Le faux parallèle entre Gaza et l'Irlande du Nord (Eamonn MacDonagh)

Dans un essai brillant, Eamonn MacDonagh @ The Tower démontre l'ineptie du parallèle entre la situation à Gaza et celle qu'a conue l'Irlande du Nord. Selon lui, les tentatives tendant à comparer les "Troubles" et le conflit israélo-arabe ne sert qu'à trouver des excuses au terrorisme et obscurcir les vrais enjeux. Extraits:

[...] In order to grasp just how far this is from the Middle East conflict, readers should imagine a future in which terrorist masterminds Mohammed Deif (if he is still alive) and Khaled Mashaal are prominent political leaders of a Judea and Samaria Autonomous Region of Israel.

They stand politely when “Hatikvah” is played, condemn political violence in all its forms, speak the language of human rights and equality, and claim that their new role is simply a continuation of the struggle for Palestinian national rights by other means. Even more amazingly, the bulk of their followers believe and vote for them. Just how ridiculous this scenario sounds illustrates the chasm separating Hamas from the Provisional IRA in terms of political culture, methods, and aims.

The Provisional IRA was like Hamas in that it was indeed a terrorist organization that deliberately set about killing civilians and attacking soldiers and other security forces. There, however, the similarities end.

Unlike Islamic radicalism, Irish nationalism has always been somewhat ideologically underdeveloped. Nonetheless, a few things can be said with certainty about the worldview of the Provisional IRA. Most importantly, perhaps, the Provos did not see the conflict as a zero-sum game. They did not advocate the genocide or ethnic cleansing of the Protestant majority, did not claim that London was the true capital of Ireland, and were not motivated by an ideology of racial or religious supremacism. Their slogan “Brits Out!” referred to the British state alone, not the Protestant community loyal to it.

On a larger scale, the Provisional IRA did not see itself as just one part of a grand holy war against the presence of a Protestant community in Northern Ireland. Unlike Hamas, the Provos never had the benefit of an Iran or a Qatar to provide it with consistent material and moral support. They did not enjoy the solidarity of a global movement of fundamentalist Catholics willing to use terrorism and mass murder to achieve their religious aims. Nor did they have a growing chorus of sympathizers in the Western liberal democracies. At best, they had to rely on the occasional gift of arms from the crazed Libyan tyrant Muammar Qaddafi and what money deluded immigrants in the bars of Boston and New York could be persuaded to part with. [...]

The Islamic radicalism that motivates Hamas, in contrast, is completely incapable of including non-Muslims. While the Provisionals sought inspiration from Wolfe Tone and others who tried to build an Irish national identity that would transcend religious divisions, the ideology of Hamas is based on racial hatred and the supremacy of one religion over all others. Those with doubts on this point would be well advised to read the organization’s founding Covenant. Hamas is a lot of things, but they are not hypocrites.

Finally, the Provisional IRA never embraced a cult of death or a self-sustaining and self-justifying culture of “resistance.” While many Provos ended up dying for their cause, their objective was always to make others die for theirs. It is as impossible to imagine a member of the IRA committing a suicide bombing as it is to imagine an IRA leader ordering him to do so. The seven members of the Provisional IRA who died on hunger strike in prison in 1981 do not constitute an exception to this; they were engaged in a battle of wills with the British government over the conditions of their confinement and would have happily stopped starving themselves at any time had the British administration ceded to their demands.[...]

Via: Simply Jews