should america support Israel?

[Anomalocaris]

You missed my point. Multi-national corporations don't have regional interests. The TPP and TTIP treaties allow them to override all governments if their profits are hindered.

I think the age where multinationals enjoy a global political environment largely designed by the United States for their benefit will come to an end before middle of this century. BRIC states probably already have the mass to prevent further substantive aggrandizement of this global political environment, and will economically and politically outweigh the combined clout of the US and EU other champion and main beneficiary of this system by 2050.

I think that will finally draw down the curtain on the last vestige of the post-Cold War age, and dawn a new multipolar age where competition between different geopolitical interests of numerous major powers would become the norm and the chief driving force.

[Welsh cake]

After attacking three schools in a row, and targeting innocent civilians, America and the west are long overdue to give the military state of Israeli a fine and well-deserved boot up the arse.

[bberryhill0]

competition between different geopolitical interests of numerous major powers would become the norm and the chief driving force.

The trans-national corporations. Nations are no longer major powers. Not even the U.S. Think GE and the oil companies. Monsanto.

[Anomalocaris]

competition between different geopolitical interests of numerous major powers would become the norm and the chief driving force.

The trans-national corporations. Nations are no longer major powers. Not even the U.S. Think GE and the oil companies. Monsanto.

Nations remain the major store of power. It only seems the multinationals call the shots because the most powerful state by a large margin in the world has aligned its own interests with those of its own multinationals. But as soon as there is no longer a single state that is clearly more powerful than all others, the ultimate ability of the state to command its own multinationals will be called upon to deal with other peer states and their retinue of multinationals. Soon multinationals will be seen as not really so multinational, and each primarily serve just one. Then it would be clear in a multipolar world, there will not be a common multinational interest separate from national interests.

[bberryhill0]

British Petroleum, Dutch Royal Shell. Yup those must be U.S. companies.

[Anomalocaris]

British Petroleum, Dutch Royal Shell. Yup those must be U.S. companies.

They operate at American sufferance, and are allowed to benefiting incidentally from a system designed by America and for the benefits of America multinationals because their home countries belong to the American block.

The fundamental difference to be expected from the world in 2050, as compared to the western world since WWII, and much of the rest of the world since end of Cold War, is America will no longer be the premier power everywhere in the world. There will be powers broadly equal or even superior to us across the spectrum, with their own multinationals gunning for ours. Their multinationals won't have our sufferance, but will have the backing of their countries. Soon if these multinationals would each known on which side is there toast buttered, and while they might still operate in many countries, they won't really be multinationals anymore.

[bberryhill0]

Umm... trans-national corporations don't have home countries. Well maybe Bermuda.

[Anomalocaris]

They may be headquartered in Bermuda, but they need American power to provide the environment in which they can be profitable. So they are beholden to the US.

When peer powers to the US arise, not all multinational can rely mainly on American power to remain profitable. Some may find American power to be their obstacle and seek their champion in china or India, or Russia.

Then multinational will be under the thumb of their champion nations.

[The Grand Nudger]

After attacking three schools in a row

-an investment in the future.

[little_monkey]

Bullshit. What Israeli self justifying propagandistic tripe. As if the right of the people in the territory of Palestine to self determination, self government and statehood, and not to have a foreign state explicit for the benefit of a different people than their own imposed upon them, depended on whether Palestine had ever been a single state in the past.

Most of the land was Palestinian. Most of the people were Palestinian. Had been since beginning of living memory. They didn't want a Jewish state there. End of story.

That their will might not have counted for much under British or Ottoman imperial rule is a historic curiosity, and means just as much as the the fact the Jewish aspiration for a state didn't count for much for 1830 years. So if the fact that Palestinian haven't formed a state before 1948 should preclude them form forming one and determining what form that state should take, then perhaps sad Jewish inability to form a state before 1948 should also preclude them from being allowed to form one or determine what form it should take.

So Is this the best spin you can manage?

If holocaust is to be raised as justification, then perhaps it would have been more just, to say nothing of justifiable, to give European Jews a UN mandate to form a Jewish state in Bavaria, or saxony, or some other part of former Nazi germany.

You're barking the wrong tree. I'm not debating that the Palestinians are not entitled to a state.The UN did give them a state in 1948, and I agree with that. The problem is that the Palestinians don't want to recognize the state of Israel and have sworn its destruction. As long as that mentality prevails, there will be war in that region, and with war, there will be suffering. The Palestinians have no reason to cry foul as their suffering is of their own doing.

---

Wrong. The crying is coming mainly from the Palestinians. In the war of images, Israel will stand to loose every time as the Palestinian "freedom fighters" have launched and will continue to launch their rockets in the middle of populated area. There's no other way for Israel to take those out without killing large number of Palestinians in the process. And Hamas will use these pictures to suade the international community to express their outrage towards Israel. And many fools fall for that shit. Israel knows damned well it cannot win this war of images but at the same time it needs to be sensitive to what is propagated in the US as it depends heavily on US support. If only Israel would not fall another time for these Palestinians tricks. But I have little hope that the Israeli leadership has the stomach to carry out what is needed to be done.

I'd suggest you search out multiple sources, then. I regularly hear Netanyahu justifying the killing of 1300 Palestinians, many non-combatants, due to rocket-firings which haven't killed one-tenth the number of Israelis. And yes, the fact that Hamas puts their batteries in populated ares is itself an atrocity. That doesn't mean that Israel must resort to wholesale invasion to counteract it. Surely that is one "solution", but I'm sure there are others.

As this is being played out in the American media, Israel cannot afford to alienate the American public, so there is a need to portray that Israel is taking every precaution to minimize suffering. But the reality of putting an end to this war is to maximize suffering. So the Israeli leadership has to walk a fine line. But make no mistake, the crying is coming from the Palestinians, not as you wrongly stated that it comes from the Israelis. The Israelis only wish their hands weren't shackled by the Americans. They would gladly do a lot more damage.

Where were you in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012? It's the same fucking story that is happening right now in 2014. When will you be able to connect the fucking dots? Another truce will only mean giving time for the Palestinians to re-arm. If you believe in anything else, you are delusional.

When you must resort to invective, you must not have much of a point to make.

Firstly, I didn't realize that I had been appointed Keeper of All That is Right for the Middle East. All this time, I thought I was simply opining online. I didn't realize I had to answer to you for my actions in the last eight years. But since you seem to think you are owed an answer, I'll do you a favor and give you one: I was complaining about atrocities from both sides, as I have been since the first intifada. Injustice is injustice, no matter who perpetrates it.

It you want to debate this then get yourself informed. The conflict didn't start yesterday, there is a 2000-year history behind. If you can't handle that then stay out of the discussion.

Your naive assumption that Israel is lily-white is preventing you from grasping a larger truth. But credit where credit is due, you have the simple stuff like "war is hell" down.

If there is any naivety it comes from you who thinks that a simple truce will solve this intractable problem, when truce has been tried a dozen times, failing at each occasion.

I didn't miss anything, just supplying what is needed to be said so that it is clear what we are talking about.

It had already been said. All the more, after this reply, do I think that your reading skills are being filtered by your biases.

And you have no biases? Wow. I'm flabergasted.

You can thank your Palestinian friends for the blood being spilled. Had Palestinians agree to the UN resolution in 1948, there would be two peaceful states, living side by side, with most likely many intermarrying. Instead, the Palestinians declared war, and we are where we are.


The proper apportionment of blame should go to the British anyways, as anyone schooled in a little history would know.

No, the Palestinians alone are to blame for their self-inflicted misery. No one else.

But -- I'm not sure why you think I have Palestinian friends; I've criticized both sides of this shitsplat, and I certainly don't exonerate Palestinians for their crimes. Perhaps if you'd take off your ideological blinders we could have an unstilted discussion, but quite frankly, you don't strike me as being capable of even-handed treatment of this matter.

There's no ideological blinders, just the facts. It was the Palestinians that declared war not the other way around, a fact you can easily find by reading your history books.

Your refusal to consider the role of Israeli misdeeds leading to this bloodbath, your insistence that the only peace will come with Israeli victory and nothing else -- these facts lead me to believe that you are so partisan that you are incapable of objective thinking in this matter, and so this reply will be my last to you. You're not teaching me anything except the potential intransigence of men, and I'm old enough to have learnt that lesson already, thanks.

Israel has made many blunders along the way, and there are many outstanding issues to be resolved, but none of that matters as long as the Palestinians continue their needless war.

Whatever rocks your boat.

"Whatever" -- the last refuge of the thoughtless. Here's what I wrote:

I'd argue that the cultural psychology of both the Japanese and the Germans had as much, if not more, to do with the turnaround those countries saw after World War II.

You'll note the use of the word "cultural", which in essence excludes any ethnic generalizations.

Perhaps you should read more and post less. You certainly need the practice.

You are harping on trivialities. You are free to make whatever claim, and I'm free to interpret your claim in whatever manner I want to. It's called freedom of expression. So cut out the, "Mommy, I didn't meaning this", "Mommy, he's putting words in my mouth", "Mommy, he's misrepresenting my words". Grow up.