Responding to the Israel-Palestine conflict

The author describes how he first applied psychoanalytical ideas in his political leadership of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, particularly in the Irish Peace Process. He then took the lessons learnt from the negotiation of the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement with him in addressing the conflict in Israel/Palestine. The paper pays particular attention to the moral dilemmas for the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States of America as they try to square the military response of their ally, Israel, to the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, with their other international commitments and with the traditional requirements of "just war" theory.