>I'd also say that in the Irish troubles there were generations of bombings and kneecappings and hijackings and rocketing and all the rest of it... and in the end, any "benefit" from these behaviors was temporary. In the long term it was a tale of sound and fury signifying nothing- except for the poor innocents on the receiving end, but people forget them quickly.

Well said, JR.

That conflict also had a religious element to it.

Sunday, Irish Catholics all over the world (including one NJ descendant of an IRA fighter) cheered loudly as Rory McIroy, the son of North Irish Protestants, won the British Open in grand style.
Tellingly, his first stop was in Dublin, once a hated and dangerous place for northerners, where he shared more than a few pints.
When he won his first US event, the first man to congratulate him was Padraig Harrington, whose Gaelic name tells you where he's from.
As I child, I heard family members vow that there would never be peace as long there was a Protestant in Ireland.
I heard Protestants say the reverse
Fortunately, they were all wrong.
That peace is still fragile and hotheads on both sides occasionally try to disturb it, but it seems to be working.

There's probably not a parallel there and it would be trivializing and insulting to the people suffering on both sides in Gaza to presume to tell them what they need to do, but at least in this one case, the impossible actually happened.

PS I read that Rory drank Jagermeister out of the claret jug... what kind of an Irishman is that?