nearly 68,000<\/a> Palestinians, according to the local authorities. <\/p>\nKristian Brown a politics lecturer at Ulster University in Belfast, said \u201cThe level of challenge in the Middle East now is monumental,\u201d adding \u201cThe level of bitterness, the sense of immediate threat and the levels of destruction (in Northern Ireland) were not as cataclysmic as Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Irish Republican Army eventually agreed to put its arsenal \u201cbeyond use\u201d through a secret process monitored by an international group. This happened while political talks were under way to settle the main disputes, something that more than three decades of US-led peace efforts in the Middle East have failed to accomplish.<\/p>\n
In Northern Ireland, disarmament was slow. The IRA began giving up its weapons in 2001 and finished in 2005, seven years after the peace deal. Several other British loyalist and Irish republican militant groups also disarmed as part of the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe British might be able to counsel patience and pragmatism,\u201d said Niall \u00d3 Dochartaigh, a professor of political science at the University of Galway. \u201cThe IRA leadership had to be helped in various ways to make that argument (for disarmament) within the organisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, decommissioning only happened in the Irish case once the IRA was satisfied that there was a political settlement bedded down,\u201d he added. And while \u201cthe contours of a compromise settlement emerged quite early in Northern Ireland,\u201d a similar consensus in the Middle East appears far off.<\/p>\n
Fragile power-sharing<\/p>\n
The 20-point plan for Gaza includes steps from ceasefire to reconstruction but leaves big questions unanswered, such as the future of Jerusalem, the return of Palestinian refugees, security arrangements, future borders and the scores of Israeli settlements and violence in the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n
The Good Friday Agreement was clearer, setting up a local government and power-sharing system. But even that peace has faced challenges, with occasional attacks and political crises over the years.<\/p>\n
Despite this, Northern Ireland remains mostly peaceful. Parties once linked to violence, like Sinn F\u00e9in, now play major political roles.<\/p>\n
According to Peter McLoughlin, a senior lecturer in politics and history at Queen\u2019s University Belfast, the key to success of Northern Ireland’s peace process was “Engaging those involved with violence and bringing them down democratic paths\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said excluding Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, in the future of the strip, could be a problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there was a broad lesson from the success of Northern Ireland, it\u2019s that an inclusive process worked \u2013 and I mean inclusive in the full sense, all different parties, even including militants,” McLoughlin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHamas is being excluded from the political process and is expected to give up its weapons,” he added. \u201cI don\u2019t know how feasible that is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The return of key players<\/p>\n
Tony Blair is seen as possible advisers for Gaza by Trump. Blair, prime minister from 1997 to 2007, also served as envoy to Israel and the Palestinians for the \u201cQuartet\u201d: the US, EU, Russia and UN. But he remains controversial for backing the Iraq War in 2003 and Trump has acknowledged that Blair might not be \u201can acceptable choice to everybody\u201d in the region.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Jonathan Powell, Starmer\u2019s national security adviser, who attended recent talks in Egypt was praised by US Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff for \u201cincredible input and tireless efforts\u201d in reaching the agreement.<\/p>\n
But Bronwen Maddox, the director of Chatham House, the UK-based international affairs institute, was skeptical about drawing parallels between the two processes. She said Britain \u201ccan play a small diplomatic part\u201d in Gaza, but probably not a decisive one.<\/p>\n
The Northern Ireland peace deal \u201cwas a successful and really important peace negotiation,” she said. “But it was very much of itself, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT As Palestinians and Israelis wait to see what comes after the ceasefire in Gaza, some are looking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,13130,27005,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-509501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-the-gaza-strip","10":"tag-tony-blair","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115395393472862993","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\"){kind=logo}