[Peace-discuss] Can Mitchell Succeed? Let Him Talk to Hamas

[C. G. Estabrook]

It's an excellent point.  And he did a good deal more than talk.  Mitchell's 
success in N. Ireland, such as it was, depended on satisfying the demands of the 
terrorists; although it's difficult to make the comparison,  Sinn Fein/IRA had 
less electoral support in NI (still less in Ireland as a whole) than Hamas has 
in the Occupied Territories. --CGE

Robert Naiman wrote:
> Mitchell needs more support, in part because at the moment it's far from
> obvious whether Washington will let Mitchell be Mitchell. He's been praised
> for his work in the Northern Ireland peace process, but for all the
> difficulties Mitchell faced in Northern Ireland, there was one thing he could
> count on: no-one prevented him from talking to one of the key parties in the
> conflict. Mitchell talked to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, leaders of
> Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, considered at the
> time [with obvious justification] by the British, the U.S. and the Protestant
> leadership in Northern Ireland to be a terrorist group. Today, Sinn Fein is
> part of the Northern Ireland government. But at the moment, Mitchell's not 
> allowed to talk to Ismail Haniyeh or other members of the political 
> leadership of Hamas, even though they won the 2006 Palestinian legislative
> elections and constitute the de facto government of Gaza.
> 
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/can-mitchell-succeed-let_b_165936.html
> 
> 
> http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/11/152026/893
> 
> http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/39738
> 
> -- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org 
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org _______________________________________________ 
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