Some joyous tidings from Israel

[tibilicus]

I think it's a rather good summary of your opinion, as there isn't really any evidence that Hamas would stop.

Well maybe state your opinion before criticizing others. .

Why should a nation state negotiate with a terrorist group that doesn't recognise its right to exist and whose main aim is to push it into the sea? The IRA wanted the British out of ireland, not an end to the UK itself and the level of threat they represented was minimal compared to that faced by israel.

I'm saying stop the rockets, stop the terrorism and i would give you an opportunity to see if you can govern a polity.

You can discredit an ideology by demonstrating its enduring failure to achieve its ends, at which point you negotiate from a position of strength. I too watched NI, however i have come to a different conclusion to you.

The process is called infiltration and subversion, and yes it does involve more than SAS squads capping terrorists, and it does work.

I fail to believe that as a UK resident yourself you can say that Hamas poses a bigger threat than the IRA. The IRA were well armed, good guerilla fighters and successfully targeted and bombed key economic targets of the UK. Hamas have rockets, no advanced technology, the IRA in a similar fashion made use with make shift bombs and the like. If the IRA wanted to they could of launched rocket attacks but the fact is they didn't need to or want to as it would go against their fighting style and would be outside of the objectives they wanted to achieve of targeting the UK's infrastructure in Northern Ireland.

Look how the IRA successfully held down "Free Derry" and the amount of time they held it for. A group that posed a small threat couldn't do that. The fact the IRA were never that huge in numbers shows that with numbers they had they could already operate an effective campaign.