Obama compares the IRA to Hamas

From Will at The Other News:

Now the president is in Ireland praising the Good Friday Peace Agreement that ended decades of strife in Northern Ireland. He praised the ability of former adverseries to "reimagine their relationships," in a not-too-subtle hint to the Israelis and Palestinians that if Ireland’s feuding Catholics and Protestants can make peace, so can they.

Peace in the Holy Land should be a key objective for every president. But it’s also a useful reminder that it may take more than imagination or territorial compromise. It also requires facing some hard truths and, in this respect, Northern Ireland is instructive. 

The Irish Republican Army is not Hamas. While it fought a brutal terrorist campaign against the British government, military and the British people, as well as Northern Ireland’s Protestants, IRA never sought the destruction of Britain nor the mass murder of Protestants. It was a deadly terrorist organization, but it was not genocidal in either action or ideology.

Its terrorist attacks were designed not to maximize casualties but to maximize fear and, in many cases, it gave authorities prior warnings that an attack would occur. 

 Read the full story here.