As one door slid open for Northern Ireland 25 years ago, another was sliding shut for Israel and Palestine – and disaster followed
Even before the freshly acquitted Gwyneth Paltrow gave us what we are obliged to call the Slalom Witch Trial, she had already made an enduring gift to the language. For a quarter century, we have spoken of Sliding Doors moments, in homage to the otherwise slight Paltrow romcom in which a single, small action has life-altering consequences – opening up two very different futures.
People use the phrase to refer to forks in the road of their personal lives, but it also applies to the bloodiest kind of international politics. I look at the contrasting journeys taken by Northern Ireland and by Israel in the last 25 years and conclude that one got on the right train and the other missed it – with consequences that get only more tragic.
On next week’s Politics America Weekly podcast, Jonathan Freedland talks to New York publisher Niall O’Dowd about the role he and the Irish American diaspora played in the Good Friday peace process
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
