What Does the War in Gaza Have to Do with Bloody Sunday?

A Lesson from the Conflict In Northern Ireland

As I watch the unbelievable carnage unfolding in the Gaza Strip I'm reminded of the final scenes in the movie "Bloody Sunday" (2002). The film, starring James Nesbitt as Northern Ireland civil rights leader Ivan Cooper, recreates the infamous day of January 30, 1972 when British paratroopers killed 13 civil rights protesters and seriously wounded 14 more in Derry, Northern Ireland. From that day forward, the conflict in Northern Ireland exploded, raging for twenty-five more deadly years until the Good Friday Agreement was implemented in 1997.

In the movie, the day after the massacre, a grim Ivan Cooper holds a press conference with other leaders of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association of Derry. He delivers his famous line to the large gathering of reporters: "I just want to say this to the British Government...You know what you've just done, don't you? You've destroyed the civil rights movement, and you've given the IRA the biggest victory it will ever have. All over this city tonight, young men...boys...will be joining the IRA, and you will reap a whirlwind." A reporter asks, "Mr. Cooper, what do you say to those people that might be joining the IRA, and what message do you want to give them?" Nesbitt responds, "I feel very ill-equipped to do any preaching to them after today."

The movie ends with a chilling scene of teenagers and young men lined up in a dark alleyway in Derry—expressions of suppressed rage on their faces. No words are uttered. An IRA man hands a submachine gun to the first in line. The next person steps forward and receives a gun. And so on and so on. Cut to the final credits.

The point is this: the Israeli military may have killed ten thousand Hamas fighters in this war so far. Maybe more. But how many future Hamas fighters have been created in the process? How many young Palestinian men are lined up in dark alleyways throughout Gaza, the West Bank, and refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon tonight?

Ultimately, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like Northern Ireland's, can only be solved politically, not militarily. There was a time when nobody thought peace in Northern Ireland was possible, that it was just as intractable a situation as in the West Bank and Gaza today. It took decades of violence, military stalemate, and just pure exhaustion to convince all sides that the only way out of the war and occupation was through negotiating a lasting peace—first through very secret backchannel talks amongst the IRA/Sinn Fein, the Unionists, and the British. Then through open public dialogue, culminating in the Good Friday Agreement, a power-sharing framework that left the decision to join Ireland, or remain in the United Kingdom, in the hands of Northern Ireland’s people.

If peace in Northern Ireland was possible, then peace in Israel-Palestine is possible. However, what events like Bloody Sunday teach us is that state violence against civilians, which is happening on a massive scale in Gaza right now, only fuels conflict and leads to cycles of revenge and counter-revenge. Both Israel and Hamas cannot kill their way out of this conflict. One hopes it does not take another seventy-six years of violence for both sides to realize that.

* Incredibly, "Bloody Sunday" is free on YouTube. I've put the link in the comments below. If you haven't seen it, it is an incredibly powerful film. James Nesbitt is at his finest. Watch it.