[QUOTE=MordecaiK;554137]

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Sorry.



The PA keeps getting hung up on the idea of recognising Israel as a Jewish State. That was what negotiations got stuck on the last time. It appears to be a small point but it is an important test of whether the PA can agree to anything more than a temporary truce without it's members getting assassinated. Never mind the hard part. Renouncing the Right of Return for descendants of Palestinians, many of whom have intermarried with local Jordanians or Syrians and expecting those descendants to be satisfied with cash compensation and possible resettlement elsewhere in the world.
Then there is the fact that there are now two "Palestinian States", Gaza and the West Bank not one. Gazans are ethnically quite different from West Bank Palestinians. Gazans (including former residents of Ashdod, Askelon and Jaffa) are descendants of Egyptian settlers brought in by the Mamluks in the 14th Century while West Bank Palestinians seem to be descendants of Jews who converted to Islam. http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/a...ws/2015/01/06/. Probably as a result of the collapse of Shabatai Sevi's false messianic movement in the 17th Century.
And by the way, Israelis don't "grab" land in the West Bank and Jerusalem. If it isn't legally public land, they buy it from landowners who take the money and generally move to South America. A truly viable "two state solution" probably involves offering West Bank Palestinians Israeli citizenship--and requring those who will not take it to move to Gaza or elsewhere. Most probably will take Israeli citizenship if they don't have to worry about being murdered by Palestinians who see them as traitors. "Autonomous cantons" that function the same way as Native American reservations are not a viable option--which many Israelis will not like. An easy pathway for Israeli Arabs and new Israeli Arabs to return to Judaism should be part of the mix too.
Gaza alone is a viable Palestinian State--appropriately in what used to be Philistia. . Gaza is twice the size of Singapore, on the sea and has offshore gas reserves. Gaza can be another Dubai once it's inhabitants make peace with a Jewish State. A Palestinian state in two discontiguous regions with two very different peoples, one of which would have to dominate the other is not a viable state and can only be held together with the hope of Israel's destruction and a lot of oppression and policing.
It DOES have it's limitations too.



That is a very recent and very unofficial development. Jews are still not allowed on Saudi soil.


And non-moderate rebels. Saudi Arabia supports Al Nusra, which is hardly moderate. I think it is Qatar that has supported Islamic State.


See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...wahhabism.html and https://moneyjihad.wordpress.com/tag/wahhabi/ . The Saudi State has to do this. In doing this they keep the support of fundamentalist Wahabi elements in their society such as the original Ikkhwan who might otherwise overthrow them. The Saudis have been playing this balancing act between the West and a public that would have had Saudi Arabia become an ISIS state from years ago.




I'm not so sure. While I can certainly see that Trump's inexperience in public life shows, and while I think he behaves like a complete tyro when it comes to the idea of diplomacy (and damn few international relations professionals seem willing to take Trump seriously or help him) he is asking questions that need to be ask and which have been previously unthinkable to ask. Questions like how far the US should go to force it's allies to pick up more of the slack in defence. Questions like whether Russia is better forging an alliance with (and allowed into Europe) than kept an enemy. I hope Bernie is thinking about these questions.
Hillary for damn sure is not asking these questions if she is having Robert Kagan for an advisor. And they are questions that need to be asked by somebody. Today's Russia is not the Soviet Union and is less authoritarian than many nations the US has warm relations with and treats as an ally--like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and even Thailand, for instance. And there is equivalence between the US support for Kosovo, an autonomous region of Serbia going independent and what Russia has done in Crimea and eastern Ukraine--which does contain a preponderance of ethnic Russians. Maybe America's need for a truly strong ally should outweigh other considerations--as America's need for an exit from Vietnam that contained Russia in the 1970s finally outweighed Cold War considerations and commitments to Asian allies when it came to Nixon recognising China. Today's Russia is probably a lot less authoritarian or autocratic than the Russia Great Britian and France allied with in the Triple Entente to contain Germany pre 1917. If Europeans are upset by such a prospect then let them match the US in terms of percentage of GDP and manpower devoted to their armed forces. I give Trump credit for at least thinking transactionally about this instead of treating our alliances as quasi-feudal obligations with the US playing the same role that Austria did in the Holy Roman Empire. I hope Bernie can think along these lines--and discuss this with the American People.

ROBERT KAGAN!!! OH .... the humanity. /sarc

My copy of "While America Sleeps" is treated like a holy book!

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

ROBERT KAGAN!!! OH .... the humanity. /sarc

My copy of "While America Sleeps" is treated like a holy book!

Geez, another crack smoking neocon.

Guy's gotta checks his facts, man.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

The US was formed as a capitalist state. The reason why there is money for Left wingers to vote to receive is because the US has never strayed to far from its Constitutional roots.

You are dealing in an anachronism. The words capitalism and capitalism do not appear in the Constitution of the United States. Government in the United States was not established by assuring more right to vote to persons with more wealth (although paupers were often denied the right to vote).

Originally Posted by wikipedia

The initial usage of the term capitalism in its modern sense has been attributed to Louis Blanc in 1850 ("..what i call 'capitalism' that is to say the appropriation of capital by some to the exclusion of others.") and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1861 ("Economic and social regime in which capital, the source of income, does not generally belong to those who make it work through their labour."). Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels referred to the capitalistic systemand to the capitalist mode of production in Das Kapital (1867). The use of the word "capitalism" in reference to an economic system appears twice in Volume I of Das Kapital, p. 124 (German edition), and in Theories of Surplus Value, tome II, p. 493 (German edition). Marx did not extensively use the form capitalism, but instead those of capitalist and capitalist mode of production, which appear more than 2600 times in the trilogy Das Kapital.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

Originally Posted by David Krein

From where did you get this (in what I can only regard as a bizarre) notion? The consensus among American historians at least since the First World War has been that "free market capitalism", which is what I think you mean, only came to dominate the American economy in the "Gilded Age" after the Civil War, and, even then, much of the American economy was still based on subsistence agriculture into the 1920s and the '30s. Presidents such as Jefferson and, even more so, Jackson could hardly have been more anti-capitalist.

Pax,

David Krein '42

I guess the old Democratic social studies teacher (a gal about your age) who taught me that was wrong.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Jews are still not allowed on Saudi soil.

If Sanders is elected POTUS, that will present the Saudis with a very interesting dilemma.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Geez, another crack smoking neocon.

Guy's gotta checks his facts, man.

Those Chinese and Russian figures reflect local labor costs and the fact they treat ex military like shit. They don't get the sorts of retirement and vet benes people here do. If the costs were normalized we would not be #1.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

The US was formed as a capitalist state. The reason why there is money for Left wingers to vote to receive is because the US has never strayed to far from its Constitutional roots.

No, it wasn't. Only Hamilton gave a rats ass about capitalism, and it was a lot different animal then than it is now. Back then, there really were supply-side limitations to the economy, so capital. had a place, albeit a small one. Capital came into its own when the country (actually much of the world) industrialized. That's when the first big corporations were formed ... at least the first that produced goods.

Originally Posted by radind

I am a late silent who would find it easier to support Sanders over Clinton. Sanders appears to be totally honest.

I think it needs to be made more clear that Clinton is honest, just not very transparent.

Sanders is doing it better with his fund raising method, for sure.

Originally Posted by radind

It is true that the two sides could work out a deal . This would be extremely difficult, but in my opinion this is impossible primarily due to the enemies of Israel not wanting a deal that recognizes Israel's right to exist.

We could debate fair vs. unfair , but until there is a commitment to the right to exist( big boulder) there is no way to make a deal.

Both sides are at fault, but the Palestinians have taken the brunt of the dispute. I doubt I would act any differently if I lived on the West bank and had no place to call home that was really and truly mine. I blame the Israelis for that. Gaza is different, and a truly lost opportunity. Here, the Palestinians are at fault, though the Israelis have worked hard to make matters even worse.

I don't see this being resolved in my lifetime.

Originally Posted by radind

It is true that the two sides could work out a deal . This would be extremely difficult, but in my opinion this is impossible primarily due to the enemies of Israel not wanting a deal that recognizes Israel's right to exist.
We could debate fair vs. unfair, but until there is a commitment to the right to exist( big boulder) there is no way to make a deal.

The only real enemies that Israel needs to deal with are the Palestinians. Other nations aren't going to attack Israel; it can take care of defending against them. The west bank government now recognizes and works with Israel, so the problem is definitely more on the Israeli side, because they don't recognize the right of the Palestinians to their land. They think all of Palestine belongs to Israel, according to the Bible. And this point of view is in charge of the Israeli government now. Both sides, including Hamas in Gaza, need to recognize and respect each other, for there to be lasting peace between these peoples.

It's hard for the Palestinians to recognize this, when they have thousands killed while the Israelis are protected from harm, and when their land is being stolen from them every day. Americans by now ought to know what is going on over there, after all these years. Knee-jerk defense of Israel is just wrong.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I think it needs to be made more clear that Clinton is honest, just not very transparent.

Sanders is doing it better with his fund raising method, for sure.

On this question we have a different perspective.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The only real enemies that Israel needs to deal with are the Palestinians. Other nations aren't going to attack Israel; it can take care of defending against them. The west bank government now recognizes and works with Israel, so the problem is definitely more on the Israeli side, because they don't recognize the right of the Palestinians to their land. They think all of Palestine belongs to Israel, according to the Bible. And this point of view is in charge of the Israeli government now. Both sides, including Hamas in Gaza, need to recognize and respect each other, for there to be lasting peace between these peoples.

It's hard for the Palestinians to recognize this, when they have thousands killed while the Israelis are protected from harm, and when their land is being stolen from them every day. Americans by now ought to know what is going on over there, after all these years. Knee-jerk defense of Israel is just wrong.

I would like to see the recognition and respect. So far, this is not in evidence.

Originally Posted by radind

On this question we have a different perspective.

OK, but perspectives need to be informed by facts.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Both sides are at fault, but the Palestinians have taken the brunt of the dispute. I doubt I would act any differently if I lived on the West bank and had no place to call home that was really and truly mine. I blame the Israelis for that. Gaza is different, and a truly lost opportunity. Here, the Palestinians are at fault, though the Israelis have worked hard to make matters even worse.

I don't see this being resolved in my lifetime.

We have a different take on this. It appears to me that Israel has less blame.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

In the latest Wisconsin poll, Kasich has surged to a close second, Trump back into the lead, and Cruz slipped to third, in a close 3-way race for all the state's delegates. So this should be exciting on April 5! It could decide whether Trump can be stopped. Meanwhile Trump is still rolling in NY, and Sanders still doesn't top Hillary in most national polls. Sanders needs a win to give him a chance to pull even nationally, but it's not winner-take-all on the Dem side.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

Cruz is back into a solid lead in the latest poll, with Trump second the Kasich third. If Cruz wins, it's a good start for him to stop Trump on the convention's first ballot. It's still a steep climb for him though.

Originally Posted by radind

We have a different take on this. It appears to me that Israel has less blame.

This is not even up to date, but it gives a good idea of life as a Palestinian, in the area they are supposed to control:



The West Bank area shown in yellow is Palestinian. The Israelis control, and live on, the rest. They are moving close to declaring this the final map, and killing the two-state option forever. When they do that, they will officially be conquerors.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The only real enemies that Israel needs to deal with are the Palestinians. Other nations aren't going to attack Israel; it can take care of defending against them. The west bank government now recognizes and works with Israel, so the problem is definitely more on the Israeli side, because they don't recognize the right of the Palestinians to their land. They think all of Palestine belongs to Israel, according to the Bible. And this point of view is in charge of the Israeli government now. Both sides, including Hamas in Gaza, need to recognize and respect each other, for there to be lasting peace between these peoples.

It's hard for the Palestinians to recognize this, when they have thousands killed while the Israelis are protected from harm, and when their land is being stolen from them every day. Americans by now ought to know what is going on over there, after all these years. Knee-jerk defense of Israel is just wrong.

What everybody is forgetting is that Palestinians who get or take or were born with Israeli citizenship DO have full rights within Israel even if they are a perpetual minority. The proof that Israeli citizenship is prized amongst Palestinians is the degree to which Israeli Arabs are sought out as bridegrooms by West Bank Palestinian fathers. If West Bank Arabs (Gaza is already de facto an independent country) stop fighting Israel and start moving toward equal rights as Israelis, their rights (including real property rights for those Palestinians who do own land) are guaranteed. Israel is head and shoulders above it's neighbours in this regard. Including so called moderate neighbours like Jordan. And that's all Israel HAS to be. Holding Israel to European standards of behaviour (by Europeans who ghettoise and discriminate against THEIR Muslim citizens and residents) is pure unadulterated anti-semitism.
The Palestinians in Gaza certainly SHOULD be able to be Singapore to Israel's Malaysia. And to get on with their lives. They can't do this as long as they have a leadership that is no better than ISIS (and whose example ISIS learned from) controlling them and punishing them brutally whenever they stray from their leader's line.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

This is not even up to date, but it gives a good idea of life as a Palestinian, in the area they are supposed to control:



The West Bank area shown in yellow is Palestinian. The Israelis control, and live on, the rest. They are moving close to declaring this the final map, and killing the two-state option forever. When they do that, they will officially be conquerors.

At which point the fight for West Bank Palestinians will be for equal rights within Israel ala South Africa. Which it should be. The internationally prescribed "two-state solution" was never more than apartheid and the UN prescribed Palestinian State never more than a bantustan. Two discontiguous areas under one government separated by another state like pre 1971 Pakistan. Or Bophutatswana or Ciskei. Nobody has asked the Palestinians in the West Bank if they would rather be Israeli Arabs than Palestinians any more than South Africa asked it's African people if they wanted to be citizens of independent "bantustans". To do so would be to deprive the UN of it's clients and diminish the importance of the UN in the world.
Israel can handle citizenship for those Arabs in the West Bank who will take it. The "demographic time bomb" (if it was ever more than a bugbear created to sell the "two state solution" to Israelis) has been defused by Jewish Israeli birthrates which at 3.0 are not only the highest of any industrialised nation but higher than that of West Bank Palestinians or Israeli Arabs. Not to mention the young French and British Jews who are moving to Israel because of anti-semitism in France and the UK.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

No, it wasn't. Only Hamilton gave a rats ass about capitalism, and it was a lot different animal then than it is now. Back then, there really were supply-side limitations to the economy, so capital. had a place, albeit a small one. Capital came into its own when the country (actually much of the world) industrialized. That's when the first big corporations were formed ... at least the first that produced goods.

Yeah. The first multinational corporation sold intellectual property. It was the Catholic Church.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

If Sanders is elected POTUS, that will present the Saudis with a very interesting dilemma.

Yes indeed. Sanders might actually have to meet Saudi leaders offshore the way FDR did, on a US battleship in the Suez Canal.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Trump can't keep any rational train of thought going. He may be in the early stages of Dementia. No joke.

If true, so much like Reagan.

Originally Posted by Taramarie

Boy they are great actors. On point. Trump has that perfect orange and duck face down too.

Or a pig face. Trump is literally as well as figuratively pig-headed.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Both sides are at fault, but the Palestinians have taken the brunt of the dispute. I doubt I would act any differently if I lived on the West bank and had no place to call home that was really and truly mine. I blame the Israelis for that. Gaza is different, and a truly lost opportunity. Here, the Palestinians are at fault, though the Israelis have worked hard to make matters even worse.

I don't see this being resolved in my lifetime.

Palestinians living in the West Bank have few opportunities because even more than in most Arab countries, assets are controlled by a few wealthy "effendi" families. Inequality writ large. (Not that Israel is a paragon of equality either with 20 internationally connected families (who are the real constituency for the "Piece Process") controlling a lot of Israel's assets). Israeli Arabs are in a much better position. They at least can start a business with straightforward licensing procedures (about like what we are used to) and not have people representing the Regime of a few families charging them bribes and kickbacks or even vetoing their plans. When the Oslo Peace Process started, hundreds of Palestinian Americans moved back to the West Bank (some even to Gaza) thinking that a new day had dawned and that they could build a life and a business in Palestine. They soon left very disappointed, usually after losing their shirts. And not to Israelis either. Which helps explain why so many Palestinians a) subsist on the UN dole or b) find offers by Jewish groups to buy them out for about $500k and relocate to South America attractive. It is easy to forget that when Israelis buy land from Palestinians there is a willing seller (although as in some real estate transactions anywhere the seller may not have the clearest title). And this is why. Selling out and moving out has given thousands of Palestinians a chance to get out of debt (or skip out on debt) and make a fresh start elsewhere with some capital, which is something increasingly rare for anybody in the current world.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Has it been resolved that Hillary is? Or Bernie?

No, we'll only know in the 2020s, when the 4T revs up.

But demagogues like Trump are gray champions only in states or nations that are due to fail in their 4T, like Germany and Italy in the 1940s. I'm not ready to write off the USA just yet. Our saeculum has been the peak of American power and success. Can we really go from there to a failed state in just one decade?

You had to ask! Spain fell fast in the late 1500s. The Netherlands fell fast in the late 1600s--to internal divisions. Great Britain fell fast in the 1910s. It happens and it happens often. Read Emanuel Wallerstein's works.

Nobody is talking about the collapse of the "loyalty" pledges, in which last month all GOP candidates pledged to support the ultimate GOP nominee. Third party anyone?

For months, the GOP candidates maintained a patina of cohesion as their dialogue fell farther and farther away from any sense of civility. Everyone remembers the moment in the debate in Michigan when, after nearly two hours of slinging mud, the candidates were asked whether they would support Trump as the nominee. Those on the stage said they would. Their pledges came months after all the candidates were asked a similar question and Trump’s opponents all said yes.
Those pledges fell apart on Tuesday night, during a round-robin series of interviews at a town hall in Milwaukee hosted by CNN and moderated by Anderson Cooper.

Would you support Trump as nominee, Cooper asked Cruz. “I’m not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family.” Pressed to answer directly, Cruz dodged. “Donald is not going to be the nominee,” he said. Pressed again, Cruz held firm. “I think nominating Donald Trump is a disaster, and so the answer to that is not to scream and yell and cry and attack him. The answer to that is to beat him at the ballot box,” he said.

Kasich was more direct. He backed away from the earlier pledge and indicated that none of the candidates should have answered when first asked about it long before the Michigan debate. When Cooper said that sounded as if Kasich was no longer iron-clad in the pledge, the governor replied, “I got to see what happens. If the nominee is somebody that I think is really hurting the country, and dividing the country, I can’t stand behind them, but we have a ways to go.”

Trump, sandwiched between Cruz and Kasich, totally abandoned the pledge he signed in the presence of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus at Trump Tower. Cooper asked if he continues to pledge his support to whomever the Republican nominee is. “No. I don’t anymore,” Trump replied. Asked a moment later about that, he said, “I have been treated very unfairly.”

What will Cruz and Kasich and all the other Republican #NeverTrump people do if Trump prevails? What will Trump and his followers do if Trump doesn't prevail?

I'm staying far from Cleveland this summer. My fiancé's daughter, who works in the Cleveland Clinic as a fellow, lives very close to the GOP convention site and is thinking about joining AirBB and renting out her place. I think she needs to make sure she has good property insurance, too.