Friends of Standing Together UK recently held a webinar where I considered what lessons could be learnt for the Israel and Palestinian situation from the Northern Ireland peace process. I was able to put forward a number of areas in which lessons can be learnt that might help to ease tensions in the Israel and Palestine area and help people to live more fulfilled lives in peace.
Mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation
Even at the height of the Troubles in the early 1970s, how to ring the time of the hunger strikers in 1981, underlying Northern Irish society were Christian values around mercy and forgiveness and reconciliation. When there were surges of violence and rounds of tit-for-tat killings, it was hard to see this, but a Christian ethos was there all at the same, underpinning much of the framework of society.
When the men and women of violence tired of the endless killing and started to seek ways of ending the Troubles, it was made easier by this underlying ethos and belief in the goodness of mercy and reconciliation. It made it easier for leaders to sell the idea of a ceasefire in 1994, or of talking even if indirectly, with former deadly enemies a few years later, in the talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement.
This begs the question of how similar values and feelings can be encouraged in Israel. How can the virtues of mercy and forgiveness and reconciliation between enemies be promoted within society and what aspects of that society can be built upon? What foundations are there within Israeli society on which a house of reconciliation can be successfully built?
Cultural contributions
One aspect of the development of the peace process in Northern Ireland that is often overlooked is that of the cultural contributions which helps to fortify the ethos mentioned in the paragraphs above.
Music and poetry have always played a hugely important part in Northern Irish life. This could be very divisive, as when Loyalist orange bands marched playing tunes like ”The Sash my Father Wore” or when Republican groups sang songs like “The Men Behind the Wire”.
However, there were also many cultural contributions which were critical of the Troubles and were seeking to help people to find ways out of them. One song that I used to sing was called “The Last House on our Street”. I remember being asked to perform this in a pub called Pat’s Bar down by the harbour in Belfast in January 1990. I was a little reluctant as I was singing to an audience who would understand and had experienced the lyrics more directly than I ever could as they lived in Belfast. My performance seemed to go down well anyway! The reason why I was reluctant was because the song was based around a Belfast children’s game about how a child would throw a small ball against a wall, catch it and then pass it to a friend who would do likewise. While the two children play this game, they comment on what they’re seeing around them, including the concrete curtains in the houses and the killing of a girl called Julie Livingstone by a rubber bullet. It was a song which clearly advocated peace, and there were many others such as “The Town I Loved so Well” , a Phil Coulter song about Derry (Londonderry).
As another example one can consider the towering poetry of Seamus Heaney, who was arguably the greatest and most influential poet of these islands in the late 20th century. Many of his poems demonstrated the suffering that the violence was causing.
All of these kinds of cultural contributions tapped into the flame of peace flickering in people’s hearts and minds during the worst of the Troubles. It would seem sensible for us to support similar cultural contributions from either side of the divide in Israel, which can help to bridge that divide and tear down the walls that exist in people’s hearts and minds in Israel.
The media
For the most part the Troubles in Northern Ireland took place during a time before the internet and before what we now call social media. Rather, the media landscape was dominated by newspapers such as the Unionist Belfast Telegraph and the Nationalist Irish News, along with radio and television, particularly the BBC. These media outlets would regularly condemn violence, although the newspapers would tend to condemn violence more if it was perpetrated by those from what they saw as the ‘other side’. However, the fact that the media would condemn violence was helpful.
What perhaps wasn’t so helpful, was the fact that the media would concentrate on violence and the men of violence and not on the many cross-community initiatives which I mentioned above.
One thing we could do is to try to work with sympathetic parts of the Israeli media(if possible) and develop our own media presence in putting forward a different perspective, which can show how people from all backgrounds can work together and live together peacefully. This would seem to be missing from Israel and Palestine at the moment and it is something that we need to work on.
The influence of the USA and other international players
One of the factors that helped to push the peace process along, was that both the UK and Ireland were members of the European Union. This helped the British and Irish governments to work together and feel as they were on the same side, in wanting peace.
There was also the contribution of the USA. This was complicated, but ultimately helpful. The USA was an important ally of the UK, but there were also a large number of Irish-Americans living in the USA. Money for the IRA was raised by Noraid, under the leadership of Martin Galvin, while numerous leading members of the Democratic party, such as Speaker Tip O’Neill and Edward Kennedy were very sympathetic to the Irish nationalist cause, if not the IRA.
On the other hand, there was also the visit of President Clinton to Belfast in November 1995. This greatly aided the peace process as a huge crowd in Belfast City centre welcomed him, in doing so also welcomed peace, as Clinton uttered the words from the Sermon on the Mount, “blessed are the peacemakers”. Following that, it was Clinton’s peace envoy George Mitchell, who played a major role in the delivery of what became known as the Good Friday Agreement.
As for Israel, the situation is of course a lot more difficult. That is a new prospect whatsoever under the US Trump presidency being able to play the role of the honest broker in the situation. However, the strategy undertaken by figures such as John Hume, of a lion not only the nationalist cause but also the cause of peace and reconciliation to the wider global political framework, is still a possible way forward with regards to Israel and Palestine. We could try and help this along by encouraging the UK government to play a more even handed role with regards to the conflict. After all, Britain was the colonial power, which left a difficult situation behind in the first place in 1948.
And finally…’that problem will never be solved’
Lastly, I think there is one important lesson to be learned from the Northern Ireland peace process not just for ourselves but for others as we engage with them. During the Troubles, many people on many occasions, without really knowing much of what was going on, would look at the situation in Northern Ireland and comment that, ‘that problem will never be solved’. The situation today in Northern Ireland is far from perfect; the six counties are probably more segregated now than they have ever been, the so-called Peace Wall in Belfast is still there and the elephant in the room of whether the six counties are part of a united Ireland or part of the United Kingdom hasn’t gone away.
However, the situation is far better than it was in 1972, or for that matter in 1992. A whole generation of young people have been able to grow up in a largely peaceful situation and the peace process has meant there has been an inflow of investment into the area which is also helping to improve people’s lives. People in Belfast can simply get a bus into the city centre as in almost any other city. You do not have to go through an army checkpoint and a corrugated iron wall in the city centre.
This is important for us to remember. In these present dark days, it can seem like the conflict in Israel and Palestine is unsolvable. Again you might hear people saying ‘that problem will never be solved’. Throughout human history conflicts have arisen, and then been solved. And ended. Northern Ireland is an example of this. If peace can come to Northern Ireland, if the Apartheid system in South Africa can come to an end and if the Berlin Wall can come down, then who is to say that the conflict in Israel and Palestine is a problem that will never be solved?
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