Instead they are now regarded as the pike in the thatch, a prudent insurance policy tucked away just in case they should be needed in the future.An exception is north Belfast, where rioting can still happen on a nightly basis, essentially because local territorial disputes take precedence over the peace process. Most of their members are inactive: they are no longer out there on the streets on a nightly basis. Politics may be pulling ahead of paramilitarism, but everyone has learnt the hard way that ceasefires are not absolute things, and that paramilitary groups do not simply fade gracefully away.They remain dug into their communities, often with a fair amount of localised support, their very existence proof that many on the two sides of the divide retain the darkest suspicions about each other. In the meantime, the limitations of even a successful peace process are becoming clear. Yet the process has not delivered certainty, still less harmony, and things are anything but settled.
The big question, as to whether the advances are irreversible, may not be capable of answer for a decade or so. Few would dispute that great progress has been made in Northern Ireland; just about nobody wants to go back to the bad old days.

The turmoil in the Middle East has led to comparisons with the Irish peace process, many lamenting that the Israelis and Palestinians have been unable to construct something along the lines of the Good Friday Agreement. It is time George Bush used the power at his disposal to make both sides hear each other and to make space for the saner voices.The writer is a BBC Special Correspondent. He has not done that yet.In such times of madness it is worth shouting the self-evident: in the absence of politics, violence will always rush in to fill the vacuum. He may not be able to control Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whatever his power over his own forces, but he needs to be seen to make every effort. Arafat must repeat this condemnation every time there is an attack. When Colin Powell goes to the region next week he must make it clear that violence can no longer be an obstacle to embarking on political talks.It will take great American pressure to bring Sharon to the table and the Arabs must impose similar pressure on Yasser Arafat to make an unambiguous condemnation in Arabic of suicide bombing. It should have happened a great deal sooner, but it’s not too late.

And cheap and reckless words.We should be glad that President Bush has at last become engaged. I think of him and his family, but also of friends in Ramallah, whenever I hear someone here talking about the impossibility of peace, and the desirability of letting both sides fight it out Easy words. They are sick with worry that their children will one weekend night be killed by suicide bombers Yet my friend has decided to tough it out He hasn’t given up on peace. I have heard more passionate debates about politics in Israel than I ever have in Britain, so I believe peace is not only possible but that there is a constituency in Israel ready to engage with like-minded people on the Palestinian side.I had a call from an Israeli friend this week who has been talking to his wife about leaving the country. Not everybody rallies behind the bellicose rhetoric of Sharon’s spokesmen or supports the invasion of the occupied territories.

You don’t see much of the other Israel on your television screens.The image of fear and anger is real enough, but the country of intelligent debate and serious thinkers hasn’t been destroyed. Only the vaguest glimmer but enough to forestall despair about the Middle East. Beilin said what any rational mind would recognise as fact: a strategy based on war will end in disaster Beilin and Erekat and Ashrawi represent hope. And there was Yossi Beilin, the Labour Party member and former justice minister, criticising Sharon’s war.