The BBC is carrying a story today about a 400 pound bomb left at a police station in Northern Ireland, apparently by ‘dissident’ members of the IRA. On the same night, there was a gun battle between the dissidents and the police. Fortunately the bomb only partially exploded and the damage was limited.
This is bad news for Northern Ireland, where many people hoped that the violence was fading away. It is worse news for the Middle East; it underlines just how hard it’s going to be to get a lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Ireland was partitioned in 1922; most of the island became independent from Britain, with Ulster voted to stay in the UK. That was 87 years ago next week; car bombs are still going off and armed gangs are still staging attacks.
On that schedule, if peace between Israel and the Palestinians is declared this year, terrorists will still be striking in the year 2086. Frankly, I think that’s pretty likely. The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is even more bitter than the Anglo-Irish conflict was, and the issues are even harder to sort out.
This isn’t just an academic speculation. The only reason most Israelis would favor making the concessions peace with Palestinians would require (dismantling settlements, dividing Jerusalem, giving diplomatic recognition to the Palestinian state) would be to increase Israel’s security. But if ‘peace’ will be followed by 90 years of car bombs and gun battles anyway, why bother?
There have been many peace deals in Ireland. The problem is that every time negotiators reached a deal, a minority walked out. The Irish Republican Army rejected the peace that the Irish Free State accepted. The Provisional IRA rejected agreements that the old IRA endorsed. And the ‘Real IRA’ thinks the Provisional IRA has gone soft.
Among Palestinians, Hamas rejects what Fatah can buy. Already in Gaza we see even more radical ‘Islamist’ factions who reject any sign that Hamas might soften its stand. And if in the fulness of time the Islamic Jihad should sign up to some kind of arrangement, we can be fairly confident that the equivalent of a “Real Islamic Jihad” will spring up to carry on the killing.
This doesn’t mean we should give up on peace. Progress is progress, and Northern Ireland is a much more peaceful place today than it was in the 1970’s. Even partial solutions can make things better, and allow both Israelis and Palestinians to enjoy better lives.
Still, President Obama should keep Northern Ireland in mind as he seeks to get the peace process back on track. Israelis are unlikely to make big concessions to Palestinians in order to get a peace that won’t stop terrorism. And Palestinians are unlikely to enter into serious talks with Israel without some concessions upfront that help them demonstrate the value of peace talks to their skeptical grass roots.
Squaring this circle isn’t easy, as President Obama has been learning the last few months. And things can always get worse, as my friend and colleague Steven Cook points out in The New Republic. We will be struggling with this one for a long time to come.