rachamim18 said:
As for "engaging HAMAS, etc..." The IRA , or rather Sein Feinn renounced violencly formally, did it not? I mean prior to sitting at the table. HAMAS on the other hand has not. not only does it reatin the right to use violence aginst anyone it chooses, including non-combatants, it also retains an unabridged Charter that calls for the estermination of EVERY Jew on the planet. I highly doubt that had the IRA published a mission statement calling for the extermination of every Brit on the planet that they would have been allowed to sit at the negotiating table. Correct me if I am wrong.
Hamas and the IRA are by no means identical, but throughout the troubles negotiations continued behind the scenes. An unconfirmed reason for the 1st ceasefire in 1994, followed by the 2nd in 1997, was reportedly due to John Major suggesting the possibilty of a united Ireland being secured within the European Union.
This seems extraordinary considering the troubles of the Major government in securing entry into the European Union, which remains incomplete to this day, but may well have been a reason for the 1st ceasefire, and it's subsequent unravelling, before the 2nd was declared.
The ceasefires were never a renuncation of violence. They were what they were, ceasefires, which by definition contained within them the promise to return to violence at the drop of a hat, or pull of a British squaddies trigger.
The route to peace can never be secured if one side demands a renunciation of violence before the stages of ceasfire have been gone through. This is, leaving all other reasons aside, due to the nature of the IRA Army Council (or equally the Hamas equivalent) some of which would never, and have never renounced violence, and those who recognised or believed that the route to peace must ultimately be a political one.
Expecting a full renunciation of violence before negotiations is either to misunderstand the complex tensions pulling inside any military organisation, and the need for a process through which to end the armed struggle, or to willfully ignore those tensions as an excuse not to give ground either.
The current dominant voice within Israel, I would suggest, is to willfully ignore these tensions which make it impossible for Hamas to renounce violence in one mouthful. This suggestion is based upon an assumption that Israeli's are intelligent enough to fully understand these tensions.
An example of how explosive tensions within Ireland were, even after the 2nd ceasefire of 1997 was declared, are found in the Omagh bombing of 1998, carried out by the 'Real IRA', a splinter group of the Provisional IRA, which rejected the ceasefire. This bombing may have destroyed the ceasefire, it's clear intention.
Instead the voices within the Provisional IRA were such by that time, that some of those responsible for the Omagh bombings may well have been assasinated by the Provisional IRA, and which ultimately paved the way for full renunciation of violence in 2005, some 33 years after the full re-eruption of the troubles following Bloody Sunday in 1972.
Even at the bloodiest moments, there are those working behind the scenes to secure a pathway towards peace. The people who are ultimately in the strongest position to secure that peace are those waging the violence. I cannot say for sure, but I am quite convinced that there will be voices within Hamas, and within other 'terrorist' organisations attempting to secure a route away from armed struggle. That has to be engaged with, and encouraged, whether openly or behind the scenes.
