From mailbox.

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Can Mitchell turn Jerusalem into Belfast? - Ali Abunimah

US President Barack Obama's appointment of former Senator George
Mitchell as his new Middle East envoy is a good choice. Mitchell
showed even-handedness uncharacteristic of US officials when he led
a fact-finding mission to the region in 2000.

Had its recommendations been followed -- cessation of all violence
and a full freeze of Israeli settlement construction on occupied
Palestinian land -- the peace process might have made progress.
Mitchell, who is already in the Middle East, helped broker the 1998
Belfast Agreement, the key to ending decades of strife in Northern
Ireland. Because of historical similarities, that peace agreement is
an important precedent for Palestinians and Israeli Jews.

Before 1948, European Jewish settlers, newly-arrived in Palestine,
wanted their own state once British colonial rulers withdrew. But
because Jews were a minority, the only way to achieve this was a
partition that the majority Arab Palestinian population, fearing
dispossession, bitterly opposed. When Israel was established in
1948, most Palestinians were forced from their homeland, and those
remaining became second-class citizens in a "Jewish state."

The modern conflict in Ireland began when Great Britain, facing
resistance from Irish nationalists, decided to withdraw after
centuries of rule. But the Protestant ruling class -- a quarter of
the population -- descended from English and Scottish settlers,
insisted that Ireland remain tied to Britain. These unionists
refused to live in a state with a nationalist Catholic majority.

To appease the unionist minority, which threatened violent rebellion
if it did not get its way, Britain partitioned Ireland in 1921,
creating Northern Ireland, an entity whose legitimacy nationalists
refused to recognize.

As Israeli Jews did to Palestinians, Protestants institutionalized
their own culture and religion as the official creed and violently
suppressed expressions of nationalist identity. In the words of its
first prime minister, Northern Ireland's seat of government at
Belfast's Stormont Castle was a "Protestant parliament for a
Protestant people." Catholics faced systematic discrimination in
jobs and housing.

Nationalists launched a civil rights movement in the 1960s inspired
by the one in the US. Protestant unionists violently resisted
demands to share power and reform, but the numerical growth and
assertiveness of the nationalist Catholic population within Northern
Ireland made such intransigence untenable.

In 1972, Britain sent in troops and imposed direct rule. During 30
years of "The Troubles," 3,700 people died at the hands of the Irish
Republican Army (IRA), Protestant militias, British forces and
others.

The Mitchell-led Belfast Agreement ended formal Protestant hegemony
in favor of equality, mitigating partition's injustices. It promised
that government power "shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality
on behalf of all the people" and guaranteed "just and equal
treatment for the identity, ethos, and aspirations of both
communities. "

Decades of bloody conflict left deep social divisions. But a
framework for nondiscriminatory democratic governance has allowed
nationalists and unionists within Northern Ireland to begin to shed
their siege mentalities. While formal partition of Ireland remains,
it is disappearing on the ground as anyone can live, work and move
freely, and official cross-border bodies are integrating the
infrastructure and economies of the two jurisdictions on the island
of Ireland.

The power-sharing executive in Belfast, led by staunchly nationalist
Sinn Fein (closely affiliated with the IRA) and the hardline
Democratic Unionist Party, was once as inconceivable as a government
made up of members of Hamas and Israeli politicians would be today.
US diplomacy played a key role by putting pressure on the stronger
parties -- the British government and Protestant unionists -- in
favor of the weaker nationalist side. Instead of shunning Sinn Fein
the US, prodded by the Irish American lobby, insisted it be brought
into the process.

By 2010, Palestinians will outnumber Israeli Jews in Israel, the
West Bank and Gaza Strip combined. The two groups can no more be
totally separated than Protestant unionists and Catholic
nationalists in Ireland.

Like Irish nationalists, Palestinians will never recognize the
"right" of another group to discriminate against them. Like
Protestant unionists did, Israeli Jews insist on their own state.
Israel's "solution" is to cage Palestinians into ghettos -- like
Gaza -- and periodically bomb them into submission just so Israeli
Jews, their relative numbers dwindling, can artificially maintain a
Jewish state.

If Mitchell is allowed to apply Northern Ireland's lessons, then
there may be a way out. But he goes to Jerusalem with few of the
advantages he brought to Belfast. The Obama administration remains
committed for now to the failed partition formula of "a Jewish
state" and a "Palestinian state" and maintains the Bush
administration' s misguided boycott of Hamas, which overwhelmingly
won Palestinian elections in 2006. And the Israel lobby -- much more
powerful than its Irish American counterpart -- warps US policy to
favor the stronger side, an intransigent Israel committing war
crimes. If these policies don't change, Mitchell's efforts will be
wasted and escalating violence will fill the political vacuum.
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Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One
Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse An
abridged version of this article first appeared in The Detroit Free
Press.
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why is abulimah interested in jerusalem now? When east jerusalem was part of Jordan for 19 yrs was he interested?

I don't see a reason why the partition shouldn't remain. The PLO and right wing Israeli groups would find it hard to coexist.

they cant co-exist in isolation but think they will co-exist together as a nation? Even Jordanians who are 50% palestinian dont want HAMAS or the PLO . . . its the jews they will now live in peace with?

Abulimah pls tell us the truth joo.

@ AFAM
Kind of wondering where you've been all this while, miss your intellectual comments and posts on Nigerian and international politics, as to the post I kinda agree with you,

oreshade:

@ AFAM
Kind of wondering where you've been all this while, miss your intellectual comments and posts on Nigerian and international politics, as to the post I kinda agree with you,

of course . . . as a slave of allah and a pseudo-arab what do we expect? Rational reasoning is not your forte.

@ davidylan
ah ah ah funny boy

@Poster

Please avoid culling craps from the obscure news outlets and pasting them on this forum. The ill-fated article lacked the elementary analysis and historical comparison between Jerusalem and Belfast.

@ olanajim
Did you mean: eeyyaa

oreshade:

@ AFAM
Kind of wondering where you've been all this while, miss your intellectual comments and posts on Nigerian and international politics, as to the post I kinda agree with you,

I have been around even though extremely busy with a couple of projects, will have more time on my hands soon.

Dede1:

@Poster

Please avoid culling craps from the obscure news outlets and pasting them on this forum. The ill-fated article lacked the elementary analysis and historical comparison between Jerusalem and Belfast.

Obscure new outlets? May be. You don't expect the main stream media to carry such news items because they are mostly being controlled by the same corrupt and highly biased group that support lies and misinformation.

Craps? Well, if you had demonstrated that you understood the meaning of the word then I would have taken time to respond accordingly. But for now keep swimming in the ocean of ignorance.