THE immediate priority in Gaza is humanitarian relief and reconstruction. But the bigger goal is to seek to end the conflict forever.
People think that that the Israel-Palestine conflict is hopeless and there is a sense of inevitability about it. But the British experience in Northern Ireland shows that the seemingly impossible can happen.
Of course, there are differences. The scale of the conflict was smaller. The IRA didn’t rain down thousands of rockets on Britain, although its atrocities were horrendous. Britain’s existence wasn’t threatened and didn’t bomb or blockade Belfast to tackle the IRA.
The similarity is that there were two sets of people who laid claim to the same small sliver of land and where key representatives sought total victory and couldn’t talk to or trust each other.
Yet there was always an obvious solution to hand and one agreed after years of futile violence. The endgame was that violence should be ended, that any change in the status of Northern Ireland was pursued through peaceful means, and that Ireland and Britain should enjoy deep and co-operative relations, along with full equality and economic change in Northern Ireland.
Political leaders on all sides came to understand that a solution needed to be found, under pressure from ordinary people, peace campaigns and international involvement.
They began with the bigger picture and then took baby steps to achieving it and taking their supporters with them.
For example, Irish republicans had long argued that Britain would hang on to Northern Ireland whatever its people thought. The British Government made it plain that Britain would only stay there if the majority of people wanted that. This declaration of neutrality reassured republicans who were seeking to transform their movement into a political one. The Irish also took back their constitutional claim to reunification. Unionists talked to republicans who eventually destroyed their arms.
Comparisons are not exact, but similar steps would include Hamas revising its view that Israel should be destroyed, Arab states recognising Israel and Israel reaffirming the goal of a Palestinian nation, as well as lifting the blockade of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank.
I am a friend of Israel and also a supporter of a Palestinian homeland – two sovereign and democratic states living side by side to ensure that the bloody events of these last weeks are never repeated.
This isn’t just the right thing, it also affects the peace of the whole world. I urge everyone to do all they can to help bring about this vision by supporting Israelis and Palestinians who want to live together. It happened in Ireland and can happen in the Middle East.
Stephen Hepburn MP is Labour MP for Jarrow
