Conditions for Peace in Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine

How might Hamas be influenced to embark on the same path toward democratic, nonviolent politics that Irish republicanism has trod? This question has been at the heart of recent debates on the relevance of the Northern Irish experience of peacemaking for other seemingly intractable ethnonational conflicts. The inclusion of Sinn F́ein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and the representatives of the pro-British paramilitary groups, is widely regarded as the key to the process's success, yet sharp disagreement has emerged over the methods and mechanisms by which this inclusion was achieved and their applicability to the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Some of the central figures involved in the process have emphasized the opening of unconditional dialogue with militant groups, while others have pointed to the setting of strict conditions and the imposition of sanctions when those conditions were broken. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.