Straw Poll

I was going through old emails--I tend to hold on to many of them forever--and came across the following. It is from 4 years ago, a post by David Wolf to a mail list in Teaneck, when there was supposedly a tremendous breakthrough in resolving the situation in Northern Ireland.

During a press conference, then-Secretary Powell makes a point that this breakthrough is proof of the superiority of negotiations over the use of force. There is no mention of Israel, but you can pretty well assume that he had Israel and the Palestinian Arabs in mind.

Which of course makes Straw's comments at the end all the more powerful.

Poor Colin Powell--he never saw it coming.

Take a look:

Joint Press Availability with British Secretary of State of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Jack Straw
Secretary Colin L. Powell
Washington, DC
October 24, 2001

...QUESTION: Secretary Powell, does the situation in Northern Ireland not show us all that negotiations is really the only way forward in all of these situations? And just secondly, when you met Martin McGuinness yesterday, did he give you assurances that there is no link between the IRA and the FARC guerillas in Colombia?

SECRETARY POWELL: We didn't, when I met with him yesterday, we didn't discuss that. We were just sort of celebrating the progress that was achieved yesterday. And I think negotiations are always to be preferred to military conflict, and even when you have military conflict, it doesn't always result in the kind of classic military win. Very often, it sets the stage for negotiations.

And so I hope what we have seen in Northern Ireland in the last 24 hours, which culminates a process that took many, many years long to get to this point, is an example of what can be achieved when people of good will come together, recognize they have strong differences, differences that they have fought over for years, but it's time to put those differences aside in order to move forward and to provide a better life for the children of Northern Ireland.

FOREIGN MINISTER STRAW: Could I just add one thing to that, if I may? Of course, negotiation is far, far better -- infinitely better -- than military action. As far as Northern Ireland is concerned, we welcome hugely the progress that has been made following the Good Friday Agreement. It also has to be said that before that happened, there had to be a change of approach by those who saw terrorism as the answer. And that approach partly changed because of the firmness of the military and police response to that terrorism. And if there had not been that firm response by successive British governments and others to the terrorist threat that was posed on both sides, we would not have been able to get some of those people into negotiations. We would not be marking what is a satisfactory day in the history of Northern Ireland today.

Imagine if Israel would follow the advice from, of all people, Jack Straw.

Of course, there are drawbacks to having 20-20 hindsight with only one eye open. I realized later that in actuality, neither the negotiations nor the military response had the effect that way assumed back in 2001.

In reality the actual laying down of arms only took place a couple of months ago--after the London Bombing.

Putting aside the differences between England/IRA and Israel/Palestinian Arabs, what may have motivated the IRA to turn the corner may have been the fear of being associated with Moslem terrorists.

Which does not help Israel at all.

Palestinian Arabs will not 'lay down their arms' until the association with real terrorism becomes something that becomes abhorent in their eyes--something Arafat made sure will not happen in the forseeable future.

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