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"Stand Firm on Hamas," Northern Ireland Peacemaker Advises Israel

[Jerusalem Post] Jonny Paul - Comparing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Northern Ireland is "misleading and demonstrably false," said Lord David Trimble, a 1998 Nobel Peace Laureate for his efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland. He spoke at the launch in Parliament of his report entitled "Misunderstanding Ulster," published by Conservative Friends of Israel. The lessons of the Northern Ireland peace process had been misunderstood, Trimble said, adding that Israel "is not Ulster." "If there is one lesson to learn from Northern Ireland's experience - contrary to what is often recommended in relation to dialogue with Hamas - it is that preconditions were crucial to ending the violence and in producing a settlement," he said. In the 24-page report, Trimble cites the near total collapse of the Northern Ireland peace process on "Bloody Friday" in 1972, when the IRA killed nine people and wounded 130 in a bombing, as evidence that weakening preconditions to dialogue made increased violence more likely.
2007-11-02 01:00:00
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