Oxblogger Patrick Belton has a post on Irish support for the Palestinians where he suggests in passing that the IRA and Hamas have engaged in “joint training exercises.” Not that I want to leap to the defence of the IRA (an altogether unpleasant organization, even in its current guise), but this is a claim that I haven’t heard before, and I keep a fairly close eye on politics in the homeland. Moreover, it sounds rather implausible. Quite simply, the IRA and Hamas are different kinds of terrorists. The Provisional IRA draws most of its ideology from late 1960’s “national liberation” style Marxism, although it has softened its message in recent years. Hamas, obviously is militantly Islamic. And never the twain shall meet. The IRA/Sinn Fein always had ties with the PLO - they cooperated in the 1970’s, and PLO representatives still pop up regularly at Sinn Fein party conferences. Further, the IRA/Sinn Fein officially supports the Palestinian side of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in a generic anti-imperialist sort of a way. But Hamas is almost certainly a leap too far for the IRA - I’d be very surprised indeed if there is convincing and credible evidence of IRA-Hamas cooperation.
Update: Via Slugger O’Toole this piece on the Jewish community in Northern Ireland, which suggests that Israeli and Palestinian flags seem to be disappearing from the streets of Belfast.
Posted by Henry at June 23, 2003 01:22 PM | TrackBackDear me, poor Patrick. Let’s hope he knows anything about
something.