“Lessons from Northern Ireland” in Israeli Public Discourse: The Politics of Analogies in Conflicted Societies

Abstract

The Northern Ireland 1998 Good Friday Agreement has generated a global industry of “lessons from Northern Ireland” to other conflict situations. While a lively polemical literature has been debating what exactly should these lessons be and whether they could be validly exported, this article adopts the prism of the “politics of comparison”: examining why and how certain actors appeal to analogies with other societies, and the causes and functions of such appeals. The article explores the case-study of the resonance of the Northern Ireland analogy in Israeli public discourse. It identifies and analyses four themes: the analogy with Northern Ireland is used as an argument for hope; as a source of peacemaking models; as self-justification, to deflect blame; and to legitimize narrow local interventions. The article contributes to literatures on the politics of comparisons, and political dynamics in the context of intractable conflicts.

In 2011, Israeli Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu granted a rare comprehensive interview to CNN—considered important enough for the PM office to publish a full transcript of the interview, in English and in Hebrew translation. ¹ The main topic, as always, was the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the lack of meaningful negotiations with Palestinian leadership. Netanyahu defended Israel’s policies, but the interviewer, Piers Morgan, advanced a new argument: the analogy between Israel and Northern Ireland (NI). “The parallels are pretty obvious,” he said, adding: “you have two people who don’t trust each other, they’ve been killing each other for decades but eventually they brought peace. And it can be done.” Netanyahu appeared to have been familiar with the argument, and responded: “Everything you said about Northern Ireland is right except one thing. The IRA never wanted London. They never wanted to destroy Britain and take over it.” The analogy was repeated through the interview, with Netanyahu rejecting its implications while Morgan suggesting that the NI peace deal shows that a similar breakthrough can occur in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This has been but one illustration of the trend explored in this article: the uses of the NI analogy and its lessons in Israeli public discourse. This analogy is examined here as a case-study of the broader phenomenon of the politics of analogies in conflicted societies: how different actors use analogies with cases abroad to advance their political goals.

The NI case is especially pertinent in this regard. Although, as will be elaborated below, the analogy between NI and Israel has been particularly prominent, it has been part of a much wider trend positing that lessons from the NI peace process should apply in other conflicts. The notion that “Northern Ireland, long a byword for the intractability of ethno-national conflicts, now exemplifies how such conflicts can be resolved” (Anderson, 2008: 85), has been accepted by numerous academics, policymakers, and civil society activists, and a flurry of “lessons from Northern Ireland” to other conflicted places has appeared (Cochrane, 2012; Hazleton, 2013; McGrattan, 2015; White, 2013). Politicians—from NI and Britain, as well as, for example, American presidents including Clinton and Obama—presented the NI conflict as a model for conflict resolution elsewhere, and applauded the Good Friday Agreement for setting an “example” and as a “blueprint to follow” for other conflicts (Hughes, 2014). ² Comparisons between NI and other cases have been made regularly, with the assumption that lessons can be offered—among others in relation to the Basque Country, Kashmir, Western Sahara, Sri Lanka, Iraq, the Philippines, Thailand, East Timor, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict—at times with the direct involvement of NI personnel as advisors or mediators (Clarke, 2009; Darby, 2008; Hazleton, 2013; Hughes, 2014). In short, a “cottage-industry [. . .] has developed around the ‘lessons’ of the Northern Ireland Peace Process” (O’Kane, 2016: 589).

An extensive academic literature has developed, debating—at times in highly polemical forms—what exactly should be the lessons from the NI experience, and could it be validly compared to specific other cases. Authors have argued, for example, whether the NI power-sharing arrangements, policing reform, or inclusive negotiations rules should be “exported” to places such as Iraq or the Basque Country (Dixon, 2015; Ellison, 2007; McGarry and O’leary, 2006; O’Kane, 2010). In this article, however, I eschew such debates and instead adopt the research approach of the “politics of comparison” (Idris, 2016; Stoler, 2001). This approach treats comparison not as a methodological tool but as the object of inquiry. The goal is to uncover the factors influencing the choice and form of particular comparisons. The premise is that the question “who is comparing what and why?” (Mignolo, 2013) can help identify political, social, and cultural trends and debates that might not be otherwise visible. Such research does not probe whether a certain comparison is valid, but rather what triggers it and what are its intended functions; “what anxieties and hopes, Utopias and dystopias, are provoked by a comparative treatment” (Stam and Shohat, 2013: 121).

Comparisons between societies are of course a staple of academic research, but they often also play a prominent role in actual political discourses and practices, especially in societies experiencing political conflicts (Guelke, 2008). In such contexts, comparisons are used for their (expected) instrumental value. Actors draw parallels with other conflicts to legitimize their claims, condemn their adversaries, rally their constituencies, or express visions of the future (Guelke, 2004; McGarry, 2001). Political entrepreneurs use analogies with other conflicts to achieve “borrowed legitimacy,” by which local claims are justified through the comparison (Arar, 2017). Such political comparisons are inherently contested claims: actors can validate or reject them; initiate analogies or respond to those made by others; use them in order to condemn or legitimize existing situations; and to warn from, or to hope for, future possible scenarios (Bar-Yosef, 2014: 260).

My aim here, then, is not to ask which NI lessons should apply to the Israeli–Palestinian context. Instead, I aim to map what lessons are circulating in the public discourse, theorizing the meaning and significance of different ways in which the NI analogy is deployed and being attached to different political agendas, and identifying the functions of the analogy for different actors, while remaining largely agnostic as to which are the “right” lessons. Although the article is focused on the specific case-study of NI–Israeli/Palestine comparisons, it aims to illustrate more broadly how the politics of comparison approach can be fruitfully used to analyze lesson-drawing between conflicted societies, an issue pertinent to numerous other cases, as explained above. In addition to the immediate case-study, then, the article aims to contribute to the literature on the politics of comparisons; to a recent research agenda examining how ideas travel between different transitional and conflict societies (McEvoy, 2018); and to understanding of political dynamics in the context of intractable conflicts (Bar-Tal, 2013).

The research began by collating comparative allusions to NI in Israeli public discourse, using simple search terms (“Northern Ireland,” “Belfast,” and “Good Friday Agreement”) in archives of major local news outlets, as well as open Internet search (in Hebrew), for the period 2000–2020. ³ Items were considered relevant if they included allusions to comparisons between NI and Israel; those that addressed solely NI (e.g. reports on the Brexit debate) were not examined further. Dozens of news reports, op-eds, blogs, and non-governmental organizations (NGO) reports were thus identified. At the second stage, I used a thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) to identify major themes in this discourse and organize allusions to NI into heuristic categories. It should be stressed that this is not a quantitative exercise but rather an interpretative one, based on identifying meanings which appear most dominant and prominent in the discourse (Garland, 2007: 120). ⁴

This resulted in identifying four themes. The first is analogy as hope: invoking NI as a source of optimism that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict might also be resolved; the second is analogy as a “learning model”: drawing on specific aspects of the NI peace deal to offer new ways to address the current stalemate in the Middle East; the third is analogy as self-justification: using the comparison with NI to place responsibility for the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians rather than with Israel; and the fourth is analogy as localized policy transfer: drawing narrow lessons from NI in relation to specific institutions. ⁵ These different political uses of the NI analogy reflect, I contend, different modes of coping with the reality of an intractable conflict: maintaining abstract hope that peace is still possible; offering novel ways to achieve peace; legitimizing the status quo by avoiding blame; or concentrating on local conflict management tools. The analogy to NI thus dramatizes the Israeli debate on whether and how the conflict can be resolved, or managed.

After a brief descriptive section on the NI–Israel analogy, the remainder of the article is structured on exploring and analyzing these four themes, while the conclusion briefly draw some broader implications.

The Northern Ireland–Israel Analogy

While political comparisons are often ephemeral, the analogy between Israel and NI has been one of the most sustained and prominent, in both scholarly and political discourses (Guelke, 2008). The shared themes of British rule, partition, protracted violent conflicts with complex ethno-national and religious overtones, and the parallel peace processes of the 1990s, as well as direct interactions between actors in both cases, underline the analogy between these two conflicts, both of which attract media, political, and academic attentions way beyond the size of the societies in question.

There is an extensive academic literature comparing aspects of the two contexts (e.g. Akenson, 1992; Ben-Porat, 2006; Bollens, 2018; Duffy and Gallagher, 2017; Lustick, 1993). But the analogy is widely evident also beyond academic research. Leading Irish, British, and American politicians have regularly drawn the analogy. For example, in an official visit to Israel as UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown urged Israelis to do “as we did in Northern Ireland” (Liphshiz, 2008). Irish Republican leader Gerry Adams urged the lessons of NI to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (Ha’aretz, 2009); as did, for example, Jonathan Powell (Tony Blair’s ex-chief of staff) (2014), Labor Minister Peter Hain (2007), and Conservative Minister Michael Ancram (2008). Senator George Mitchell, who won praise for chairing the talks leading to the 1998 NI peace agreement, was later appointed both by President Clinton (in 2001) and Obama (in 2009) to facilitate Israeli–Palestinian negotiations, drawing obvious parallels with NI. Richard Haass (2012), who was a US envoy to the NI peace process, has similarly argued that “Israel should learn from Northern Ireland.”

At another level, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has also become a visible presence in NI, with Catholic-Palestinian and Protestant-Israeli identifications and solidarities expressed prominently in flag-raising, murals, events, and municipal decisions (Cooper and Herman, 2019). Analyses of this practice have generally interpreted it as a reflection of the local NI conflict through its projection elsewhere. Broadly, nationalists and republicans identify with the Palestinian struggle and unionists and loyalists with the Israelis, both using the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as a tool to denigrate the other and legitimate their own respective political positions (Arar, 2017; Hill and White, 2008).

In Israel, the analogy with NI is not a staple of everyday life and has not necessarily been the most dominant. The analogy with Apartheid South Africa, increasingly offered by critics of Israeli policies and vehemently rejected by their supporters (Turner, 2019), has probably captured more attention. However, in recent years NI has gradually become for many Israelis a source for learning about how to address conflicts. In past years, dozens of Israeli delegations (often including both Israeli and Palestinian participants) have traveled to NI to study aspects of the peace process there, including, among many others, groups of school principals and educators, police officers, human rights practitioners, peace activists, town planners, community workers, students, and religious figures. In the public sphere, there have been newspaper features, op-eds, blogs, and reports with titles such as: “Can N. Ireland peace model solve conflict here?” (Bob, 2017); “Between Belfast and Jerusalem” (Pfeffer, 2012); “From Belfast to Jerusalem” (New Israel Fund, 2017); “Northern Ireland’s Lessons for Israeli-Palestinian Peace” (Savren, 2016); “It Worked in Northern Ireland” (Korn, 2005); “Learning From the Northern Ireland Experience” (Bar-Or, 2003); or “Applying Lessons From Northern Ireland” (Strenger, 2007). In the coming pages, I offer a detailed analysis of this discourse and its functions.

Analogy as Hope: “It Happened in Ireland and It Can Happen Here as Well!”

In the context of prolonged conflicts, the first political function of an analogy can be to induce hope that the conflict may be resolved. The literature on the “socio-psychological foundations” of intractable conflicts (Bar-Tal, 2013) has identified despair—a belief in the conflict’s irresolvable nature—as one of the factors that sustain such conflicts. Conversely, hope that the conflict may end is one of the essential components mobilizing the pursuit of change (Leshem and Halperin, 2020). Political hope requires openness, creativity, and the search for new ideas. However, in societies engulfed by intractable conflicts, as in Israel, it tends to be overridden by fear, conservatism, and the freezing of beliefs (Bar-Tal, 2001). Given that lessons from analogous situations can provide “a fresh perspective, a desired escape from the past, a possible way out, and assurances of a better future” (Hazleton, 2013: 37), it is apt that the representation of NI as a source of hope for the Israeli–Palestinian context is a major motif in the relevant public discourse.

One clear illustration is the use of the NI case by the Israeli–Palestinian civil society movement Women Wage Peace (WWP). WWP deploys NI to inspire hope in the chances of peace, for example, under the slogan: “It happened in Ireland, and it can happen here as well!.” ⁶ Elsewhere, again under a heading of “It Could Happen Here Too—The Irish Case,” WWP argued that “Violent and bloody conflicts around the world have been resolved, let’s plant the seeds of hope, to remind us that it can happen here too.” ⁷ In a report on a delegation to Belfast posted on its website, a WWP member likewise described returning from NI “hopeful [. . .] we saw that change is possible.” ⁸ Similarly, a member of a delegation by another organization wrote that while the Israeli–Palestinian conflict seems unresolvable, NI “raises hope” that things could be different (Silman, 2017). An organizer of yet another delegation to NI wrote that “We live in a reality in which the conflict seems unsolvable” but the encounter with NI gives “hope that here, too, things could be different.” ⁹

At times, the NI case is used as a “trump card” against those who suggest that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is uniquely intractable. Benziman (2015), for example, points out the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) to counter arguments about the uniqueness of Israeli–Palestinian conflict and show that similar national struggles have been successfully resolved. On the background of pessimism in the Middle East, Benvenisti (2007) described the iconic 2007 meeting between Ian Paisely and Martin McGuiness as “a lesson to the doomsayers,” an occasion which should silence “all those who believe that change is not possible” in the Israeli–Palestinian context. NI is thus invoked as an antidote to despair—especially as such despair is based on a claim of incomparability. Freedland (2009) notes the “pessimism” which results from the assumption that the “the war between Israelis and Palestinians is somehow unique—that it is the only conflict in the history of the world that cannot be solved,” and then appeals to the analogy:

Northern Ireland, once a byword for strife, is now an invocation of hope. If republicans and unionists—who once wished each other dead—can sit in government together, then surely Israelis and Palestinians are not fated to fight for ever.

This type of lesson is often made explicitly. For example, political activists wrote on their return from a study visit to NI that:

for all those who despair of any possibility that they will see a peace agreement [. . .]: the era of the Northern Ireland peace process has seen Belfast changes completely, and so there is still hope for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal (Maghen and Tsidkyahu, 2017).

Such arguments and testimonials echo findings in social psychology literature that inculcating a perception of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as non-unique, and instilling a belief that conflicts in general can be resolved, induce hope regarding resolving the conflict (Cohen-Chen et al., 2019; Kudish et al., 2015).

As part of the use of the analogy to convey hope, many attempt to “translate” NI breakthroughs to local Israeli terms and personalities. Thus, Melman (2007) wrote that watching the hugely improved relations between republican, unionist, and British leaders “is analogous to [. . .] watching Netanyahu in a peace ceremony with Hamas leader Khaled Masha’al.” Such “translated” images are common in the Israeli discourse on NI. For example, some compare the power-sharing arrangement in NI to a situation whereby “Netanyahu appoints [Hamas leader] Haniyeh as his deputy” (Matar, 2013b) or the municipal arrangements in Belfast to a situation where Jerusalem would have a Likud mayor and a deputy-mayor from Fatah (Maghen and Tsidkyahu, 2017). Such analogies—using the NI present to imagine an Israeli–Palestinian future—are a particular form of political comparison, functioning to legitimize hope by demonstrating how the seemingly unattainable has in fact been attained elsewhere.

At the same time, when the analogy is used as a hope-inducing tool it tends to remain superficial and present a “low-resolution” picture. ¹⁰ Opposition movements calling for change in intractable situations often make comparative references which are general and undetailed, and idealize compared societies when invoking them to serve one’s political goals (Bonacker and Sydiq, 2020: 76). Indeed, as a hope-inspiring tool, the NI analogy serves mainly as a rhetorical device, without deep engagement with the substance and complexity of the NI transition to peace, and the flaws of the post-conflict situation. Such is often the simplistic nature of political analogies, especially in times of crisis, when they serve to boost morale, thriving on a simple message (Mumford, 2015: 8), and used more for justification and advocacy than for analysis (Khong, 2020: 8). While this character of analogies cause consternation to many analysts (see, e.g. Mitchell, 2021), in this context that is exactly their political function. The NI analogy functions here as part of what Bar-Simantov (2010: 364) termed “instigating beliefs,” counteracting the firmly established belief that the conflict is unresolvable, providing a simplistic yet potentially effective “demonstration effect” (Minkoff, 1997) that conflicts may be resolved.

Analogy as Model: “The Northern Ireland Solution”

While the above section explored the use of analogies as a rhetorical device inspiring hope in conflicted societies, they are also used as more detailed “models” of peacemaking. This is the second manifestation of the NI analogy in Israeli discourse. On one level this can be seen as part of a trend of “borrowing and lending” between peace processes (Darby, 2008), whereby concepts and mechanisms associated with perceived success in some localities are adopted elsewhere, stimulated by the proliferation of peace negotiations since the 1990s and at times by direct “evangelizing” by governments and international organizations (Darby, 2008). Beyond the deployment of technical expertise, the public appeal to analogies—especially when carried out by actors not directly involved in negotiations, as in the case here—can also serve a range of other functions. Analogies can give proposals an air of neutrality and expertise when devising and debating potential models to resolve conflicts. Drawing on foreign analogies can also suggest a more rational and scientific thinking, removed from local narrow political bickering (Asseraf, 2018). Lessons from elsewhere can be instrumentalized to convey added weight, credibility, and justification to local positions and proposals (Hazleton, 2013: 37), all necessary when contesting one’s government on the background of political violence and conflict.

One common appeal to NI as a peacemaking model is in the context of prisoner release, a recurring obstacle in Israeli–Palestinian relations. In NI the release and reintegration of politically motivated prisoners is generally considered to have positively contributed to the stabilization of the peace process (McEvoy and Shirlow, 2009). Israeli commentators have thus drawn on the NI model in this regard. On the background of an impasse in negotiations over Israeli refusal to release Palestinian prisoners, Eldar (2007), for example, noted that “The Irish experience shows us that had the prisoners not been released, it would not have been possible to have a peace agreement.” Korn (2005) similarly argues in this context that “it is worth learning from the experience of the conflict in Northern Ireland,” emphasizing the agreement to release all political prisoners, even those with “blood on their hands” (an approach rejected by Israeli policymakers). An Ha’aretz (2012) editorial similarly referenced the NI case, where “it was prisoner leaders who effected reconciliation”, in order to advocate a similar approach in Israel. In a similar vein, Lehrs (2016) has offered a detailed analysis of the NI model of prisoner release and argued that it should be applied by Israel. Given that prisoner release is a highly emotive and controversial issue—often causing hurt to bereaved families or triggering fears that released prisoners would return to violence—the reference to Irish and British policies and their success in this regard can be influential. Comparisons can lend an air of plausibility and legitimacy for opposition’s calls for reform (Bonacker and Sydiq, 2020).

Perhaps the most significant motif in the use of the NI analogy as a model is the referencing of the NI peace model of bi-communal consociation, or “power-sharing,” in the emerging discourse positing a “binational” solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. For many years, the “two-state solution”—envisaging the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel—has been the prominent paradigm in Israeli–Palestinian peacemaking. However, years of violence, the breakdown of negotiations, and the expansion of Israeli settlement in the areas originally ear-marked to be part of a Palestinian state, have made the two-state solution obsolete in the eyes of many and led some (Israelis, Palestinians, and international observers) to argue that the only solution is a binational one (Lustick, 2019). This idea attracts intense opposition from nationalists unwilling to let go of the principle of Israel as a Jewish state or of national Palestinian independence. It also generates a huge amount of skepticism and incredulity from those who find the prospects of Palestinians and Israelis sharing power simply implausible. The NI case can thus become important in potentially allaying such concerns, and providing a concrete example where power-sharing between recent violent adversaries can “work.”

Israeli commentators and activists have thus alluded to the NI example in making the case for the plausibility of a “one-state” solution to the conflict (Reider, 2021; Shenhav, 2013: 228), referring to “the Northern Ireland solution” as the model that might provide an alternative to the defunct two-state paradigm (Pollak, 2007). Benvenisti (2009), for example, detailed the NI power-sharing arrangement, with the “parity of esteem” underlying principle and constitutional guarantees of equality, to support his argument for the validity of a binational solution in the Middle East (see also, e.g. Benvenisti, 2003). The Israeli–Palestinian movement A Land for All, which advocates a variant of the binational model, often alludes to the NI model in support of its case that such solutions can be durable and successful (A Land for All, 2021; Haetzni-Cohen, 2016). When prominent Jewish-American commentator Peter Beinart (2020) wrote a dramatic op-ed in the New York Times renouncing the two-state solution and expressing support for a binational state (the article was titled “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State”), he also referenced the NI model in support of his model of a binational Israel–Palestine, a reference repeated in coverage of his intervention and ensuing debates in the Israeli press (e.g. Levy, 2020; Sales, 2020).

More broadly, NI serves for some Israelis as a model of “realistic” peace. It is pointed to as an example of pragmatic and incremental accommodations, placing less emphasis on idealistic versions of reconciliation, in contrast to the (failed) model of Israeli–Palestinian peacemaking in the 1990s and early 2000s, which was based on an ambition to reach the “end of conflict” in one summit, and on utopian visions of “a new Middle East.” Thus, an Israeli activist wrote that “The first interesting thing about the GFA from an Israeli perspective is that it does not offer an end to the conflict” (Matar, 2013a). Others also noted how in NI peace was achieved without treating reconciliation as a prerequisite (Ben-Or, 2016). The importance of a long process has also resonated. Strenger (2007), for example, contrasts the “frantic pressure” to reach a final deal in the failed Israeli–Palestinian’s 2000 Camp David Summit with the “model of the Northern Ireland process” where parties were committed to carry on “as long as it takes” (see also Evroni, 2010). In all of the above, NI provides a template for pragmatic peacemaking. It does not appear however to change actors’ positions: it is used in support of existing beliefs and positions, reinforcing already held ways of thinking; as elsewhere, this is a self-serving use of analogies (Hazleton, 2013).

Analogy as Self-justification “Hamas Is Not the IRA”

The claims that the NI experience should induce hope or offer a model for peacemaking have been rejected by others, who argue that the NI case should not lead to altering Israeli actions or attitudes. This is partly a reactive discourse, but it also has positive functions for those deploying it: using the comparison to a NI as a form of self-justification, which places the guilt for the failure to reach peace with the Palestinians. ¹¹

As a general rule, lessons from elsewhere are more likely to be deployed by proponents of change, who operate against the inertia of the policy system, than by defenders of the status quo (Robertson, 1991: 63). In conflicted societies, analogies are then mostly the tool of the opposition, which seek to alter the current situation, as we have seen in the previous two sections. But analogies can in fact also be used in support of the status quo. The resonance of NI in Israeli discourse also triggered a counter-narrative in which the analogy is used in a defensive way, to justify existing state policies. Articles with titles such as “Hamas is not the IRA” (Evroni, 2007; Weiss, 2010), “Why the N. Ireland Comparison Doesn’t Fit” (Keinon, 2007), or “Here is not Northern Ireland (Avineri, 2009), use the comparison with NI to identify differences between the cases that point to Palestinian culpability in the failure to achieve peace, and render Israel’s role as positive. Governments accused of human rights abuses often respond by claiming their situation as unique and accusing their critics of “not knowing, understating or mentioning the context in which the violations took place” (Cohen, 2001: 111). They also respond by drawing “advantageous comparisons” of one’s record with a more reprehensible record of atrocities by the adversary or other governments (Cohen, 2001: 112). These methods have been in common use by the Israeli government and its supporters, where the need to maintain self-legitimation and protect international image in response to critique over the ongoing conflict has been paramount (Dudai, 2018). In this context, the NI analogy provides an opportunity for a self-justifying narrative.

One common theme in the defensive use of the analogy is the claim that the Palestinian threat to Israel is much bigger than the Irish had been to Britain. Thus, Ross and Makovsky (2009) argue that British withdrawal from NI would not affect British survival—unlike in the Israeli case. Shindler (2016) writes that Catholics “did not wish to drive [Protestants] out”; and Avineri (2009) writes that in NI “no one denied Britain’s right to exist whereas many Palestinians doubt the legitimacy of the Jewish state” (see also, e.g. Colman, 2018; Evroni, 2007, for similar phrasings). With this comparison, such commentators aim to make Israel’s reluctance to make concessions to the Palestinians appear more reasonable and defensible by stressing just how exceptional the Israeli position is.

Another, related, theme is using the analogy with NI to claim that Islam is the cause of the intractable conflict in the Middle East. Keinon (2007) writes that “what we are faced with is not a territorial conflict [. . .] but rather a religious one. The backdrop is Islamic, not territorial. That was never the case in Northern Ireland; thankfully so.” Member of Parliament Smootrich said, after a study visit to NI, that “in Ireland both sides come from European culture [. . .] if Islam would go through the process that Christianity went through [. . .] maybe things can change.” Rabbi Yuval Sherlow, who was on the same delegation, similarly pointed the “major difference between Islam and Christianity” underlining the comparison (Shenbal, 2017). Gannon (2006) contrasts the “religious hatred” motivating Palestinians with the political goals of NI parties, which were “in essence amenable to political accommodation.” Evroni (2007) similarly compares the political platform and vision of Irish Republicans with the Islamist “absolutist religious” nature of Hamas, “which is not open to influence or change.”

In political conflicts, analogies are often also used to demonize opponents. The practice of comparing adversaries to the Nazis is the prime example of this (Turner, 2019). There is a variant of this practice at work here, where Israeli commentators use the analogy with NI to denigrate the Palestinians, and especially the Islamist Hamas, through a disadvantageous comparison with Irish Republicans. This is a particularly pertinent task for pro-Israeli actors. One of the main lessons drawn by many participants and observers of the NI peace process is the importance of inclusive process involving “talking with terrorists,” and many have argued that the lesson should apply to engaging with Hamas (Powell, 2014). In attempting to refute this claim, commentators contrast Hamas with the IRA, painting the latter in a more positive light to negate the applicability of the NI lesson. Liphshiz (2008) observed that “A major difference between Hamas and the IRA is that the latter did not generally target civilians”; Weiss similarly writes that “the IRA never employed suicide bombers or called for the wholesale destruction of Great Britain. Nor was it the client of a theocratic state intent on becoming a nuclear power” (2010). Keinon (2007) writes that unlike Hamas, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was “A terrorist organization that sometimes sent warnings before the bombs blew up [. . .] and which did not sanctify death and perpetuate a death cult.” Such claims seek to show—through the analogy—that in the Israeli–Palestinian context negotiations with the adversary would be futile or dangerous, thus shifting the blame for the continuation of the conflict from Israel to the Palestinians.

In these ways, the analogy to NI is used to claim Israel’s moral superiority, while portraying the Palestinians as being outside the parameters of the European “civilized” world. Israel is depicted in this context as analogous to Britain, while the Palestinian are represented—in comparison with the Irish republicans—as barbarians. The analogy thus functions to support the self-perception, common in Israeli culture, of Israel as a European outpost in an uncivilized region: a “villa in the jungle” (Bar-Yosef, 2014).

At the same time, it is interesting to note that in order to perform these functions, these narratives have to accept that the NI situation is broadly analogous with the Middle East and that the NI peace process has been successful. In general, those who reject the validity of lessons from abroad can object to the premise that the relevant conditions abroad are indeed positive, or that any lessons are transferable to the local context (Robertson, 1991: 65). The arguments described here take the second option, accepting the premise that the NI peace process has been positive. It treats NI as an international reference group, in a framework of “upward comparison” (Delhey and Kohler, 2006), which assumes that the situation elsewhere is better. Moreover, the analogy to NI is not rejected wholesale as inherently invalid: to perform the self-justification functions, the focus is on comparing specific components—such as the type of violence by Hamas and the IRA. Thus, even when rejecting the specific lessons, the claims presented in this section also sustain the validity and resonance of the NI analogy.

Analogy as Localized Policy Lessons: “Can What Worked in Belfast Also Work in Umm al-Fahm?”

Finally, another type of use of the NI analogy in Israel is allusions to it in support of (planned or existing) local policy interventions. Such interventions are local in the sense that they do not aim to affect the overall nature of the conflict and mobilize macro-level peacemaking, but are instead focusing on discrete sites or relate to specific institutions or aspects of civil society. Unlike the usage of the NI analogy to draw abstract hope for the resolution of the conflict or macro-level peace models, covered above, here NI is used to deploy more specific and narrower lessons. Detailed policy formulas are drawn from forms of NI public policies, as they relate, for example, to policing reform or cross-community “shared education,” as will be detailed below.

This use of analogies broadly corresponds to the concept of “policy transfer”: “the process by which knowledge about policies [. . .] and ideas in one political system (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, intuitions and ideas in other political system” (Dolowitz and Marsh, 2000: 5). While at times concrete NI policies have been emulated in some Israeli local contexts—especially in relation to the shared education model—in other cases what is evident is a type defined in the literature as “soft” transfer: where ideologies, concepts, and attitudes are being transferred rather than actual policies (Benson and Jordan, 2011). This is so also because in many cases the “transfer” appears in policy proposals rather than in actual implementation, and as the key actors tend to be in civil society rather than in government. Civil society often has a key role in policy transfers (Stone, 2010), and that role is even more important when the context is challenging the status quo in intractable conflicts. While policy transfers can at times appear technocratic, it is important to note that they are always political by nature: drawing a lesson from elsewhere is a political choice (Rose, 1993: 45), and more so in conflict-ridden societies.

As mentioned, the field of education is perhaps the clearest illustration of localized policy transfer from NI to Israel. In both places, a vast majority of schoolchildren study in segregated schools (Jews and Palestinians in Israel, Catholics and Protestants in NI), and at least some policymakers look for ways to address the problems arising from this. The NI model of “shared education,” where pupils from separate schools and different communities engage in joint classes and activities (Gallagher, 2016), ¹² was adopted by some schools in Israel, especially in the Jerusalem municipal system, ¹³ and aroused interest in the media and in professional publications in the educational sector (New Israel Fund, 2017; Shapira, 2017). The Education reporter for Ha’aretz, for example, published a long feature on the NI model, writing how “Northern Ireland Dismantles Barrier Between Catholic and Protestant Schools, Offering Lessons for Israel,” and asked “could it work here?” (Kashti, 2017). Media also reported, for example, a study visit to NI of school principals from Palestinian and Jewish areas of Jerusalem, stating “the goal: to learn from the Northern Irish how to improve relations between populations in conflict, like the Catholic and Protestants” (Ben-David, 2017).

Policing reform is another issue that was central in the NI peace process (Ellison, 2007), and resonate in the context of relations between Israeli police and Palestinian communities in Israel. The civil society organization Abraham Initiatives has engaged in a prolonged project advocating for reforms in Israeli policing, in which learning and adopting lessons from the NI policing reform has had a prominent place. This was so, for example, in relation to advocating and piloting community policing and forms of localized cooperation and accountability between police stations and the communities they serve in several localities (Abraham Initiatives, 2018). As part of this initiative, senior police officers have visited NI several times in delegations aimed to study “policing in a divided society which has become [. . .] a model of success” (Israeli Police, 2009: 89). The NI policing model has been presented as a successful precedent for reforming police-minorities relations, leading to ask “Can what worked in Belfast also work in Umm al-Fahm?” (Be’eri-Sulitzeanu, 2016; see also, e.g. Abu Areesha, 2017).

References to NI policies appear in many other proposals for local interventions. These include, for example, drawing on Belfast’s experience of managing shared spaces as an inspiration for designing similar interventions at the Jerusalem municipality (Raz, 2019); drawing on NI model of ensuring equality in employment as part of a vision for an equal community in Haifa ¹⁴ (Rosen, 2012); or relying on ideas from NI in a proposal to ensure Palestinian participation in civil service decision-making (Margalit, 2020).

Although not explicitly stated as such, it appears that for many Israeli civil society actors this focus on localized interventions signifies an orientation of conflict management rather than resolution. Such an approach seeks to ameliorate the conflict’s destructiveness, instead of aiming at a decisive, overall, permanent solution to a conflict, as the latter seems unrealistic (Miall, 2004); civil society actors, conscious of their limited power, choose to focus on narrow yet concrete goals which can improve some aspects of life under conflict. ¹⁵ In the Israeli context, the collapse of peace negotiations in the early 2000s prompted many to accept that time was not yet ripe for a solution and that the only option is therefore to manage it (Bar-Simantov, 2004, 2010). For those aiming to design and implement such narrow interventions, NI is a fertile ground for inspiration, as the nature of the transition to peace there generated a myriad of specific policies at many levels, with the involvement of many actors from civil society, different bodies in the civil service and local government, and often a diffused, piecemeal, approach. This allows for “cherry-picking” lessons.

The director of the Israeli NGO Abraham Fund, which has been involved in proposing NI-inspired policies in both policing and education said, for example, that while he hopes Israel will learn from the experience in NI, “We believe localized ideas and solutions can be adapted to Israel, even if we don’t adopt an entire model to the Israeli situation” (Stern, 2008). This means that specific lessons—relating to cross-community urban areas, techniques to ameliorate school segregation, or the workings of specific police stations—can be invoked without committing to an overall NI vision (which may deter the target audience—school principals, police officers, and so on). As Robertson (1991: 56) noted, “narrow, descriptive and technical assessments of foreign lessons” are often more credible, and therefore such localized lessons can be politically useful.

Conclusion: Conflicts, Analogies, and the Lure of Ambiguity

The analysis above demonstrated how invoking the NI case is useful for a wide range of Israeli actors with different goals and visions in the context of the ongoing conflict. In conclusion, I would like to briefly draw some broader lessons in relation to the study of political analogies, note some features which have hitherto remain underexplored in the literature, and point directions for future research.

The literature on analogies tends to focus on those made across time, to past cases, rather than across space, to more or less contemporaneous cases—although this article demonstrates that the latter can be as rich and influential. Relatedly, the passage of time often solidifies the common accepted meanings of past cases so the appeal to analogy with them is based on their clear-cut, immediate connotations. For example, when British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said, just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that there was “a whiff of Munich in the air” (Gallagher, 2022), the reference to the 1938 Munich Agreement and its failure to prevent the outbreak of world war was clear.

Indeed, the literature on political analogies assumes that some analogies get selected over others because they have a clear unequivocal message (Mumford, 2015), and are “stereotypically perceived to hold certain connotations” (Mumford, 2015: 3). The undisputed infamy of the Munich appeasement is a clear illustration. So are some other popular analogies—which also receive much attention in the literature—such as the Vietnam war, an analogy which serves as a clear shorthand for the inadvisability of intervention, a paradigmatic cautionary tale (Miller, 2016); or Apartheid South Africa, an undisputed symbol of evil that therefore became an analogy often deployed, discussed, and debated (Turner, 2019). Other cases are seen as unquestionably positive, such as the fall of the Apartheid regime or the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 1989 transitions in Eastern Europe, which have clear positive connotations of democratic inevitability (Mumford, 2015: 16), and are thus also often deployed as analogies.

This article demonstrated, however, that in the case of analogies in conflicted societies, ambiguity—rather than plain and definite messages—can be more appealing in selection of analogous cases. The message of the “Northern Ireland” brand is not straightforward, and the connotations suggested by alluding to it are not as clear-cut as the other examples mentioned above—stating that there is “a whiff of Northern Ireland in the air” would not be understood similarly by diverse audiences—and yet the analogy to NI has become popular.

It may be that clear-cut connotations can actually restrict the appeal of analogies, especially in conflicted, divided societies, and when those deploying the analogies are mostly from civil society and seek to challenge the status quo. Using a wholly positive or wholly negative analogy can generate high level of societal and political resistance by some actors, arouse suspicion from sectors less politically invested in the comparison, and create a dynamic where it appears that accepting the analogy implies wholesale adoption of a package of mechanisms and ideas. On the other hand, relying on more ambiguous cases as analogies allow a “pick and choose” approach to lesson-learning, and reduce opposition to merely using the analogy. It also means that the lessons of the analogy are not presented as a panacea, which would often lead to quick disappointment and rejection.

While transitional South Africa had a unique corporate image of successful transition and as a “miracle,” ¹⁶ the NI case was not hailed as a miracle, not described as an utopian Rainbow Nation, and none of its protagonists attained the international stature of the saint-like Nelson Mandela (nor the status of internationally recognized war criminals such as the Serb Radovan Karadžić). While the political change in NI was generally lauded as successful, it was not imbued with the moral–historical connotation of, say, the fall of the Berlin Wall. NI also does not convey clear negative messages, as the frequent analogies to Vietnam or to Munich do. There were no undisputed winners and losers in the NI peace process, which has been fragmented, protracted, and often exhibited a piecemeal approach (Aoláin and Campbell, 2005), and where the “meta-conflict” over the causes and nature of the conflict still rages (Mallinder, 2019). Indeed, White (2013) argues that the ambiguities of the NI peace deal—allowing both sides to the conflict to maintain that they progress toward their goals—are its most important lesson. The ambiguity of cases such as NI is appealing as it allows flexibility to mobilize various meanings or messages, and is less likely to trigger emotional rejections by audiences. This does not mean that ambiguity will always be an appealing trait in the politics of comparisons; ¹⁷ subsequent research could aim to identify the conditions that make ambiguity a feature of political analogies and the consequences of such features.

Another broad implication of the case-study—which is also linked to ambiguity—relates to the role of identification with specific parties in cases presented as analogous. Political analogies in divided societies are often perceived in the literature to be based on partisan identifications, whereby political actors and communities in one conflicted society identify with political actors and communities in another divided society—in effect choosing sides and expressing solidarity with one camp in a conflict (McGarry, 2001). Indeed, the use of the analogy with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in NI (the opposite direction of the one explored in the article) is based on such partisan identification, whereby Nationalists identify with Palestinians and Unionists with Israel (Arar, 2017). This leads commentators to argue that one of the main function of analogies is to sustain the political boundaries of conflicting ethno-national communities (Arar, 2017; Hill and White, 2008). However, the case explored here demonstrates that political analogies can be deployed widely and intensively without necessarily be based on such partisan identifications. The different uses of the NI analogy in Israeli discourse, analyzed above, involve appealing to the overall situation in NI rather than adopting the perspective of one NI community. The ambiguous outcome of the NI peace process, where no party to the conflict can be undisputedly labeled as winner or loser, facilitates this. In turn, the analogy is probably more palatable in wider circles in Israel as it does not necessitate identification with one of the NI communities. Future research into other cases could examine more systematically the causes and effects of partisan solidarity or lack thereof in the mobilization of analogies in conflicted societies.

To sum up, the analysis demonstrates that cases can become popular analogies not just because of their clear infamy or prestige but because of their ambiguity. The NI peace process, internationally recognized as good practice, can then become in effect a “floating signifier” (Laclau, 2005), carrying different connotations in various discourses, and acquiring different meanings depending on the political projects where it is deployed. ¹⁸ For political actors in Israel, and probably elsewhere as well, the comparison to NI is not inherently threatening—as comparison to Apartheid South Africa or wartime Serbia are—but also does not convey unrealistic expectations of emulating a “miracle,” which could also be dispiriting in their own way. Whether they seek to dispel despair, find new visions for the future, shift blame, or find local solutions to narrow policy problems, actors in other conflicted societies can feel comfortable at least with some aspects of the NI analogy and find in them policy ideas, political formulas, and inspiration.