Lessons from Northern Ireland: ALLMEP reflects on Good Friday Agreement and role of Civil Society in peace processes
The ALLMEP staff and board have recently returned from Northern Ireland, where we convened for strategic planning sessions, and to absorb some “political imagination.” This meeting comes at a pivotal time for the field. With the trauma of the most devastating war in Israeli-Palestinian history all around, and threats to civil society and foreign assistance on the rise. In addition to ALLMEP staff and board, we were honored to be joined by a cohort of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists drawn largely from ALLMEP’s membership, convened by our UK based partners at Solutions Not Sides.
ALLMEP has long held up the Northern Ireland peace process as a case study in long-term conflict resolution, and it was a privilege to convene Israelis and Palestinians from our membership, local activists from Belfast, strategic funders, ex-combatants, politicians and expert analysts. While no two conflicts are the same, the common theme of civil society’s role in transforming political reality was ever-present in each discussion. As was civil society’s role in generating the new ideas, leaders, and movements that conflict resolution requires, and that are so necessary right now in Israel-Palestine.
In 1998, The Good Friday Agreement marked the end of the thirty-year period of violent conflict in Northern Ireland known as “The Troubles”. A critical but often overlooked component of the peace process was the creation of a multilateral institution called the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), which was dubbed by UK Chief Negotiator Jonathan Powell as “the great unsung hero of the peace process.” Founded twelve years before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the IFI was able to heavily invest in peacebuilding programs being implemented at the grassroots level, opening up space that politicians and diplomats could then work within. This twelve-year investment laid the necessary groundwork for peace, strengthening civil society interventions and preparing local communities for the hard work required in pursuing peace.
Peace doesn’t happen overnight, or without difficult conversations and hard work. The IFI made peace possible by centering civil society in a way most other peace processes have failed to do effectively. Replicating this fund in the Israeli-Palestinian context, through an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, is one of the central tenets of ALLMEP’s strategy. This long-term mission reached a significant milestone in January of this year when British Prime Minister Keir Starmer endorsed the concept, and committed his government to holding an inaugural meeting.
During our time in Northern Ireland, ALLMEP met with key figures and civil society leaders who played a pivotal role in the peace process. We began the week with a formal dinner at the Europa Hotel – itself a central figure in the Troubles as the most bombed hotel in the world. We heard from two community leaders and activists who played a central role in the peace process – Rev. Gary Mason and Avila Kilmurray – who spoke compellingly about their involvement in the peace process preceding and in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement. They observed many of the parallels between the obstacles to peace in Northern Ireland and those in Israel-Palestine, and expressed their hope that our week in Belfast would provide an insight into some of the lessons learned from the Northern Irish peace process which could be applied to the Israel-Palestine context.
On Tuesday we were fortunate enough to be joined by Paddy Harte, chairman of the International Fund for Ireland, Martin O’Brien, human rights activist and leader of the Social Change Initiative, and Gina McIntyre, Chief Executive of the SEUPB and overseer of the PEACEPLUS programme. They each underscored the instrumental role that funding played in the peace process, equipping civil society organizations working within communities at a grassroots level with the necessary tools and resources to galvanize public support for peace.
On Thursday morning, we had the privilege of being led on a guided tour of Belfast’s Peace Walls. The walls are a testament to the barriers – visible and invisible – which perpetuated intercommunal violence between unionist and nationalist communities in Northern Ireland for generations. Many of the murals paid homage to the conflict in Israel-Palestine, offering both scope for historical reflection and inspiring hope for a peaceful future.
Shortly after our tour, we convened at the Skainos Centre, an institution created thanks to the IFI. There, we had the privilege of hosting three panel discussions – first, with members of the women’s movement, second, with the chair of the “Yes” campaign during the referendum, third with ex-combatants, and the fourth with a group of “emerging leaders”. The panels sparked interesting conversations about the importance of involving key groups – women, combatants and young people – in the discussion as a fundamental component of any peace process and something that ALLMEP consciously tries to promote through its partnerships with organizations such as Women Wage Peace and Combatants for Peace. Time and again, those present reflected on the similarity between various ALLMEP member organizations in Israel-Palestine, and groups in Northern Ireland who had been so instrumental in achieving a lasting peace.
Members of the emerging leaders panel spoke about their own experience of intergenerational trauma and how the lasting effects of violence continue to reverberate within communities even twenty-five years after the end of the conflict. This is another core aspect of ALLMEP’s strategy through its Trauma Programs which endeavour to address this highly destructive form of violence-related trauma which is incredibly pervasive across communities in Northern Ireland.
Our final day in Belfast concluded with a dinner and panel discussion with Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) from three of the main political parties in Northern Ireland who represented the three faces of politics in Northern Ireland – the SDLP (nationalist), the UUP (unionist) and the Alliance Party (non-partisan). Their experiences demonstrated how civil society activism could help to foster a political will for peace which could be translated into tangible political action – and how the Good Friday Agreement provided a blueprint for the political mechanisms which recognised the rights of two communities to freedom, dignity and self-determination.
Our trip to Ireland concluded on Friday with a trip to Dublin to meet first with former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland and one of the main architects of the Good Friday Agreement, Bertie Ahern, who provided an insight into the negotiations process, and emphasized the necessity to have all stakeholders included at the negotiation table in order to ensure that the perspectives and interests of all groups are included in any eventual peace deal.
It was an educational, emotional and transformational week. One which both deepened our understanding of the incredible work which was done and continues to be done to promote peace and justice in Northern Ireland and strengthened our resolve to strive towards the realization of these same goals in Israel-Palestine.
