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An Irish Idea for Nobel Peace in the Middle East

(Telegraph-UK) Charles Moore - Lord Trimble, the former first minister of Northern Ireland and the only living British Nobel Peace Prize winner, has nominated the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed ("MBZ"), for next year's prize, following the recent signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Trimble won the award for his part in achieving the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. As he noted, "I know from my own experience how dangerous, damaging and corrosive are decades of violent ill will between close neighbors." He thinks the accords can break the logjam. In the Northern Ireland conflict, the Ulster Unionists, whom Trimble led, were mistakenly regarded by most of the diplomatic and media movers and shakers as the main problem. Netanyahu and his Likud Party are the Trimble/Unionist equivalents in the Middle East - widely reviled for intransigence, yet actually far more moderate than the other side, parts of which are deeply compromised by terrorism. The readiness of the Crown Prince and his allies to move came from his recognition that Israel's tough talk is not a way of refusing peace, but of achieving it on tolerable terms. They were also fed up with the way the Palestinian grievance is artificially kept center-stage in all discussions of the region's future. Might not other things matter more, such as the spread of prosperity and the defeat of Iran's nuclear ambitions?
2020-11-26 00:00:00
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