Irish Examiner view: No concrete moves in spite of whispers around Stormont 

The findings of Westminster’s Northern Ireland Affairs committee that the rules under which Stormont is run should be altered, seem both sensible and practicable. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA

The stasis which has effectively been the sole remit of Stormont for more than 18 months as the DUP continues to block the power-sharing administration of Northern Ireland is, as we know, having a devastating effect on the lives of everyday people.

There have been many attempts — on both sides of the Irish Sea — to end the stalemate and try and embrace the DUP once more into the collective decision-making apparatus that was housed in Stormont, but none has been successful. That does not mean efforts to restore an effective working government in Northern Ireland have stopped, and the findings of Westminster’s Northern Ireland Affairs committee that the rules under which Stormont is run should be altered, seem both sensible and practicable.

The committee has suggested that a two-thirds majority in the vote for a speaker, as well as a first minister and a deputy first minister should be adopted so that normal business can resume in the North’s seat of power.

Unfortunately, the DUP has been blocking power-sharing in Stormont in protest at post-Brexit trading arrangement while also looking to have aspects of the Windsor Agreement legislated for to ensure Northern Ireland’s place within the internal UK market.

They have been doing so by preventing a vote on electing a speaker, as a result of which nothing else can happen and while there have been optimistic noises from both British and Irish ministers about Stormont getting back to business sooner rather than later, still nothing concrete happens.

It can be regarded as a certainty the democratic unionists will agree to nothing which will undermine their ability to control the narrative on Stormont reopening, but surely it would be a positive if what is called “supermajority voting” is allowed to reflect what is now being termed as “cross-community consent”.

Israel security blindsided?

It has been an enduring mystery of the war in Gaza as to how Mossad — the Israeli national intelligence agency and one of the most feared and accomplished security and espionage
operations in the world — failed to anticipate or predict the massacre of 1,200 Israelis by Hamas on October 7.

Quite how a state security apparatus as well-oiled, effective, and ruthless as Mossad did not detect the training operations and military build-up by Hamas in the lead-up to what has become a war which thus far has cost the lives of nearly 16,000 people is a mystery that needs explanation.

Answers are in short supply right now, but in recent days we have got some glimpse of how this happened as it has emerged that Israel’s military and intelligence communities were actually given highly detailed warnings, all of which were ignored or pooh-poohed.

Leaked emails from the Israeli military’s 8200 cyberintelligence unit which discuss the warnings have shown that senior personnel who reviewed them considered the danger of a massive Hamas attack to be “an imaginary scenario”.

This, given the consequences and the subsequent loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives on a grotesque scale, appears to have been a massive misjudgement. That some of the warnings of Hamas attacks on kibbutzim and Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) came six months ago suggests deep failings within the Israeli security system.

The leaked emails show that senior military intelligence personnel brushed off the dire warnings dismissively, but this seems implausible given the country’s near-permanent readiness for war and its previous history of pinpoint accuracy of information on opposition activities.

These leaks are incredibly damaging for Israel’s previously vaunted state security mechanisms, but the reaction to them from within the IDF is also very curious. Commenting on the leaks, it would only say that it is currently engaged in fighting Hamas and only after the war has concluded would it “thoroughly investigate” the matter.

Puttin' on the rizz 

Generation Z — that demographic cohort which succeeded millennials and preceded Generation Alpha — has finally made an impact on the language we use.

In the past few days, the Oxford University Press, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, has announced that ‘rizz’ is its word of the year.

‘Rizz’ is Gen Z slang for “style, charm, or attractiveness” or “the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner.” It is derived from the word ‘charisma’, and had the charisma to fend off contenders such as ‘Swiftie’, ‘situationship’, and ‘de-influencing’ to win this year’s title.

The word went viral after being used by actor Tom Holland, who said in an interview: “I have no rizz whatsoever. I have
limited rizz.”

His words spawned a veritable tsunami of online memes as usage suddenly surged and reflected the way social media has increased the pace of language development and change.

Linguistic experts reckon one of the reasons the word has become so commonplace is that it has, well, ‘rizz’.

It could be argued that the Oxford University Press in the past few years has initiated the lexicographical equivalent of a popularity contest to come up with the word of the year by allowing the public to vote on the matter, but it is fair to say that the traction the word has gathered in public usage gave it the edge.

That it has “potential as a term of lasting cultural significance” gave ‘rizz’ the edge over ‘Swiftie’ and one would have to suspect it could have considerable staying power.

It does have a certain ‘rizz’ about it.

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