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If you had said in 1988 that The Troubles in Northern Ireland would have a peace accord ten years later no one would have believed you. Everything seemed at a c
by arp242 1y ago
If you had said in 1988 that The Troubles in Northern Ireland would have a peace accord ten years later no one would have believed you. Everything seemed at a complete stalemate, and there is a history going back hundreds of years. Yet in 1998 the Good Friday accords were signed. And now, almost 30 years later, I think we can safely say it's been a huge success.
There are a few things that made this possible. One important factor is the change of prime minister. Whereas Thatcher saw things only in terms of terrorists who need to be fought, John Major had more holistic view and recognised that in spite of the terrorism, there were some real structural problems that needed addressing. Even Ian Paisley admitted as much later in life, which would be roughly equivalent to Ben-Gvir admitting there is something to the Palestinian complaints.
I guess my point is there can be happy endings to these types of conflicts. No one wins with the current situation, certainly not Israel. Punching everyone around you in the face as a defensive strategy works fantastically well right up until the point you take a nap, at which point everyone will stomp on your head like it's a right watermelon.
- FridayoLeary 1y agoI don't know that you can describe northern island as being a happy success story. The most you can say is it's stable which is a success in its own right. You're right in drawing parallels between the two. But the ira seem to be far more pragmatic then the palestinians and for all their sins they never deliberately targeted women and children in the way organised palestinian terror does.
- ablation 1y ago> But the ira seem to be far more pragmatic then the palestinians and for all their sins they never deliberately targeted women https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jean_McConville https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jean_McConville
- OkayPhysicist 1y agoThe parent was alluding to civilians, not spies.
- hn_throw2025 1y agoThe IRA never expected women and children to be near shopping centres? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Manchester_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Manchester_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrington_bombings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrington_bombings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Manchester_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Manchester_bombing
- oliwarner 1y agoNo because the IRA generally called in warnings. In both the 90s Manchester bombings there, people had 75-90 minutes to evacuate, they moved ~80,000 people each time and saw no fatalities. The warning for Warrington wasn't as effective. Terror was the aim, not death.
- NomDePlum 1y agoNorthern Ireland is absolutely a success. Having family that are from there it's utterly unrecognisable to what existed in the 70s and 80s. It's far from perfect but the difference to those on both sides who live there is vast. Paramilitaries on both sides carried out many actions that killed women and children. Nowhere near the scale of Hamas, and certainly nothing close to the magnitude of the IDF.
- Nexxxeh 1y ago[flagged]
- EnPissant 1y ago> Israel is a primarily Jewish country surrounded by neighbours who won't stop kicking each other regardless, and to whom Israel is a common enemy due to religion. Your analogy ignores the neighbours being racist sociopaths that will punch Israel at any opportunity and have done so historically repeatedly. You make a good argument why a European people should not have established a country there. Doubly so considering it was already populated.
- raxxorraxor 1y agoThey didn't. Israel fought for its independence alone. And won. End of story.
- ameminator 1y agoFirst, 60-70% of Israeli Jews are of Arabic descent, not European. Second, while it's possible to complain about the circumstances of the creation of Israel, I'm not sure that doing so now, in context, offers anything constructive. It seems that by most reasonable definitions, Israel is a country, if a small one. Do you suggest that Israel be eradicated? If so, what happens to all the Israelis, who likely wouldn't be welcome in the area after the country's destruction? Is it any more justifiable to ethnically cleanse one group from the area than another? I don't have an answer to this conflict, but it isn't clear to me that suggesting "this country shouldn't have existed at all" is an answer either.
- EnPissant 1y agoZionism was 100% an Ashkenazi project.
- churchill 1y ago>Israel is a primarily Jewish country How did that Jewishness result? It didn't materialize out of thin air, but as a result of the Jews expelling the Arabs from their homes at gunpoint, bulldozing their homes, and then building over the rubble. That has been the bone of contention for 70 years now. Most of the terrorist threat in the West is a result of Israel's meddling in the region and the atrocities that have to be committed to protect them. OBL said as much in his Letter to America.