Yes, argues the British statesman Jonathan Powell (among others): in Northern Ireland, after decades of violence, Britain successfully negotiated with IRA terrorists and convinced them to put down their arms. No, counters Eamonn MacDonagh: not only does that argument draw a false parallel between two very different conflicts, but it completely misunderstands how peace was actually achieved in Northern Ireland. MacDonagh explains:

The fairy-tale version of the conflict in Northern Ireland posits that it was only ended by the British government’s willingness to negotiate with terrorists, who could not be defeated by force. Accordingly, the tellers of the tale claim that Hamas also cannot be defeated by force, and Israel must negotiate with them however distasteful the prospect might be. But this version of the conflict in Northern Ireland is based on a self-serving fantasy. . . . [T]he truth is that the conflict ended not because the Provisional IRA couldn’t be defeated, but because it was defeated.

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].