Journalist and opinion writer Megan K. Stack makes the case for lessons from Northern Ireland's peace process to be applied to ending Israel's war with Gaza, and shaping the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict writ large.
Our guest Megan K. Stack began a recent op-ed in the New York Times describing a contentious debate about anti-immigration riots in the Northern Ireland Assembly, “each speaker straining to upstage the last in outrage and fervor.” But unlike many opinion writers, she doesn’t go on to expound on the importance of civility in public discourse. Instead, she marvels that this debate is happening at all – amidst the children of Protestant paramilitaries and I.R.A. bombers, people who grew up in communities that battled each other bitterly for about 30 years – but now share power under a peace agreement that’s endured for almost as long.
Megan K. Stack is a journalist and contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, who’s reported from several conflict zones including Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland. In this episode, she analyzes key moments and actors in the negotiations that ended the “Troubles,” the 3 decades of violence between Irish Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. And she makes the case for applying lessons from that peace process to Israel’s negotiations with Gaza – including on the sensitive issue of disarmament.
Read Megan Stack’s essay Northern Ireland, Gaza and the Road to Peace.
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions and Joel Cummins.