Quoted:
What's the difference..?
[u]Isreal -vs- Palestine:[/u] Battle for land struggle and political/religious freedom.
[u]England -vs- Ireland:[/u] Battle for land struggle and political/religious freedom.
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Oversimplifation.
Isreal vs Palestine is mostly about the Palestineans wanting every Jew dead. We've heard this from Arafat. Isreal would happily bother nobody if they were just left alone, they have their land.
Irish Republicans do not want every Protestant dead, or every Brit for that matter. Hence why the Irish flag has Orange on it. In fact, I can name a bunch of Protestants who fought in early Irish Rebellions from the 1700s until recently.
To put it bluntly, the British made it a religous struggle. Like I said, I can name a lot of Protestants who were on the side of Ireland, but how many Catholics can you find marching with the Orangemen?
Largely, this happened with the emergence of Ian Paisley as a leader. As has been said throughout history, the easiest way to control people is to appeal to their prejudices. Loyalists bitch about those damn Catholics. IRA men bitch about the British government.
For Irish Republicans, it's a political issue. It's Irish land, it should be part of the Republic. There's a standing IRA order that people are not to be targeted simply because of their religion. Like I said, there have been and are Protestant Irish Republicans.
[url]http://www.uni-mainz.de/~cielp005/rebelsongs/sor215.htm[/url]
For Loyalists, it's largely a religous issue. They don't want Catholics. Like I said, name a Catholic in an Orangemen parade.
So really, the Irish fighting is political on one side, religous on the other.