Sectarian Conflict: Examining Gaza Through the Lense of Ireland

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Disclaimer: This post comes on the heels of the October 2023 conflict in Gaza. A week before, I was engaging with members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), and the Northern Ireland public about The Troubles. I couldn't help but notice stark similarities in the two, and I wanted to communicate my observations here. This post is not an advocacy of any specific political policy. It is simply communicating things that I have observed and learned on my recent travels.

This post was written on 17 October 2023.

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Over the last week (at the time of this writing), conflict has erupted in Gaza. Civilian casualties abound as Hamas militants launched 5,000 rockets into Israeli cities, murdered children at a music festival, and kidnapped and burned Israeli civilians in settlements adjacent to the Gaza Strip. Civilian casualty estimates are astronomically high. Many of these civilian casualties have come from Israeli retaliation against Hamas targets, which, in densely-populated Gaza, almost guarantees non-combatants will be wounded or killed.

The week before this conflict ignited, I spent an afternoon with two militants who participated in The Troubles in Northern Ireland. I got to listen to their very different perspectives and narratives about a political conflict which, while officially under a peace process for 25 years, continues to divide a community and bring violence upon the people off Northern Ireland.

As I watch, read, and listen to the varying perspectives on the current Palestinian conflict, I cannot help but observe substantial similarities in the two. I'm not the only one: there are strong ties between the Irish Catholics seeking independence from the UK and the Palestinians, both politically, where the Irish Catholics express support for Palestinian independence, and militantly, where members of the IRA provide training and support to Hamas and others in prosecuting an insurgency.

Pro-Palestine mural on the Catholic side of the Peace

Wall in West Belfast

Writing something like this isn't meant to be a political statement (until you get to my "Parting Thoughts" at the end). It's meant to be an observation, and somewhat informative for any readers who may know little to nothing about the conflict (looking at you, Mom!). I will be the first to say that there are issues on all sides which need exploring. There are very rarely political conflicts in which one side is 100% right and the other is 100% wrong (although they do exist). The Northern Ireland and Palestine conflicts are no exception. Observing both of them in close proximity to each other on my travels has got me thinking a lot about them, and I wanted to commit those thoughts to paper.

It Started with an Invasion (and not the one you think)

What starts political conflict? Often times military action and occupation. So that is where I'll start.

In 1066, the Normans invaded England, kicking off the Norman Conquest which lasted until 1071. For 100 years, they shaped English social and political culture until, in 1169, they turned their eyes toward Ireland. The invasion ended in 1171, with the subsequent centuries seeing alternating rule between the Normans and the King of England until the monarch solidified its role as the King of England and Ireland in 1542. This rule lasted until 1949, when most of Ireland gained its independence from England; however, the King of England remains the monarch of Northern Ireland.

Similarly, in 63 BC, the Romans invaded Juerusalem and, eventually, the entirety of Judea under the Jewish Hasmonean Dynasty. In 135 AD, nearly 500 years before the founding of Islam, the Romans renamed Judea "Palestine" as a Romanisation of the word "Philistine," the Jews' historical enemy, as retribution for the Kokhba Revolt. For the next almost 1,800 years, this territory would change hands depending on the empire which conquered the area. This lasted until 1922, when the Ottoman Empire fell after World War I, leaving the West to decide how to govern its former territory.

These invasion centuries, even millennia, ago shaped the Northern Ireland and Palestine conflicts of today. The Unionists would have you believe that the conflict started in August of 1969 during the civil rights clashes, and the Palestinians argue it started in 1947 with the establishment of the State of Israel. While arguably the start of the current state of these conflicts, the reality is that they go back far, far into the recorded past. To ignore centuries' worth of social, political, and cultural history and how that shapes conflicts of today is one of the reasons these conflicts continue, as the supporters of each side believe on completely different historical timescales and have vastly different historical memories.

Terrorism as a Defining Feature in the Modern Conflict

As with all conflicts which span centuries and millennia, they are replete with armed conflict. In the modern stage of these two conflicts, these arms took on a new face: automatic weapons, rockets, and improvised explosive devices, often used in the form of terrorism (I use the word in the professional sense meaning the use or threatened use of unlawful violence by non-state actors intended to coerce a government or intimidate the public to bring about political change). All sides of these conflicts have participated in such terrorism at some point in their history:

- The IRA (and its successor and partner organisations), self-styled as a political organisation participating in armed resistance against an oppressive state, used notice and no-notice bombs, threw Molotov cocktails over the Peace Wall, and murdered far more Irish Catholics than British Protestants in their actions. The IRA no longer exists, but its successor organisations and Sinn Fein still do.

- The Ulster Volunteer Force (and its partner organisations) styled themselves as defenders of the Protestants against IRA terrorism, but ultimately ended up participating in terrorism themselves using the same tactics against the Catholics. It exists to this day, although in a dormant form.

- The Haganah, Irgun, "The Revolt", Sikrikim, and other Zionist terrorist groups have existed in modern-day Israel since before the fall of the Ottoman Empire. They committed bombings against the British occupation forces post-WWII, attacked Islamic communities, and to this day commit sporadic violence against both Palestinian communities and the Israeli government, which they view as not Jewish enough.

- Hamas, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and Lebanon-based Hizballah are all active terrorist organizations fighting against Israel's existence (per their own public statements). While they claim to be participating in armed resistance against an oppressive state, they have killed far more Israeli civilians than they have Israeli government forces, and more than 75% of the Palestinians killed by these groups had no involvement in the conflict.

The age-old question of "what causes terrorism?" plays out in the conflicts of Northern Ireland and Palestine. Social scientists and security studies professionals will point to economic development, political participation, civil rights, and myriad other factors as reasons people and groups resort to terrorism. Some realists say it is simply because nothing else has worked. But the reality is far more simple, and can be found in these groups' stated objectives. The groups on either side of each conflict want something, and they will take it themselves instead of relying on a government to achieve it for them. Neither the Irish Catholics of Northern Ireland nor the Palestinians have a formal army to wage war on their behalf (with war being an extension of diplomacy), and they are up against a government with comparatively infinite resources and a formal military to protect its interests and people. On the other side, the Irish Protestant and the Zionist terrorist groups believe that their governments aren't doing enough to ensure and protect their interests, and claim to be acting as a sort of vanguard on behalf of their people against terrorists on the other side because the government won't.

Government Over-Reaction Fuels the Sectarian Flames

"If we destroy human rights and rule of law in the response to terrorism, they have one." - Jack McCoy (Law and Order).

How do you defeat terrorism? Violent repression, inclusion in the political process, economic investment, and more have all been an answer tried through the centuries, and Northern Ireland and Palestine are no exception. However, it never seems to be enough to placate terrorist groups and return them to the political fold (something that is a common feature of conflicts across the world). When the government finally has enough, it tends to gravitate towards the first in the list: violent repression.

In Northern Ireland, the British government deployed troops in August 1969 to quell the sectarian violence. However, within a year, they became occupationist forces participating in the same violence they were sent to prevent. Eventually, the British government established a policy of internment, where ostensibly-IRA terrorists were held without trial for indefinite periods until evidence of their crimes could be gathered.

Similarly, the Israeli government has implemented harsh living conditions on Palestinians as a whole in response to terrorism. In the most recent conflict, this included shutting off water and energy to all of Gaza, which has a population of two million people, most of which are not engaged in terrorist activity. Over the last 80 years, there have been example after example of the Israeli government attacking or performing retributive acts against Palestinians for the actions of their so-called resistance fighters.

Even if we can't say exactly what causes terrorism, we can certainly say what fuels it. The British and Israeli over-reactions to terrorist acts against them and their people, while some may view as objectively justifiable, only fuels the flames of the sectarian violence. They play straight into the terrorists' narrative; unfortunately, they also legitimize it.

Caught in the Crossfire

From the carpet bombings and the Blitz of World War II to the on-going counterterrorism operations in northern Syria, civilian casualties are a regrettable, yet predictable, consequence of any armed conflict, and Northern Ireland and Palestine are no exception.

On one street in one Protestant community alone, the IRA committed 17 no-notice bombings and shootings, killing over 300 innocent civilians who were simply going about their day. A van full of explosives exploded outside of a public library, a stray bullet from a shooting targeting a pub killed a little girl, and a package bomb obliterated a fish shop and its patrons. Just a few months before this writing, there was an assassination against a police inspector who was simply going about his day. If you were to ask the IRA or Sinn Fein about these incidents, they will simply claim collateral damage or casualties of war.

Similarly, in the most recent conflict in Palestine, Hamas indiscriminately fired 5,000 rockets into Israeli cities, killing hundreds (an unfortunate regular occurence), committed a masacre at a music festical filled with teenagers, and kidnapped both children and the elderly, threatening execution if the Israeli government did not comply with their demands. In 1972, Black September murdered two members of the Israeli Olympic team. If you were to ask Hamas, the PLO, PFLP, or Hizballah about these civilian casualties, they will, unlike the IRA or Sinn Fein, claim that they are legitimate targets, as all Israelis and Jews are colonisers, a part of the oppressive system, and, therefore, legitimate targets.

Unfortunately, the respective governments were also guilty of such casualties. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), which was the official, overwhelmingly-Protestant police force in Northern Ireland killed five people involved in the August 1969 protests. I met a man whose brother was killed by the RUC in a drive-by shooting. Official records indicate 188 civilians were killed directly by the British military, including 22 which were not from Northern Ireland at all. However, 188 is nothing compared to the over 1,600 which were killed by the terrorist groups and the RUC (with Republicans accounting for 60% of those killings and Unionists accounting for 30% of those killings).

The Israeli government's civilian toll is much higher, largely because of vastly different circumstances from Northern Ireland. The terrorist groups in Palestine use hospitals, apartments, and schools for weapons caches, headquarters, and staging areas. To attack these groups means the Israeli government has to target otherwise non-combatant infrastructure. While they give warning, the urban density of the Palestinian territories means that civilian casualties are going to occur as collateral damage. At the same time, the Israeli government has mistakenly attacked civilians believing them to be terrorists (some accounts believe this to be intentional targeting, but I'm an optimist).

Unfortunately, political conflict isn't restricted to its participants, and innocent people are caught in the crossfire, intentionally or unintentionally. These casualties only fuel the narratives on each side, who showcase them as an example of how one side wishes death and suffering upon the other. The impact of these casualties on families, loved ones, and communities often falls on deaf ears and is ignored in favour of the oppression narrative.

The Wall

Do walls work? That is a substantial debate in today's world of refugee crises and uncontrollable mass migration. One of my guides in Belfast put it perfectly: "What do I do when my kids fight? I separate them. When I turn my back, they start fighting again, so I separate them again. Eventually, I just put them in different rooms so they will stop fighting. That is what the British government did here with the Wall." Unfortunately, he is correct. Peace lines separate groups which would end up fighting and killing each other all across the world.

In Belfast, there are more than 30 of these, with the longest being over 7 kilometers long. These were erected during The Troubles, yet remain in place to this day, 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement. On one side of the wall are the Irish Catholics, and on the other are the British Protestants. The original wall is 20 feet high, 1.3 meters thick, and sunk 3 meters into the ground; nearly impenetrable. But then attacks came from above, so they added 10 feet of metal siding. Then on top of that, they added 10 more feet of chainlink fencing. While it is true that this wall has kept an uneasy peace, the UVF man I spoke with said that the existence of this wall means there is no peace. "We have a peace process, but no peace."

This wall doesn't just separate the Catholics and the Protestants. It separates everything. There are separate schools for Catholic and Protestant children, some of them not even a quarter full. The two communities have different police forces. They have different bus systems. They have their own restaurants, shops, and tradesmen. There are vehicle gates which open at 6h and close at 19h everyday, meaning that anyone who comes home later will have to drive all the way around the community to the end of the wall. The IRA man said that the only people you will see walking through the gates rather than driving are tourists, because it is too dangerous for a Catholic or a Protestant to do so.

Israel, too, has such so-called peace lines separating the Palestinian territories from the rest of Israel. There is a border wall surrounding Gaza and the West Bank, constructed by Israel to stem the flow of Hamas, PLO, PFLP, and Hizballah terrorists into Jewish lands. Unlike the peace lines in Belfast, however, these walls wholly encompass the Palestinian territories with only a few crossing points and no option to go around. Unlike in Belfast, there are no opportunities for these communities to cross over to the other and attempt peace where their politicians will not. Unlike Belfast, it is not just the people who are segregated from each other, but also utilities, food, water, and security forces, over which the Palestinians have no control. These walls take total segregation to the extreme.

These walls also serve to minimize violence between the communities, but, again, unlike Belfast, fail to do so. In the most recent conflict, Hamas fighters broke through; sadly, this is not a requirement. Terrorists ostensibly supporting the Palestinian people often uses Katyusha rockets to indiscriminately attack Israeli cities from the Palestinian side of the wall. In response, the Israeli government uses air and artillery strikes against terrorist targets in these territories. The walls did not stop the violence; they only shifted them from the ground to the air. Their sole purpose now is to maintain the segregation.

The Peace Process

"It's always the same. When you fire the first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die. You don't know whose children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken? How many lies shattered?! How much blood will spill before everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning: sit down and talk!" - The 12th Doctor, Doctor Who, The Zygon Inversion.

What does peace look like? That is a basic question on which no one can agree.

Tony Blair's government brokered the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. This agreement brought the end of The Troubles and established a peace process to finally put the Northern Ireland Nationalist-Loyalist debate to rest. It called for each side to cease their armed operations, and both sides formally announced that they were shifting their political struggle from one of armed resistance to political participation. If only it were so simple.

Sinn Fein, on the Irish Catholic side, refuses to participate in the British government, despite being duly elected members of parliament in their districts. At the same time, the British Protestants refuse to recognise (or work with) a Northern Irish government in which bombers and shooters from The Troubles serve as members of the Irish Parliament, including ministerial posts. While the Good Friday Agreement ended the armed conflict, it did not require disarmament or disbandment. As a consequence, the potential for violence remains relatively high. As recently as 2022, the UVF established a new company of paramilitary volunteers, which is proudly displayed in a mural on the side of a two-story building, to protect its community from what it calls Sinn Fein/IRA violence, despite the group being recognised as an illegal terrorist organisation.

When it comes to the Palestinian conflict, the peace process problem is a bit more straightforward. There have been many attempts to initiate peace talks. The Camp David Summit, which could have finally established a Palestinian nation-state, failed largely because the Palestinian Authority refused to compromise on anything with Israel. The Oslo Accords saw moderate success for self-governance in the West Bank for a time, but this was undone by terrorist attacks and government retaliation. The 2007/2008 peace talks fell apart largely because neither side was willing to commit the final border drawings to paper. While the moderates on both sides have openly moved towards supporting the two-state solution, they have been unsuccessful in swaying the majority of their population of doing the same. Even if they were to do so, the "ownership" of Jerusalem likely will be the crux of the peace process, and neither side will be willing to budge on that topic.

Who Keeps Who in Chains?

When I was in Iraq in 2018, popular Iraqi opinion was divided into three categories: Iraqi nationalists (mixed between Sunni and Shi'a), Iran supporters (who wanted closer ties within the Shi'a Crescent), and those who resigned themselves to, maybe even begrudgingly support, Islamic State (IS) (the terrorist group). Almost everyone would be surprised by the latter category, but their logic was simple. The phrase was, "At least under IS..." At least there were working utilities. At least there was some form of education. At least there was a functional tax system. At least there was food. Sure, there was religious fundamentalism, brutal Sharia law enforcement, and a rolling back of civil rights, but which is worse: to live under an oppressive theocracy or to starve under a non-functioning democracy?

Which was better during The Troubles: to live in constant fear of being obliterated by a no-notice bomb or to live with a different set of rights than your neighbours? By that token, which is better today: to live with an abstentionist, non-functioning government of your people or to participate in the political process of those who you are fighting against? Sinn Fein refuses hold its members accountable for the violence they perpetrated during The Troubles. It was reportedly Sinn Fein who assassinated the police inspector in early 2023, straining an already uneasy peace. It is Sinn Fein who refuses to trigger the referendum guaranteed by Northern Ireland Act of 1998, which would finally decide whether or not Northern Ireland is ceded to the Republic of Ireland and the Irish nation is once again unified (likely because Northern Ireland opinion polling shows that such a referendum would fail).

And what of Gaza? Live under an oppressive Hamas who will literally die for the slogan "from the river to the sea" or submit to the elected Palestinian Authority who may compromise on key issues of Palestinian sovereignty? In 2007, Hamas took over governance of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority by force, effectively splitting Palestinian governance between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. Hamas formed a second goverrnment years later, again without elections. At the same time, Hamas rains rockets down upon Israel, inviting overwhelming, disproportionate retaliation (and retribution) upon the Gaza Strip from the Israeli government. Hamas does this knowing full well that it is nearly imposible to target Hamas in Gaza without civilian casualties and damage to critical infrastructure. Why doesn't Hamas hold local elections? Why doesn't it submit to the authority of the Palestinian Authority? Because it is likely Hamas would lose on the political battlefield, and it cannot afford for the world to see that it is not representative of the Palestinian people.

It is ironic that the people fighting for the independence of their people are the ones whose illegitimate actions ensure such independence will not be recognised.

Parting Thoughts: Stuck in the Past, Unable to Look to the Future

Societies rise and fall, countries form and disintegrate, but tribal nationalism lasts forever. Unfortunately, "the dead past lies like a nightmare on the minds of the living" (Harry Pearce, Spooks). The invasions which started these two conflicts happened centuries upon centuries ago. The partitions which reignited the modern conflicts happened 75 to 100 years ago. The peace processes to resolve them have been in place for more than 25 years. But the conflicts continue. Bullets continue to fly. Each side refuses to yield today because of the acts, and atrocities, of the past. Neither side will admit fault of their acts, or atrocities, of past. Because of this, these conflicts continue. Sure, they are not always in open armed conflict. There are period of relative peace, but the conflict is always simmering beneath the surface.

The only way forward is to throw off the chains of the past and live in the reality of the present.

The island of Ireland has not been a fully independent nation for nearly a thousand years. The notion that sectarian violence directed at communities rather than participating in the political process will bring about a united, independent Ireland is, quite simply, ludicrus. Armed conflict after armed conflict in the past, including rebellions and a brutal civil war, failed in this endeavour, and it is unlikely violence will ever succeed in the future. It is possible, with a devolved government in the UK style, to be truly Irish in the ways that it matters: culturally, socially, and with common heritage. There are few barriers between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland today. Sure, their currencies are different, but there is free travel between the two, freedom to work between the two, and even Irish citizenship guaranteed to everyone who was born on the Emerald Isle. True, the Northern Irish wouldn't control their foreign or defence policy, would have to pay taxes into the UK system, and participate in the National Health Service for healthcare, but many, including me, would argue that that is advantageous to anyone who holds dual UK-Ireland citizenship.

The Palestinian conflict is no different, only older. Palestine has never been an independent country. Ever. The last time Palestine was independent was when it was called Judea in BC times. Since then, it has been conquered and re-conquered by empire after empire. The notion that 75 years ago suddenly kicked off Palestinian occupation is not grounded in reality. To the contrary, unlike Northern Ireland, there have been resolution after resolution presented to guarantee a version of independence to Palestine and formally, for the first time in history, recognise a Palestinian nation-state governed by Palestinians separate from the dominance of Israel. The Palestinians, however, refuse to budge on Jerusalem and demand the whole of Israel as its territory. "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" leaves no room for interpretation. Despite the numerous advantages to peace negotiations presented over the past 75 years, the sectarianists continue to fight against peace and, therefore, ensure continued conflict.

The only way forward for these conflicts is the negotiating table, the renunciation of violent sectarianism, and the disarmament, disbandment, and legal prosecution of the militant groups involved. The participants in these conflicts must awake from the nightmare of the past, throw off the chains of sectarianists who continue the conflict, and open their eyes to the reality of today and the potential for tomorrow. Until and unless this happens, however, there will be no way forward. There will be no peace.