As I write, we are waiting for Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners to be released as part of the first phase of the miraculous peace agreement in Gaza brokered triumphantly by President Donald Trump. And I am reading a New York Times article 10 days ago by Megan K. Stack, a distinguished American journalist who has been a foreign correspondent in China, Russia, Afghanistan and the Middle East, comparing Gaza and Northern Ireland.

She begins with her impressions of the Northern Ireland Assembly. “There was First Minister Michelle O’Neill, the daughter of an Irish Republican Army member and the first Catholic to lead Northern Ireland, which was carved from the rest of the Irish island a century ago as a bastion of Protestant supremacy. The deputy first minister, Emma Little-Pengelly, is the daughter of a former Protestant paramilitary gun runner. In the back rows I spotted Gerry Kelly, a onetime IRA bomber of London’s Old Bailey criminal court, now a blazer-clad minister representing North Belfast.

“These politicians grew up in communities that battled each other bitterly for about 30 years before finally making peace in 1998. The conflict, euphemistically called the ‘Troubles’, still lingers uncomfortably close to the surface.

“Predictably, it was invoked in the debate, with the hard-line conservative Timothy Gaston [a distant cousin of mine] suggesting that Ms. O’Neill was a hypocrite for denouncing anti-immigrant violence. Hadn’t she claimed that there had been no alternative to the armed republican uprising of the ‘Troubles’? “I hear from people regularly who see that violence has worked for others in Northern Ireland,” Mr. Gaston said darkly.

“Odd as it sounds, I felt inspired watching this verbal sparring in the grand, gloomy hall of Stormont, the vast hilltop complex designed for a ‘Protestant Parliament and a Protestant state.’ This onetime monument to perpetual sectarian supremacy is now the seat of a government in which the communities share power.

“A pacified Belfast made a welcome contrast to the relentless carnage in Gaza, a place where I used to report. Here was a negotiated peace, unsteady though it may be. Northern Ireland is veined with frustrated hope and unsettled grievance, but it is also vivid proof that a dirty war fought around questions of identity can be channelled into a peaceful, albeit fraught, politics.

“There’s no perfect parallel between the two struggles, but it’s worth recalling that Northern Ireland’s conflict was also dismissed as unresolvable — too complicated, too tangled with religion, too sensitive to an important ally. The road to the Good Friday Agreement was crowded with frustrations, setbacks and perilous political gambles.

“Decades of furtive and fruitless talks preceded the agreement, and some of the hardest work came afterward, when sworn enemies suddenly had to govern together while insurgents clung to their hidden guns. Paramilitary disarmament was one of the last hard-won concessions of trust, not the first step. (I recall this whenever I see demands for Hamas to relinquish weapons immediately.)

“The lessons: Persist. Talk to people you despise. Bring international pressure, particularly from the United States. Don’t push for a military solution before attaining a political settlement; disarmament can wait.

“People in Northern Ireland had to work with others they considered murderers, terrorists or bigots and accepted a settlement that was nobody’s ideal. Peacetime politics is messy. Reconciliation remains elusive. But pretty much everyone I’ve ever spoken with in Northern Ireland, from any and every background, has one firm conviction in common: We are not going back.

“Here’s the truth: The kind of politics that bedevils places like Belfast and Jerusalem cuts deep, reaching into people’s hearts and guts, touching religion and inherited grievance, the things they tell their children, the way they imagine the world and themselves. All of that is extremely hard to face, and sometimes it’s easier to keep fighting. For those in a position of advantage, who have the most to lose once people start picking at politics, prolonging the war can feel safer than negotiating a peace.

“But nobody can fight forever. I am convinced that no military campaign will ever ensure Israel’s security. As in Northern Ireland, it will be a political resolution, hashed out by the people who have to live with the results, with full rights for every human being in the territory — or war will grind on, maybe lapse sometimes, but inevitably resume.

“The United States has done Israel no long-term favours by providing diplomatic impunity and a ceaseless flow of weapons. Palestinians are now enduring a degree of deadly dehumanization that utterly eclipses the violence of the ‘Troubles’. Their day of political reckoning has been delayed too long, and when it finally arrives, everyone will ask why it was so slow coming.”

Locals may say this is seeing present-day Northern Ireland through rose-tinted American spectacles, as the power-sharing government continues to fail to govern the province in any constructive way. That was certainly the view of SDLP leader Clare Hanna (my favourite Northern politician along with Alliance’s courageous Naomi Long) in her speech to her party’s annual conference earlier this month.

She highlighted how there was peace but not reconciliation, equality in law “but not all have the chance to succeed” and north-south structures “that are just going through the motions”.“Yes, we have power shared out – but no one can call it good government,” she said, pointing to marathon hospital waiting lists, a housing crisis and public services people can no longer rely on.“Our most precious natural resource [Lough Neagh] – polluted; a home for the GAA in Ulster – unbuilt; a safe A5 – stalled,” she said.“Confidence draining in politics; an executive that kicks big decisions into the long grass and that never seems far from collapse; in government, but not truly in power.”

The SDLP leader said discussion about constitutional change “won’t be put off any longer”.“A new Ireland is not just about removing a border. It can’t just be about reversing partition. It is about so much more… a time for real reconciliation; not just a photo-op, a handshake, a soundbite.”

She said the present Republic was not a utopia, but “more than almost any other country in the world it has shown a true capacity for transformation.” She understood that for many people such a big change as ending partition “feels daunting”.

She recognised that the growing potential for constitutional change also posed a challenge for the Irish government. “They can’t keep denying responsibility for planning for constitutional change. We’re not just a peace project to be managed and soothed.” She urged the Irish and British governments “to begin real planning” for an eventual Border poll. She said a ‘Ministry for a New Ireland’ in Dublin would “create a defined structure for all-island dialogue”.

The former Workers Party leader and Labour Party cabinet minister Proinsias de Rossa has a different view. In a message in response to my last blog on the Orange Order, he expressed concern that too many people in the Republic, under pressure from Sinn Fein, assume that Irish unity is imminent, with some going along with this for fear they may appear ‘anti-patriotic.’ “Worryingly, there are nationalist voices in Northern Ireland even saying that reconciliation will have to wait until ‘after unity’; that to accept that it comes first is to accept a ‘unionist veto’.

“In my view, having lived through the 30 years of Provo and Loyalist butchery, and having railed against such violence for all that time, it would not just be uncomfortable but deeply unsettling for society both north and south for two referendums to carry the day on territorial unity in the short to medium term. It could be equally unsettling if one (the Republic?) were to say no. So my advice to everyone is to tread softly.

“What form that unsettling would take is anyone’s guess, but I am constantly aware that those of us who thought we had found a peaceful way to bring an end to discrimination in Northern Ireland by demanding ‘British rights for British citizens’, came unstuck because we completely underestimated the forces we were unleashing. That is not an argument against the civil rights campaign; it’s an argument for caution in how we promote our legitimate desires for the future. In short, we must avoid taking unnecessary risks with the lives and livelihoods of our children and grandchildren for a purely imagined benefit, particularly as there is a safe route forward that threatens nobody – the Shared Island approach.

“I am not prepared to back demands for referendums in the short to medium term. I am quite willing to work for a shared island which for the foreseeable future leaves the constitutional framework, painfully arrived at, in place. In 25, 50 or 100 years time people will know whether or not it’s time to have, by agreement, a single jurisdiction on this island, but we will have got there without any bloodshed or hatred; and through peaceful progressive politics, hopefully, each corner of this island will be a good place to live.”

I imagine like many moderate nationalists, I find myself caught somewhere between Hanna and De Rossa. I’m not sure how long the rickety power-sharing arrangement between old enemies in the North can last. But I fear for what could happen if an ill-prepared early Border poll in favour of unity passes by the narrowest of margins. I don’t think we can wait 50 or 100 years for such a referendum. But 5-10 years is too short. We need much more time to get ready for this existential upheaval of the beautiful, now peaceful island we all call home.

A wise friend who was a leading Irish official involved in the negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement says Northern Ireland continues to be a difficult and deeply divided place that has to be managed by the two governments. “I do believe myself that as conflicts increase in our world – as they seem to be doing – the Good Friday Agreement, in all its messy complexity (and perhaps partly because of its messy complexity) will become more and more relevant as each year goes by.  In my view, there are no solutions in the short term to deep-seated historical conflicts like ours – only better means of managing them.  But the latter matters.  And saves lives.”

I agree. The important thing is that we should remain deeply grateful for our extraordinary and hard-won peace in Northern Ireland, and our priority must be to do nothing that could jeopardise it.