Michelle O’Neill, the recently elected First Minister of Northern Ireland, said on Thursday that Hamas will eventually be regarded as the future partner for peace in the Middle East in an interview on LBC.
Pivoting from discussions on Irish neutrality Marr asks her “A long time ago the IRA was seen as a terrorist organization, the British Government and everybody else could not ever talk to. Do you think that Hamas, although regarded as a terror organization by many people around the world, is going to eventually have to be a partner for peace?”
“Yes,” says O’Neill, “I think you only have to look at our own example to know how important dialogue is and that’s the only way you’re ever going to bring an end to conflict.”
“If republicans didn’t talk to the British government or the British government didn’t talk to the republicans, in the past in Ireland we would not be in the scenario we are in today, enjoying a peaceful and far more equal society today.”
You should read the part in “Presentation” where they explain the 2017 charter did not revoke the old one, or the “Reception” where it describes critics, correctly, calling it a PR move with dogwhistling instead of outright calls for jihad and genocide. So you would do exactly what you just did, but then they can also tell all the people signing up for a genocide “oh no, we’re still doing the genocide.”
Or you could say “actions speak louder than words” and just look at who they killed on October 7th, and what happened to the hostages.
Of course, you should also do the same for Israel, compare their actions to their words. Not to mention comparative death tolls, and while you’re at that maybe note that Gaza fit the traditional definition of a ghetto quite handily.