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bquire detailing here. It is an ongoing battle that began in 1690 bwith the Battle of the Boyne, and the partition of Ireland into bone independent Catholic state and another predominantly bProtestant dependency never wrote finis to the struggle. Two im- bportant lessons can, however, be learned from the bloodbath: b1. The two Irish opponents are similar in every way except breligion. This has not prevented atrocity and horror. b2. For decades the Irish question appeared to be settled and bthe Irish Republican Army seemed to have faded away because bof apathy and indifference on the part of the population. Deep bdifferences may indeed lie dormant, but they do not die. They bmerely await the proper moment. bThe discovery of oil in the North Sea brought hope to eco- bnomically beaten Britain and also an upsurge in a Scottish bmovement of independence. Suddenly, the Scottish nationalists bjumped from a group that had received 2 to 3 percent of the bpopular vote to one that garnered 30 percent. The reason was bclear: economically depressed Scotland was faced with the pos- bsibility of a huge income from the oil, all of which lay off what bwould be its shores if it were independent. That, and the knowledge bthat it was tied to an England with serious political, social, and bracial problems that Scotland did not need, suddenly gave a bfrightening urgency to London’s need to soothe the Scottish sep- baratist beast. The House of Commons, after bitter debate, ap- bproved limited home rule for Scotland in 1978, a move that in- bfuriated Englishmen and that failed to satisfy Scottish na- btionalists. What is certain in that this major constitutional bchange in the United Kingdom is a major step in its unraveling. bAs the United Kingdom becomes much less so, the Welsh bnationalists, such as the Plaid Cymru and Adfer, will grow. One bof their leaders, Gynfor Evans, says: “This country indeed needs bindependence.” For most people, the growth of separatism and bindependence movements in Britain is little short of incredible. bThe lesson for Israel, however, is an important one: if after bcenturies of quiet acceptance, within the context of a stable, in- btegrated United Kingdom, people of the same religion and gen- beral culture can be so divided by ethnic and historical origin, bwhat conceivable hope is there for Arabs and Jews to live together bin a land in which they differ in every way and which the Arabs blook upon as stolen from them?
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