Ellis Weintraub: Israel Can Learn from 'The Troubles'
[Ellis Weintraub is currently pursuing a Masters in Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.]
Upon the arrival of Sinn Fein President and Northern Irish Republican leader Gerry Adams into the Middle East, Israeli officials will give him the cold shoulder - "We expect all dignitaries who come here to make it clear that they will not dignify Hamas with a meeting," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.
On Adams's previous 2006 trip, he met with Hamas officials, and during his stay he advocated dialogue between the group and Israel, even without the precondition of Hamas's recognition of the Jewish state. Israel should not set as a prerequisite for official engagement a refusal to see Hamas officials.
As a foreign observer, and one bringing with him a breadth of knowledge from a lifetime of dealing with the complexities of Northern Ireland's ethnic and religious conflict, Adams has every right, and indeed he should meet with Hamas; likewise, official Israel should not shun him for so doing.
Perhaps Israel's establishment should take a cue from President Barack Obama on the ability of communication to effectively probe the intentions of hostile parties. President Obama's message of amity and goodwill to the Iranian people on Nowrūz, the Persian New Year, pointed to a profound strategy shift from the animosity of the Bush years towards one of a rapprochement with the Islamic Republic. The overture's quick dismissal by Iran's supreme clerical leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wherein he listed America's ongoing crimes against Iran before crowds chanting "death to America," illustrated well the violent and adversarial nature of the Iranian regime. Thus President Obama seized the moral high ground, and his act will enable him to corral foreign leaders to America's side as he tackles Iran's nuclear program.
When Adams meets Hamas, then he will do Israel's unwilling dirty work of talking with the terrorist organization. Hamas will express the organization's grievances and positions to Adams, and he in turn could convey them back to Israel. Israel, though, will ignore him, much as the Israeli establishment snubbed him when he visited in 2006 following the war in Lebanon. As in 2006, the Israeli powers that be do not wish to give any credence or legitimacy to Hamas by convening with Adams following his Hamas rendezvous. However, this decision portrays Israeli authorities - when unwilling to meet with even an international third party conduit between themselves and Hamas - as unnecessarily intransigent.
Israel has every right to look upon those that meet with the violent organization Hamas with skepticism, but rebuffing them will serve no purpose. Perhaps Israel's cynicism with regards to Adams comes from the long and often antagonistic relationship between Israel and Irish Republicanism. During the dark days of the Troubles of Northern Ireland, Irish Republicans identified with the far-off struggle of the Palestinians, and some went so far as to train with the PLO in Lebanon. Murals found on buildings in Belfast's Catholic neighborhoods depict Arab "freedom fighters" in a common struggle with Irish Republican Army combatants. Many Northern Irish Catholics perceive Israel in a similar fashion to that of the Protestant community, an aggressive colonial movement usurping land from an indigenous population.
Israel's rhetoric, oddly enough, can match the idioms and language-style of Northern Ireland's Protestants. In the past two centuries, Ulster's Protestants have proclaimed their province as a beacon of Protestant liberty and freedom amidst backwaters of Papal tyranny and superstition found on the rest of the island. As the crises of Irish home rule and Irish independence unfolded at the beginning of the 20th century, Ulster Protestants refused to submit to the prospect of "Rome rule," and so they engineered Ulster's exemption from the Irish Free State...
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Upon the arrival of Sinn Fein President and Northern Irish Republican leader Gerry Adams into the Middle East, Israeli officials will give him the cold shoulder - "We expect all dignitaries who come here to make it clear that they will not dignify Hamas with a meeting," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.
On Adams's previous 2006 trip, he met with Hamas officials, and during his stay he advocated dialogue between the group and Israel, even without the precondition of Hamas's recognition of the Jewish state. Israel should not set as a prerequisite for official engagement a refusal to see Hamas officials.
As a foreign observer, and one bringing with him a breadth of knowledge from a lifetime of dealing with the complexities of Northern Ireland's ethnic and religious conflict, Adams has every right, and indeed he should meet with Hamas; likewise, official Israel should not shun him for so doing.
Perhaps Israel's establishment should take a cue from President Barack Obama on the ability of communication to effectively probe the intentions of hostile parties. President Obama's message of amity and goodwill to the Iranian people on Nowrūz, the Persian New Year, pointed to a profound strategy shift from the animosity of the Bush years towards one of a rapprochement with the Islamic Republic. The overture's quick dismissal by Iran's supreme clerical leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wherein he listed America's ongoing crimes against Iran before crowds chanting "death to America," illustrated well the violent and adversarial nature of the Iranian regime. Thus President Obama seized the moral high ground, and his act will enable him to corral foreign leaders to America's side as he tackles Iran's nuclear program.
When Adams meets Hamas, then he will do Israel's unwilling dirty work of talking with the terrorist organization. Hamas will express the organization's grievances and positions to Adams, and he in turn could convey them back to Israel. Israel, though, will ignore him, much as the Israeli establishment snubbed him when he visited in 2006 following the war in Lebanon. As in 2006, the Israeli powers that be do not wish to give any credence or legitimacy to Hamas by convening with Adams following his Hamas rendezvous. However, this decision portrays Israeli authorities - when unwilling to meet with even an international third party conduit between themselves and Hamas - as unnecessarily intransigent.
Israel has every right to look upon those that meet with the violent organization Hamas with skepticism, but rebuffing them will serve no purpose. Perhaps Israel's cynicism with regards to Adams comes from the long and often antagonistic relationship between Israel and Irish Republicanism. During the dark days of the Troubles of Northern Ireland, Irish Republicans identified with the far-off struggle of the Palestinians, and some went so far as to train with the PLO in Lebanon. Murals found on buildings in Belfast's Catholic neighborhoods depict Arab "freedom fighters" in a common struggle with Irish Republican Army combatants. Many Northern Irish Catholics perceive Israel in a similar fashion to that of the Protestant community, an aggressive colonial movement usurping land from an indigenous population.
Israel's rhetoric, oddly enough, can match the idioms and language-style of Northern Ireland's Protestants. In the past two centuries, Ulster's Protestants have proclaimed their province as a beacon of Protestant liberty and freedom amidst backwaters of Papal tyranny and superstition found on the rest of the island. As the crises of Irish home rule and Irish independence unfolded at the beginning of the 20th century, Ulster Protestants refused to submit to the prospect of "Rome rule," and so they engineered Ulster's exemption from the Irish Free State...