Gaza attacks - North can be a lesson

What has happened on this island is a stark reminder of the futility of violence.

After more than two decades of strife the two sides finally began talking. With the help of outside parties, a peace was brokered.

If this had been done in the late 1960s, thousands of lives would have been saved and enormous human misery would have been avoided. A small group provoked a huge backlash that was out of proportion with the initial attack. The ultimate consequence was the polarisation of the whole community. The militants essentially took charge.

Something similar is happening in Gaza. The latest trouble did not begin with the Israeli attack over the weekend. Since the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas fired more than 6,300 rockets at Israeli civilian centres, killing 10 people and wounding hundreds.

Although the number of rockets declined dramatically after Hamas agreed to a ceasefire earlier this year, they never stopped completely. Then on December 19, the ceasefire ran out. The Israelis have killed more than 10 times as many people in each day of the current three-day offensive.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the presidency of the European Union, had been considered friendly to the Israelis, but even he has criticised their latest offensive as a “disproportionate” response.

The Arab world is inflamed and the conflict has the potential of expanding into a much larger war. Rational leaders could be exerting pressure on both sides to talk. The international community should try to broker a peace initiative similar to Northern Ireland’s.