After the Massacre: Can the Irish Model Repair the Palestinian Division?

After the genocidal war on Gaza, the Palestinian division is no longer a postponed political crisis; instead, it has transformed into an existential dilemma that threatens what remains of the national project. The gap between Gaza and the West Bank, and between factions and representation institutions, no longer only weakens the ability to confront the occupation, but has also been regionally and internationally exploited to reproduce a fragile Palestinian reality that is manageable rather than liberating.

In this context, what is known as the "Irish model" has resurfaced as an experience that ended a long, bloody conflict through power-sharing and transitioning from violence to politics. However, the real question is not whether this model can be applied in Palestine, but how it can be utilized without falling into the trap of managing the occupation instead of confronting it.

The Irish model, which crystallized in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, did not end the sovereignty conflict in Northern Ireland, but rather rearranged it politically. It was based on preventing exclusion, mutual recognition of legitimacies and identities, and postponing major existential issues to a later popular decision within an institutional framework supported by international guarantees. Its essence was not "final peace", but rather transforming the conflict from weapons to politics.

However, applying this model literally to the Palestinian context ignores critical structural differences. The conflict in Ireland was an internal dispute within an existing political entity, while the Palestinian conflict is a national liberation struggle against settler colonialism. Additionally, the power balance in Palestine is fundamentally skewed in favor of the occupation, amid the absence of any fair international sponsor, against a clear Western bias towards Israel.

Therefore, the danger lies in employing the Irish model to market solutions based on managing the conflict instead of resolving it, or to impose a formula of disarming resistance in exchange for a Palestinian authority stripped of sovereignty. Such a proposal does not represent a settlement, but rather a reproduction of political defeat under the cloak of "realism".

Nonetheless, this does not mean entirely dismissing the model. The possibility of realistically benefiting from it lies in addressing the internal Palestinian division, not in settling the conflict with the occupation. The concept of Palestinian-Palestinian power-sharing can be borrowed, limiting the logic of exclusion, and establishing a real political partnership within a unified national framework, reinstating the PLO as a representative umbrella rather than a paralyzed institution.

Furthermore, the Irish model offers an important lesson in managing disagreements rather than liquidating them, especially concerning the issue of weapons. In Ireland, disarmament was not presented as a precondition but rather came as a result of a consensus political process. In the Palestinian case, the final decision on this issue can be postponed, and agreement can be reached on rules that regulate the relationship between resistance and political action, instead of turning it into an internal conflict that depletes everyone.

The concept of "multiple legitimacy" also emerges as one of the most important lessons from the Irish experience, which means recognizing multiple sources of legitimacy. For Palestinians, this means acknowledging both the legitimacy of resistance and the legitimacy of political representation together, without betrayal or monopolization of national identity, and without reducing the national project to a single path.

In conclusion, Palestine after the genocide does not need ready-made models as much as it needs political courage that recognizes that ending the division is an indispensable condition for any serious confrontation with the occupation. Benefiting from the Irish model should be a tool for rebuilding national unity, not a means to subdue it or drain it of its liberating content.