February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Republicans have, seeing some similarity between their struggle against British occupation and that of the Palestinian people against Israel, historically regarded the Palestinians as brothers in arms. Sinn Fein has developed links with the PLO over the years while republicans have paid homage to its cause on the gable walls of Belfast.
Equally, unionists identify with Israeli. They view attempts by the Israeli government to defend its borders as being similar to their resistance to a united Ireland. Senior unionist politicians have, on occasion, visited Israeli settlements. DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson was once photographed posing with an IDF machine gun.
But these perceived allegiances have little grounding in reality. Northern Catholics and Protestants share the same small plot of land, a largely similar standard of living and, despite what anyone says, the same religion.
The stark differences that exist between the Israelis and the Palestinians are simply not replicated in Ireland. When violence flares up in the Middle East, it invariably results in the deaths of hundreds of people. Horrible though the violence in Ireland was, it could never compare with the horror witnessed in Palestinian refugee camps and Israeli cities in recent years.
The suggestion that Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams as a leader bears some resemblance to former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is also off the mark.
The comparison first surfaced at the weekend with reports that people within the Bush administration now regard Adams as a Arafat-type figure — one unable to fully commit his political movement to a final, conclusive deal with its enemies.
President Bush’s Northern envoy Mitchell Reiss said Monday this was not the case, and sources suggested it’s highly unlikely that a State Department official would make such a comparison.
However, Reiss’s predecessor as envoy, Richard Haas, said, “Gerry Adams does not want to become like Yasser Arafat will have to choose between the olive branch and the gun.”
Comparisons between Adams and Arafat — a dictator who presided over a pointless intifada that led to the deaths of thousands of his own people — are outlandish. The Palestinian chairman found himself incapable of hammering out an honorable deal with the Israelis, either unwilling or incapable of dealing his own militants, and was politically bankrupt.
Contrast this with Adams. Only three months ago he almost brought the republican movement to the point where the IRA was prepared to disappear forever.
Over the course of 15 years, Adams has convinced the IRA to call a ceasefire, led Sinn Fein into Stormont — the hated seat of unionist misrule for 70 years — signed up to a historic accord that recognized the consent principle and scrapped Articles 2 and 3 in the Irish Constitution and ushered in the circumstances whereby the IRA would happily turn itself into an “old boys association.” All this was achieved without a major split in the organization.
The abortive deal of last December did not collapse due to republican recalcitrance. Who would have thought almost 18 months ago, when Sinn Fein and the DUP were returned as the largest parties in their respective communities, that the IRA would offer to disband in exchange for power-sharing with Ian Paisley? Yet that is exactly what was on offer. Had the DUP dropped its demand for photographs of IRA decommissioning, it’s likely the IRA would have destroyed its arsenal, wound down its units and disappeared for good.
According to Adams this is still in the cards.
God forbid, were Gerry Adams to get hit by a bus crossing the street in New York this week, does the Bush administration seriously think his successor would have the credibility, standing or moral authority within republican ranks to better deliver IRA disbandment?
When the current crisis dies down and the smoke clears, the governments will still have to deal with Sinn Fein and Adams. It is the largest nationalist party in the North and the only one capable of facilitating IRA disbandment.
Still, there is no getting away from the problems that assail the Sinn Fein leader. The call by GOP congressman, and Sinn Fein ally, Peter King for the IRA to go away, the refusal of Irish-American figurehead Ted Kennedy to meet with Adams, and the arrival of the McCartney sisters at the White House have all opened the floodgates to unprecedented anger against republicans in the U.S.
Newspaper columnists have railed at length about the IRA’s continued existence. Following the British and Irish government briefing line against Sinn Fein, many publications have berated the republican leadership over the McCartney killing and the Northern Bank heist.
The New York Daily News felt able to inaccurately state that Sinn Fein had refused to condemn the terrorist attacks of 911 — thus lumping them in with al-Qaeda. (Sinn Fein was in fact unreserved in condemning the attacks.)
The Pittsburgh Tribune Review described the IRA as a “Hibernian Hezbollah run by godfathers in green.”
As long as the IRA exists, the Sinn Fein leadership will remain on the defensive. American officialdom and significant sections of Irish-America, outraged at recent developments, have been abandoning the republican movement.
The notion that come next St. Patrick’s Day, Sinn Fein could still be in the cold house is one that Adams cannot contemplate. To paint him as an Irish Arafat, however, despite the failure of Sinn Fein to remove IRA from the political scene, is to underestimate the essential role he can still play in the coming weeks and months.