Claim: Just Like Northern Ireland

The BBC's "Middle East" editor is Jeremy Bowen, a man who has confessed to a long-standing personal grudge against Israel and who does not let the world forget it. But since even dogmatic, heavily biased people can sometimes make good points, I try to read even Bowen's comments with an open mind.

Unfortunately, the result is that Mr. Bowen disappoints me a lot.

In a recent column, Bowen tries to compare Israel's responses to Gaza with the UK's responses to Northern Ireland. He tries to claim that compared to the UK, Israel's behavior is horrific and violent.

But think about this. For many years Britain faced an insurgency and at times a low-level civil war in Northern Ireland. Those sorts of terms weren't used all that much but that's what it was.

At different times the IRA planted bombs on the British mainland that killed people and did a lot of damage. The actions of the British security forces during three decades of the Troubles were very controversial, and still are today. Sometimes the British army killed innocent people.

But Britain never used heavy weapons, fast jets, air strikes and attack helicopters. Tracked armoured vehicles were very rarely seen

I am not as knowledgeable about Northern Ireland as I am about some other areas, but even to me this is utter tripe.

Three years ago, Israel attempted to create a peaceful situation by withdrawing every last Israeli from Gaza. It turned Gaza over to its negotiating partner, the Palestinian Authority. And then terrorists in Gaza began to launch rocket attacks against Israeli towns. Israel did nothing to defend itself at first. It demanded that the PA arrest the terrorists (the PA refused to take any action), but took no action of its own. But over time, realizing that its inaction was simply encouraging the terrorists, it began to strike back.

Last year, a violent coup in Gaza placed the entire Strip under the control of a terrorist organization headquartered in Syria. The terrorists' goal is not independence but rather the genocidal slaughter of Israeli Jews and the conquest of Israel, which they hope to turn into an Islamofascist dictatorship as they have done in Gaza.

Let's compare the situation in Gaza with that in Northern Ireland.

• Did the UK cede control of Northern Ireland to Sinn Fein and the IRA?
  
• Did the UK remove every Protestant settler from Northern Ireland?
  
• Following these nonexistent concessions, did the IRA launch thousands of rockets into British towns?
• Did the UK sit by for long periods, expecting the Catholics of Northern Ireland to stop the violence, only to find that it would never do so?
• Does the IRA have as its purpose the annihilation of all British Protestants in the UK and the return of the whole UK to Celtic and Catholic control (the British Isles were once Catholic. And they were once Celtic)?
• Was the IRA only the local spearhead of a vicious global terrorist war on non-Catholics?
  

Unlike Israel, the UK still occupies Northern Ireland. With Ireland proper supporting the UK's efforts against terrorism, and the Soviet Union dead, the IRA simply decided that it cannot win and looked for a graceful way to surrender. HAMAS, in contrast, is a genocidal terrorist organization that tries to murder as many Jews as possible.

Until the modern UK makes the kind of sacrifices made by Israel for peace, and fights enemies similarly committed to its annihilation with as much humanity as Israel has done, all comparisons with Northern Ireland are futile and stupid. Mr. Bowen's attempt to claim the moral high ground reveals him as a hypocrite of the highest order.