Daniel Levy is the latest in a long line of misguided pundits who have drawn analogies between how the Northern Ireland conflict was solved and how the Israel-Palestine one might be. I’m not going to repeat why these analogies are false, useless and the product of wooly minds yearning to believe that all problems can be solved by decent chaps like themselves getting together over tea and digestive biscuits for a good chinwag; if you want have chapter and verse on the matter just look here.
If you haven’t the time to read those texts let me offer you a handy summary. The Northern Ireland peace process worked because it allowed the Provisional Republican movement a graceful and painless surrender after it had been militarily and politically defeated by the British state.
“…the product of wooly minds yearning to believe that all problems can be solved by decent chaps like themselves getting together over tea and digestive biscuits for a good chinwag[.]”
Political analysis aside, can I just say I love this line?
I have to agree with ganselmi. Paul Berman makes the same point in his 2002 book, Terror and Liberalism (about how the liberal mind is incapable of appreciating that totalitarians are, er, unreasonable men who happlily slaughter millions in the belief that the ends always justify the means), but Eamonn states it in terms that explain the disconnect.