How do you successfully and humanely fight an insurgency?

And the conflict had here in Northern Ireland was absolutely nothing like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Not even close!

It's really absurd to use that as an example of a successful conflict resolution for Israelis and Palestinians to follow. Everything about it was different - especially the weapons capabilities of PIRA v Hamas.

PIRA barely scratched the British Army in reality as they murdered just 0.5% of the total deployment of 300,000 over three decades. PIRA had no control of territory either whereas Hamas does.

The only real point of comparison between the two conflicts is the fact PIRA and Hamas trained together in Libya under Colonel Gaddafi. In addition to meeting with Iran in Tehran alongside PIRA, Hamas, Hezbollah and ETA.

But the conflicts themselves are not comparable. And neither is the path towards ending them.

As I've said many a time, the key to the Belfast Agreement was the defeat of PIRA, especially ideologically.

An insurgency phrase is quite short. For PIRA, that was from 1970 to 1976 as they entered their terrorist cell structure phrase from 1977 to 1998 with far smaller numbers. The insurgency phrase brought PIRA close to defeat by 1977, so the evolution into a terrorist cell structure prolonged the conflict as cells are harder to infiltrate to dismantle.

Likewise, Hamas left their insurgency phrase behind long ago, entered a terrorist structure phrase but are now more like a small army.

An insurgency is at the beginning, essentially.

Your post shows you really didn't understand Northern Ireland or how the path towards the Belfast Agreement was achieved.

This is one of the biggest misunderstandings about the Northern Ireland peace process. The idea the UK Government was never open to talks doesn't stand up under close scrutiny.

It was the UK Government who always insisted that there can be no coercion of Ulster as far back as 1920s or earlier:

"I come now to the more vexed question of Ulster. Here we had all given a definitely clear pledge that, under no conditions, would we agree to any proposals that would involve the coercion of Ulster.....Therefore, on policy I have always been in favour of the pledge that there should be no coercion of Ulster.

We have never for a moment forgotten the pledge—not for an instant. That did not preclude us from endeavouring to persuade Ulster to come into an All-Ireland Parliament."

- David Lloyd George, the then Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 14 December 1921

Fast forward to the 1970s for relevancy.

The Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Willie Whitelaw held a meeting with PIRA leaders in 1972, some of whom were in prison. The Government allowed them to come out to England for this.

Does that sound like a Government not in favour of talks with a view to resolving the conflict?

Obviously not.

No, the problem was the PSF/PIRA leaders made unreasonable demands which no sovereign Government would have been able to accept. Basically, PIRA told Whitelaw they wanted the UK Government out of Northern Ireland and for the British Army to withdraw.

What would have been the result of that?

Full blown civil war.

Besides, PSF/PIRA had NO mandate from the people for their terrorism. 70% of Catholics didn't support them and the leader of the biggest Nationalist Party, John Hume told them publicly the Provo argument was wrong, partitionist, fascist and deeply out of date.

PSF/PIRA only wanted total victory. Hence their delusional "Freedom '74" posters. This is the classic fundamentalist terrorist position.

As PSF/PIRA saw it, political solutions proposed by the UK Government was evidence the Sovereign Power was crumbling or close to it. Like I said, a delusional view!

PIRAs view of the democratic 1973 referendum was this:

“The Border Poll will be viewed as one of the most stupid acts of the British Government, It is an insult to all Irish people that a foreign government should usurp the inalienable right of the people of this country to determine their own future."

And set bombs off in England on the same day!

This is evidence of a terrorist group NOT in the mood for a peaceful political settlement. See further PSF/PIRA statements below:

"There have been no discussions with the British Government or with any official acting on its behalf since the beginning of 1976. We now regard such talks as entirely futile and the only time we will talk to the British again is when they come to us and ask our help to seecure their immediate departure from Ireland."

And:

"We can't give up now and admit that the men and women we sent to their graves died for nothing. The struggle must continue now until victory is achieved and we are determined to do that."

And:

"Our aim now is to win the struggle on this occasion and we are prepared to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to achieve this."

The Sunningdale and Anglo-Irish Agreement eras both demonstrate to us all that the IRA would NOT have given up violence unless they were made to do so by the State's security forces. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the IRA would have given up violence in the 1990s for any other reason than defeat.

As long as fundamentalist terrorist groups believe they can win based on the prevailing health of their organisation, they’ll continue to use violence in aid of their objectives.

Once weakened, such groups will see their leadership drop their previously fundamentalist position and agree to whatever conditions the sovereign power or powers impose.

"Statesmanship consists not merely in the wisdom of your proposals, but in the choosing of the right moment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley..........knows what it is to settle an action, and he knows it depends upon your choosing exactly the moment.

You must not choose it when the parties are full of fight, when they are confident they are going to win, when they are confident, not merely in the justice of their case, but in the invincibility of their counsel. Who can stand against it? That is not the time to settle. You have got to wait until difficulties have cropped up which they had never foreseen, when doubt begins to enter their minds as to the completeness of their victory, when the costs are mounting up, and the only smile is on the face of the solicitor, when they are tired out by pleadings and counter-pleadings and all the delays and wearing mechanism of the law. That is the time.

But if you propose too soon, it means not merely that you fail then, but that you interpose obstacles in the way of settling at the right time."

- David Lloyd George, the then Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 14 December 1921.

In other words, you have to know when the enemy is defeated in order to impose conditions for a peace process.

That's why Frankie Quinn, senior member of the PIRA's East Tyrone brigade, said the following:

"We were saying the armed struggle’s failed, it can’t win. The jails are filling up, people are dying left, right and centre and the British are getting the better hand on us.

Obviously we knew in our hearts that we were deeply, deeply infiltrated at a very high level.

The armed struggle had to stop. We’d dump weapons, call the ceasefire, and then go into talks."

That's a sincere acknowledgement of defeat from a senior member of PIRA.

Another member of PIRA, Kieran Conway agreed with this and said the following:

"The attrition rate was just so appalling.

The SAS, the British intelligence services were obviously in a position to intercept most operations.

It was absolutely clear that we were losing if we hadn’t already lost the war and that it was time to cash in the chips.”

PIRA member John Crawley, an ex-US Marine before joining PIRA, asserted:

"It was a defeat for the Republican Movement, a complete military and ideological defeat across the board that opened up career paths for certain members of the leadership, but left us ideologically destroyed."

Crawley also described the British as "masters at counter-insurgency".

For PSF/PIRA anything less than total and outright victory is defeat.

To go back to David Lloyd George's 1921 statement above again, what the British Government did with the IRA in 1920 and 1998 can be summed up by Sun Tzu below:

"A surrounded army must be given a way out. The ancient rule of the charioteers says, “Surround them on three sides, leaving one side open, to show them a way to life. Show them a way to life so that they will not be in the mood to fight to the death…”

An enemy that knows it is defeated in all but name is given a way out to save face and spare further bloodshed.

And ONLY an enemy that knows it is defeated in all but name WILL take the conditions given by the dominant power.

That is the position the IRA found itself in 1998. It was defeated and so accepted the conditions of the British Government which had been resolute for most of the 20th Century.

PIRA achieved NONE of their long held key core demands in the Belfast Agreement. The British Government, on the other hand, achieved their key core goals.

The UK Government did give PSF/PIRA a face saving way out. This has been called the propaganda of the peace.

I might as well introduce some of you to the SDLP's late Seamus Mallon's observation that the Belfast Agreement of 1998 was : "Sunningdale for slow learners."

Mallon meant the terrorists who completely rejected power sharing, principle of consent and UK Government presence in Northern Ireland were slow to realise they were very much in the wrong.

So, you have to defeat them or close to it to achieve a settlement.

Defeat is what happened to PIRA and led to the Belfast Agreement which meant the Provos went back on everything they claimed to be fighting for.

So much so Bobby Sands' family remain furious to this day Provisional Sinn Féin use his name and likeness to push a shaky narrative to their faithful.

Yes, but in an apartheid system, with a discriminatory justice and legal system as well as land being taken away at will and children imprisoned.

Ireland is the one that comes to mind - e had to live in terror at times from the IRA - they even bombed poor Norman Tebbit's wife on English soil who was then in a wheel chair. I think about 45k people were injured in total and now it is relatively calm but not entirely peaceful.

Israel is an integrated democratic society. About 21% of its population are arab.

I dont think anything justifies murder. But to understand, move on, and ensure it is not repeated again, relies on an honest look at how wider conditions contribute to it. For example, how was south African apartheid created and maintained? How did ordinary civilians turn a blind eye to the holocaust? How did manufactured news contribute to the Iraq war? Only with sitting down and confronting our past can we find solutions and prevent repeat.

I agree @Tatumm I can't even imagine the injustice, grief and rage felt by people who have lost family and friends during horrific conflict like this. Sometimes, the rage only subsides if you have a promise of no more death and pain.

America should have offered sympathy and encouraged great restraint. Instead they inflamed the situation. To inflame a sensitive and volatile situation should be an international criminal offence in the 21st century.

America was built on genocide though so they really don't have claim to any moral high ground ever. They are bullies and they support bullies. Biden has been a huge disappointment.

Is this to justify the rape and murder of over a thousand people and hundreds taken in hostage?

Discussions and compromise on both sides. Hamas doesn’t want Israel to exist because it feels that the land should be Palestinian. Obviously that isn’t a reasonable aim, but Israel has forced Palestine into two tiny separate pieces of land, one of which is essentially a prison and the other of which is constantly being shrunk and taken over by Israeli settlers. If Israel would consider discussions around drawing new borders and ensuring a reasonable amount of the land belongs to Palestine, enough that people aren’t living in cramped conditions and where they are not living with the threat of an Israeli settler taking the land from under them, surely that would be a start. Hamas would surely have far less recruits if ordinary civilians weren’t living under occupation and under constant threat, poverty and torturous conditions from Israel and were able to make a living and live freely within their own borders and obviously less people joining terrorist groups would enable more Israelis to live freely and safely as well.

Thank you @RubyRubyRubyRubay

Good in theory, but in practice, feelings on both sides are strong and there’s no trust. How can trust be rebuilt? I am afraid that it might not be possible, or at least it will be a slow process, and need to be supported by the international community.

I understand that, but OP framed her question very insincerely. Her question came across as a justification for Israels attacks against Palestine and the massive death toll, without actually framing it in a context that considered both sides position and the contributary variables.

Yes, accepting the insurgents or enemy or invaders as equal human beings worthy of good faith negotiation is an essential ingredient. Also valuing the lives of children is a good start too.

Basically this:
The British government’s acceptance of the right to self-determination, subject to concurrent consent, its renunciation of any selfish strategic or economic interest, its commitment ‘to encourage, enable and facilitate’ the achievement of agreement between the people of Ireland and its promise to accept the admission of Sinn Féin to political dialogue with the other parties, and not just in a nationalist forum, challenged the whole rationale of continuing the armed struggle.
The IRA were given their voice back, they were listened to and given rights to political platform. The playing field was levelled.

Israel need to give Palestinians plenty of land, space, freedom to farm and trade, give them autonomy and dignity and stop acting like they own them. Why do the Israeli's think they have the right to steal land, imprison, torture, control and humiliate their neighbours?

How do you successfully and humanely fight an insurgency?
Diplomacy. No fighting can be considered humane.

How can a standing army ensure a building which contains civilians and enemy combatants (willing to die for a cause) be sanitised with as few civilian casualties as possible, with maximum neutralisation of enemy personnel whilst keeping their own forces as safe and alive (as well as not mentally scarred)?
You decide not to attack, you invite the leaders out and you engage in good faith diplomacy. At the very least, you follow the ICC laws which say you do not attack the building, you keep your troops out of firing range and wait for their combatants to attack you outside the building. You taunt them and you dangle bait to lure them out. But you don’t attack a building with civilians in it unless you cannot get yourself out of harms way by withdrawing to a safe distance.

I am sure I will be called incredibly naive, but it’s the opposite. This is where all wars end anyway. They all end with leaders sitting down and agreeing on terms. Why not skip all the fighting and go right to the talking? Why is that so hard for the (usually male) leaders to just comprehend and do?

Thats a bit of a “wellll I wouldn’t start from here” point.

what’s happened has happened, they are where they are, how do you get from here to a place of safety and security for everyone that lives there.

To begin with OP, the countries involved need to follow the rules of war. They are there for a reason. You don’t need to create a new way of minimising civilian deaths. Your thread is pointless. Maybe your thread should be entitled: why won’t Israel follow the rules of war and what should be done about it?
There are rules written:international humanitarian law. You find though, Israel which considers itself as a democracy, doesn’t follow any of the rules: proportionality is a big one. How many Palestine civilians are being killed for 1 Hamas target? Don’t kill those who are not fighting: doctors, civilians, children, women, premature babies!!! Media, press. Israel is killing them all.

Ah I read it as frustration that people keep saying it’s terrible but offering no alternative to how Israel can protect itself.

It’s a horrible mess either way, I sincerely hope and wish that this puts a fire under everyone to come up with a 2 state solution. This can’t keep happening.

Never said that. Maybe there is a better way than oppressing a population. Instead of jumping to extreme conclusions, maybe try to understand the dehumanising conditions that an occupying force has subjugated people to.

Most reasonable people would want this as an alternative to the current horrific situation, but both sides have to engage for this approach to work.

What factors in NI enabled the warring factions to put down their weapons and talk / listen to one another?

You change the conditions and make the insurgents redundant.

So your solution here is the same as Hamas' goal: that Israel shouldn't exist? That what Israel should be doing in response to terror attacks from Hamas is not to defend itself in ways that are in adherence to the laws of war (as OP wishes to discuss), but to what? Fold down on itself and collapse as a state?

How can a standing army ensure a building which contains civilians...

By that army not being an oppressive and immoral army in the first place that has destroyed a land and dehumanised a people for decades?

I agree with you Noicant. However, to me the OP’s question came across as insincere, basically justifying the actions against the civilians in Gaza.

I think start by not taking the "pick up a gun and fire" incident in isolation, but look at the decades of illegal occupation, apartheid, indiscriminate murder, imprisonment, land grab and town bulldozing at will, inhuman control and oppression of a civilian population into account to understand why it may push people to (wrongfully) pick up arms and fight for (rightful) freedom in the first place.

It’s a very big question. There are many international laws that should be followed like the types of weapons used in densely populated areas.
here’s an overview https://www.icrc.org/en/rules-of-war