In a strange way, I find myself agreeing with the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Kurtzer, when he said on Friday that it is "unrealistic" to expect the large settlements on the West Bank to be evacuated. It seems to me that Kurtzer is correct in identifying the permanence of Ma'aleh Adumim et al . However, the American diplomat was amiss in not drawing the logical conclusion from this. The harsh reality is that the larger settlements on the West Bank, many of them now the size of small tow...

Thursday was my last St. Patrick's Day. From now on, I'm boycotting the annual celebration of all things Oirish. Next March 17th, no matter where I may be in the world, I will be defiantly (and uncharcteristically) sober. Anyone foolish enough to wish me a happy Paddy's Day will be met by a terse "bah, humbug!" For me, this won't be much of a sacrifice. When I was a kid, St. Patrick's Day wasn't that big a deal, except on the rare occasions when one of my school's sports teams made it to t...

The first thing that struck me upon entering the West Bank city of Nablus was not the poverty or the violence but rather the sheer natural beauty of the city's setting, nestled in a valley. It seemed only right that Palestine, as a land over which two peoples struggle, should be a physically beautiful country. Other conflict zones like Ireland, Lebanon and the Balkans are also pleasing on the eye. The wistful side of me likes to think that men would no more fight over an ugly country ...

One of the advantages of learning Hangeul , the Korean writing system, is that it allows the native English speaker to understand many words which have been Hangeul-ised from English. So for example, at the cafe I can order a " ka peu chi no " or a " mo ka ". Sometimes though, ignorance might be bliss. A while ago, I saw a public information notice on the Seoul subway. My Korean is very poor so I could only understand the title, which was derived from an English word: " te reo ". Unfo...

In the run-up to the war in Iraq, the supposedly liberal US commentator, Tom Friedman tried to rally progressives to the war camp with the argument (I'm paraphrasing) "somethings are still right, even if Bush thinks they are". While I do not agree with Friedman's position on the Iraq war, I do accept the principle he was espousing. Every once in a while, I find myself agreeing with the US president. It sends a shiver down my spine and I feel like I need a shower, but still I can't deny it...

I find it remarkable how Americans refer to their government, their armed forces and their country in the first person."We have to support our president and our troops in Iraq. We have to win." Or equally, "We have to oppose our president's Iraq policy. We have to bring our troops home. We can't win." The idea that the government belongs to the people is strongly enshrined in the American constitution. It probably seems natural then for Americans to speak of their state as "we" "us" and "...

Ten years ago my school, deep in unionist Ulster, became the first mainly Protestant place of learning to invite members of the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein (SF), to come and speak to the pupils. At the time this was a controversial step. The IRA's ceasefire was not yet a year old and SF was still, to many unionists, completely beyond the pale morally. As Jim Gibney and Tom Hartley arrived at my school that day back in 1995, I imagine that they saw their visit as one more small step on...

I've been away from Northern Ireland (NI) for ten months and as such, I'm starting to feel out of touch with political developments back home. In particular, I've been perplexed by the depth of the crisis precipitated by the IRA's robbery of 26 million pounds from a Belfast bank just before Christmas. Of course, I accept that the two governments and the other political parties in the north are right to have no faith in Sinn Fein after this robbery. But still, isn't all the shrill rhetoric...

Thirty miles from where I sit typing this is the country of North Korea, which announced last week for the first time that it has nuclear weapons. When I first heard this news I paused for a moment of trepidation. And then, like everyone else in this region, I got on with life. After all, last week's announcement was not "news" as such, but merely confirmation of what, to use the Belfast parlance, "the dogs in the street know". Like it or not, we in north east Asia are learning to live with t...

When someone you care about is terminally ill, their death can be the cause of guilty satisfaction on your part. "At last", you think to yourself, "the suffering is over". I feel a little like that this week following the summit between Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon in Sharm-al-Sheikh. At the meeting in Egypt, the two leaders agreed to a ceasefire ending the four-year old intifada. The uprising, which has been in intensive care for more than half its life, has finally been put out of its mis...

At the top of the Newtownards Road in east Belfast stretches one of the longest murals in Northern Ireland (NI), a collection of street art celebrating loyalist paramilitarism which encompasses an entire block. Alongside the predictable images of masked gunmen, there are some more unusual touches like the attempt to claim the Declaration of Arbroath and the legendary figure Cuchulainn as loyalist symbols. At one point, if you look closely you can see a crest bearing the legend "their...

It is only two months since the death of Yasser Arafat, yet already the new political lexicon created by his demise has descended into meaningless cliche. I refer here to the oft-quoted "window of opportunity" ( WofO ) which, we are led to believe has been opened by Abu Ammar's passing. This term has quickly become the hopelessly innacurate short-hand of the politically illiterate, already rivalling "coalition of the willing" and "ethical foreign policy" for toe-curling cringe-worthiness. ...

Link Actions like this are "worthy" of the Brownshirts. My deepest respect to Eugene and his family for standing their ground.

One of the most infamous incidents in the history of the House of Commons occured in 1972 during a debate about the murder of 14 civilians in Derry by the British army - Bloody Sunday. At one point Bernadette Devlin, who had witnessed the slaughter first-hand, rose from her seat, strode across the august chamber and punched home secretary Reggie Maudling in the mouth. Predictably this caused uproar. While Devlin's action was certainly "un-parliamentary", no one got seriously hurt that day...

Prediction, like alcohol, makes fools of us all, so here goes: 1. Iraq The elections will be held in most of the country and then guess what? The violence will go on. The country will descend even deeper into anarchy and despair. At some stage this year it is possible that the American public will reach a tipping point when a majority realise that, for everyone's sake, their troops have to leave. It is at this point that one should expect the US right to start thrashing around...