Robert Malley, a former US negotiator and president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, and currently Senior Fellow and Lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson School for Global Affairs, discusses his book (co-authored with Hussein Agha) Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine.
The episode is sponsored by the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History at UCLA and co-hosted by Prof David N. Myers.
It would be useful if – following Malley’s argument of the need to go back to history – Malley (and some Israeli commentators) could actually try to understand what actually happened in the Northern Ireland peace process )and , for that matter, in the South African case).
I have no illusions that this will ever happen. I simply give up.
The Promised Podcast crew did an entire show with Northern Irish leaders which was called, The “Peace Happens” Edition https://tlv1.fm/?p=53513
Thank you for sending me to the 2018 TAR podcast on Northern Ireland (which I duly listened to). My remark was addressed mainly to Malley’s cursory comment on Northern Ireland. I would have also expected the two hosts to at least probe (if not challenge) Malley’s remark, and more generally, to challenge his narratological explanation of the failure of the two-states solution (which would have profound practical implications).
As we all know, the Good Friday Agreement was the result of a wide range of factors which cannot be replicated in the Israeli/Palestinian side. Incidentally, one of them was the degree of penetration of the IRA military structure by agents from the British military, which enabled the British to understand what the IRA was really thinking. I suspect this did not prove possible for Shin Bet or Mossad in relation to Hamas (unlike what seems to have happened in the case of Iran and Hizbollah). This all goes to show that wishful thinking is no substitute for real actions.
Of course, I understand the reasons for which Israelis (and especially the academic diaspora) regularly mythologize the Northern Irish GFA and also. But why give Malley a free pass?
For the Northern Irish case, I think a discussion with Paul Bew (a historian who was actually deeply involved in the GFA) would be more useful. As far as the South African settlement goes, way back in 2001 Belinda Bozzoli explained why it could not apply to the Israeli/Palestinian case.
Addressing these issues would require a proper discussion, rather than a cursory comment. But I meant what I said. I truly give up.