings. But equally, you are left in no doubt that when Israel is attacked it will respond with Old Testament fury. And remember, they add, the modern, surrounded state of Israel was born in 1948 out of the Holocaust and must be fiercely protected.
The Middle East appears a terribly long way away from a genuine peace process. To even suggest some possible useful lessons between Northern Ireland and the Middle East seems verging not only on the arrogant, but on the downright foolhardy.
But nothing ventured. Over in Israel, one couldn’t help recalling one of the most repeated phrases of the Irish peace process: “We are where we are”, invariably used after whatever was the latest political setback or bombing or killings that were destabilising the tentative steps to peace.
It took years to penetrate, but the main protagonists in the Northern peace process finally learned that if they really wanted a deal, they must work in the present, and that it was pretty pointless to endlessly play the blame game.
Oslo 1993, or some variation of it – rather like the slow-burning philosophy of Sunningdale 1973 – appears to be the common-sense template if a deal is ever to be reached in the Middle East. The Oslo Accords of 1993 offered an evolving two-state framework for peace in the Middle East. That all collapsed for a variety of reasons, with fault on both sides.
Perhaps there are a multitude of reasons why a Middle East peace process cannot get off the starting blocks: Hamas’s opposition to the very existence of Israel; the fundamentalist, cynical support it receives from Iran under Ahmadinejad; the problems created through Israeli counter-belligerence; Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Israel’s own fundamentalists.
Northern Ireland had its myriad of what appeared irreconcilable problems, and against the odds – and against the fanatics, they were overcome.
Prior to our visit, Gerry Adams visited Israel and Gaza. Israeli officials wouldn’t meet him because he was talking to Hamas. But Yitzchak Herzog, Israel’s social welfare minister, told us he spoke to him and “helped him go into Gaza”. Herzog was interesting. He is son of Chaim Herzog, a former president of Israel who was educated in Ireland, and grandson of Yitzhak Herzog – friend of Eamon de Valera, first chief rabbi of the Irish Free State, a fluent Irish speaker, and first chief rabbi of Israel.
Recently, Adams issued a pretty balanced report on his visit, notwithstanding that Sinn Féin generally takes the Palestinian line. Adams has credibility with both Hamas and Fatah, and appears willing to act as some form of honest broker if Israel is amenable.
Herzog was careful with his words, but he seemed to see merit in Adams’s involvement. Herzog said that four out of five Israelis “would sign the most far-reaching deal if they know they have partners who are willing to drop their guns, sign a deal and move on”. He says Israel, and that includes its hardline prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wants to work with people who can make a deal stick.
Tony Blair, the special Middle East envoy of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU, may have lost some of his lustre, but from his experience of the Irish peace process he too knows what it takes to make peace. So too does President Obama’s new Middle East envoy, George Mitchell. They know of the uselessness of the “whataboutery” blame game and the necessity of patience.
It’s easy to be dismissive, but these are all serious players who can make a positive contribution – crucially, that is, if the chief local players genuinely want them to make a difference – and that’s a big question, particularly for Hamas.
Between all of them maybe they could find a means of applying some of the lessons of the Irish peace process – maybe even convince the Israelis and Palestinians that the solution lies somewhere in the phrase “Oslo for slow learners”.