During
the troubles of 1969-97, if Republicans gave their
support to a group beyond Ireland's shores, in all
probability loyalist para-military groups would
support the group in question's opponents. When
the PRM supported in solidarity the ANC, the UDA
without a blink of the eye fell in behind the apartheid
State of South Africa. To an even greater degree
much the same happened with the Israeli/ Palestinian
conflict.
Republicans,
after the 1967 war in the Middle East which resulted
in the State of Israel occupying the West Bank,
Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the Sinai Desert and
the Golan Heights, quite correctly supported the
Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian
people it represented, whilst the Loyalists threw
their support behind the State of Israel. It helped,
I'm sure, that both the Israeli and the Apartheid
State's security services were always on the lookout
for prospective allies, having been given the blackball
by much of the world's respectable societies, bar,
that is, the USA, whose weird and illogical foreign
policy more often than not placed the keepers of
the the Statue of Liberty in the same company as
some of the worst tyrants and rogue states the third
world had to offer.
In practice this support for Israel and the PLO
could be seen on the streets of Belfast by the fluttering
of the blue and white Israeli flag within Loyalist
areas, and within Republican strongholds the Palestinian
tricolor was occasional flown alongside murals proclaiming
"Beirut, Belfast: one struggle, one trench",
or something similar. Beyond these Rangers-Celtic
like displays of loyalty, one wonders how deeply
people within the two communities in the north understood
how the Middle-East conflict affected the average
Israeli or Palestinian.
On the Republican side support for the Palestinians
was almost instinctive. The Palestinian people were
being shafted by a power much greater than their
own, so as a socialist-republican organization,
and seeing itself as part of the wider anti imperialist
struggle, PRM members thought it was their duty
to offer the Palestinian people what support they
could. There was also a similarity in the Palestinian
struggle which Republicans understood only too well,
as it had a resonance with their own and that was
the hand of Perfidious Albion, which had only too
clearly been at work in the Middle East.
Loyalist
support for the State of Israel was far less ideological.
Instead it was based almost entirely on 'my enemies
friend is my enemy'. The strange contradiction about
this Loyalist support for the Jewish State is they
are far from natural bedfellows and one cannot help
thinking the love-fest was entirely one way. It
would not have gone unnoticed within Shin Beit that
throughout most of the period of the armed conflict
in the north, what politics loyalism possessed were
well to the right, especially within the UDA. Indeed,
the UK Nazi parties the BNP, and its predecessor
the National Front, along with the English nazi
para-military outfit Combat 18, forged links with
the UDA. So for the UDA to claim to support the
State of Israel can only be described as weird,
if not surreal.
As
I have already said the Republican links with the
PLO were far more logical, not least because both
the PLO and the PRM were partly born of the political
radicalization which grew out of the struggles that
erupted across the world in the 1960s. In the Third
World this radicalization was mainly expressed around
the completion of national revolutions and the removal
of the last of the imperialist powers. In the West,
although linked to these liberation struggles, they
were also accompanied with demands for more equality
at home, along with an extension of human and civil
rights for the working classes and all races.
Understandably
given the pressure cooker environment Republican's
found themselves in during the years of armed struggle,
their support for the PLO and its policies rarely
gave much thought as to what would happen to the
millions of Israelis who would, had the PLO taken
power in the 1970's, have been driven into the sea.
The same goes for those Loyalists who supported
the Israeli State blindly, and could see no wrong
in whatever it did, including the occupation of
yet more Arab land in 1967. They gave little thought
to the fact that the Palestinian people must have
rights and a homeland of there own.
Gradually as political reality slowly began to sink
into segments of the Israeli body politic and the
PLO, more and more people realized that the only
viable alternative to continuous war-fare and the
oppression of the Palestinian people would be a
two-state solution. Yes, this would mean legitimizing
a great injustice done to the Palestinians in 1948,
when Israel was carved out of their land by the
international community, via the United Nations.
Nevertheless at times for the greater good real-politics
must be recognized, as, just like the Palestinians,
the Jews are going nowhere but the piece of land
many of them call home.
After
the Holocaust that was inflicted on Europe's Jewry
during the years 1933-45, few Jews would ever again
willingly, once Israel was created, take the chance
of annulling the Jewish State, even with all its
imperfections. For unlike during the Nazi period,
the world's Jews are not going to allow themselves
to have no nation of their own which they can retreat
to when the cancer of anti-semitism erupts, and
from which they can defend themselves if necessary
to the death.
Just
as the world paid the Jews penitence for the Holocaust
by creating a Jewish State, it must now do the same
for the gross neglect it has shown to the suffering
of the Palestinian people. Such a two-state solution
will not satisfy all, understandably as it is neither
just nor fair, but it is the best that can realistically
be achieved at this time. To allow the running sore
which is the Arab-Israeli conflict to continue indefinitely
is a far worse option than a two-state solution.
The
recent general election in Israel has shown, given
good leadership, the overwhelming majority of Jews
would accept a viable Palestinian State within the
borders of the West Bank and Gaza. (The Golan Heights
must be returned to Syria, the occupied part of
the Sinai Desert has already been returned to Egypt.)
The
issue of the Palestinian Capital being within East
Jerusalem is more contentious with Israelis; but
it must be so, for just as the city of Jerusalem
is important to Jews, so is it too for Muslims.
Thus, for Jews and Palestinian Arabs to once again
share this city as equals would be fitting. It would
also remove from under the feet of the likes of
bin Laden one of his most basic demands, i. e.,
the return to full Muslim control of Al-Haram al-Sharif,
which
includes Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The
Palestinian people have long been ready to accept
a two-state solution, all we are waiting for is
a US President ready and willing to play the role
of honest broker. Let us hope we are not waiting
in vain.
