Unfortunately it’s very much different, Jews can hold Samaria, Judea and Jerusalem their “native” land given their culturale heritage. — neomac

All I'm saying that this is quite similar as many other reasons given for conflicts. I agree that it's totally unfruitful to ponder who is right and wrong. The fact is that Jews moved into Israel and established their state on a former British mandate that earlier was part of the Ottoman Empire. That there is no will (on both sides, I guess) to assimilate the population that lived there causes a problem.

This conflict could have ended as the Cold War ended in a negotiated peace, but it didn't. And now it is extremely unlikely.

That the US is an integral part of the conflict (as an ally of Israel) and Arab countries and later Iran has made the conflict a question for themselves doesn't help.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about conflicting claims over the same “native” land, re-location of people and colonization. — neomac

It really isn't so different. It's just marketed as such.

Do notice that Israel has expanded the jewish colonies in order to make more clear that the land is in doubt. If Stalin transferred native populations away from their homelands to Siberia, he also transferred Russians into these conquered territories. Hence the Russian minorities in the Baltic States haven't happened because of only voluntary work related migration. This can be seen from the fact that Finland was over a hundred years part of the Russian Empire, yet it has only a small minority of Russian Finns (about 1,7% of the whole population) as the Grand Dutchy didn't experience Russification. Hence this is a similar phenomenon happening here as obviously Israel's justification for territory would be dubious if no Jewish settlers would live there.

Hope you're right. But he could do a lot less than the most dire, and still be dire. Consider what is within his power, a misjudgement in an international economic or military crisis could be *extremely* dire. — Wayfarer

Of course. And the real issue perhaps is how not only does the "Overton Window" of what is acceptable change, a lot of policies can have a surprising effect. When Trump declares that he wants to increase the territory of the US and doesn't rule out military action either in Panama or against an ally, this can have the effect that it undermines the whole internationally based order system and the UN charter. Might makes right is the outcome, if the international order based structures fall.

This might be the real negative aspect of Trump's populism, not something that directly happens by Trump's actions, but indirectly happens. When it becomes OK to annex territories, you can sure that many countries will follow suit and won't try to apply silk gloves as earlier (like Morocco). Ruanda's actions in DRC seem to be an example of this.

At least Trump does react to polls and his supporters, so a lot that Trump has promised to do won't happen. Also the courts will defy his most insane ideas. Is a 30 000 person camp possible? Yes, but it goes well below of housing hundreds of thousands or even millions. The sheer scale needed and the huge effort to organize such mass transit simply isn't possible for Trump as he lacks the determination and ability to that. Trump is a demagogue, not a leader capable of organizing huge amounts of people to work in a coordinated way.

This also means that the most dire fears about Trump aren't realistic.

He hates Government, and he's in an ideal place to disable it. — Wayfarer

As he is the head of the executive branch, I guess that is called self-loathing then.

I get it; you don't want to believe that this is the case. It would be too ugly. Many of the 10/7 victims living on those kibbutzim on the border felt the same. We can see the world how we want to, or how it is. — BitconnectCarlos

I guess that the reasoning of remember 10/7 will have the lifespan as 9/11 was the reason for intervening everywhere. About two decades at most.

For you it's just the reasoning you need for your own stance. Next obvious question that you totally ignore is "how". The simply fact is that Hamas and PLO simply cannot destroy the IDF even theoretically, which just makes this argument nonsense. But just as the stance that there's nobody to negotiate with, that Palestinians just want to kill every Jew they can, will reassure your own justifications.

I'm only holding the view that there isn't a possibility for a negotiated peace and the current Israeli government thinks that in the long term a military solution can be achieved and the price that Israel would have to pay will be minimal.

And while we can invoke national self-determination and statehood to counter imperial ambitions (see Soviet Union and Russia), we can’t do the same when national self-determination and statehood can be achieved only at the expense of other people’s national self-determination and statehood like in Rwanda, Azerbaijan, Yugoslavia. That’s the impasse I was talking about and the reason why the cycle of violence can easily re-emerge, escalate and get vicious. — neomac

I'm not following your reasoning here at all. It doesn't make any sense.

First of all, any secessionist movement where one people get independence from another is a loss to the previous state, be it Imperial Russia, Yugoslavia or Sweden (with Norway). The former state loses territory and citizens to the new state, whatever kind of state it is. Yet states and countries have the ability to be in peace afterwards. The violent nationalism and jingoism can be put aside and relations be improved, even after a war. Norwegians and Swedes come along well, even if Sweden fought it's last war against Norway, which in turn got it's independence from Sweden with a popular vote. (Notice that Norway has been part of both Sweden and Denmark.)

The obvious fact is that Palestinians already have accepted the loss of pre-1967 territories and hold on to the UN ruling about the conquered territories during the Six Day war. The Oslo peace process was about dividing this remaining part of Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza, to form a Palestinian state. But now that is out of the question. So I don't understand at all your idea here.

Or then you take granted the Israeli propaganda that there cannot be peace as Palestinians and Arabs will simply want to throw them into the sea and abolish the Israeli state. And any Palestinian state, how small or large, will continue this.

The whole Israeli objective is to make living unbearable and basically impossible in Gaza. As long as Israel's trading partners don't be upset about it as long there is no media outrage. I think that's the way the final solution for the Palestinians is implemented.

I think quite a few Gazans would choose to leave voluntarily if it were purely their own decision and they were promised stability elsewhere. — BitconnectCarlos

They likely would want to come to the US. Still you can "become" American, even if Trump is making a great effort to stop that idea and go with the more traditional nativity. Many of them would even go along with the idea that they would be now Americans and not anymore just Palestinians.

Let’s not shift from “sending hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in different neighbouring charitable and brotherly muslim-arab countries” to “forced removal of people”, — neomac

Neomac, that is the issue here.

When have Palestinian refugees that have fled had the ability to come back?

Never.

Not after 1948, not after 1967. Hence it is simply ridiculous to assume that "Simply move the people away while the place is refurbished". It's not a naive idea, it's an astoundingly stupid, ignorant idea. Besides, if this would really would be so "temporary", then have the Palestinian camp inside Israel, built in the Negev. There's vacant room there.

Appeal to national self-determination and national statehood historically emerged and worked better at time of empires. But neither Palestine nor Israel (however shaped as a colonialist project in modern times) are empires. That’s also why comparisons to Stalin’s Russia (which actually deported Crimean Tatars) or Putin’s Russia (which actually deported Ukrainians), both motivated by imperialist ambitions, aren’t as compelling as you think. — neomac

Lol.

Ruanda isn't an Empire. And Azerbaijan isn't an empire and neither is Burma. Yugoslavia wasn't an emprie, but killing people and cleansing the "unwanted people" away has happened in them. This isn't just done on imperial motives. So it's your argument that isn't at all compelling.

If people are treated as second rate citizens with different laws than the ruling people and these want to have an independent state, then it's a fundamental problem for the society and it just doesn't go away easily. And anyway, Palestinians and Israelis aren't talking anymore or trying to find a peaceful solution. They only are able to have a periodic cease-fire.

Are there more desirable outcomes? — neomac

If both sides would want genuine peace, yes. But they don't. The Likud wants a victory over the Palestinians, Israel being from the river to the sea without any Palestinian entity between it. And they believe that they are succeeding in this. And why not. There seem to be no actual negative things for this as Bibi only needs Trump's ear. Europe doesn't matter at all and China isn't interested.

The so called "Oslo Peace process" was an oddity of a moment that won't come back. Those Israeli politicians that attempted a peace aren't getting back to power. Or then Bibi would have to fail again miserably. What we are seeing is moderate Israelis leaving the country and the previously secular Israel changing to a more religious country. And of course Israel's actions don't make it any easier for a Palestinian "moderate" to surface.

"More than two-thirds of U.S. crop workers are foreign born, according to the USDA. Many of them came to the country through the H-2A visas, but officials estimate that 42% of the workers are undocumented migrants." -- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-deportation-plan-effects-undocumented-farmers/

So the cost of harvesting will increase, and some may not get harvested at all. — Relativist

These kind of statistics were given and noticed in Brexit, btw, when people started looking at what the Poles and other EU-citizens were doing in the UK.

And yes, you will get problems with these kind of policies. Or then the Trump administration will fail in it's policy. And that can very well happen. Remember the wall that Mexico would pay for?

As I've said, Americans will have their own version of BREXIT-type economy under Trump, if he goes through with the deportations. It's simply math.

What is helpful for Ukraine is new technology that has given it the chance to hit back at Russia in a way before only was possible if you could have a strategic air arm and had at least partial air supremacy.



What is encouraging is that Ukraine is becoming very good at this old-new form of unmanned air war and a home-grown industry is taking shape.

Anyone suggesting that forced removal of people from where they have always lived is practical, or a great solution, should then be ready to take those people themselves. Forced removal of people where they have always lived is a vicious, hateful idea that shows how unethical or lacking moral character a person is. Refugees are given sanctuary with the idea of them being really refugees, people that go back from where they fled once there's peace. Migrants are tolerated, if they bring something to the economy. Forced transfer people aren't refugees or migrants, because they have not opted to do this in any way voluntary. It was a hideous thing for Stalin to do and would be a similar thing now for us to do or to accept. It seems that we are just racing to lower our ethical standards. No wonder values of the Enlightenment are under attack in the West.

If you desperately want to instantiate and aide the religious extremists in Israel in their dream of creating an Israel only for the Jews, then do their dirty work and assist them by opening your home to those people forced out from their homeland. Be the willing henchman yourself. Do not imagine that the forced transfer wouldn't be wrong, or that someone else would happily assist in this. After all,

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

That Egypt and Jordan are totally against these ideas is clearly understandable.



Of course, the extremist Smotrich welcomes Trump's idea. Why not, Trump gives credence to their ideas of a "final solution" for the Palestinian question.

(Alarabiya News/AFP)Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday welcomed US President Donald Trump’s idea to “clean out” Gaza by relocating Palestinian residents of the territory to Egypt and Jordan.

This has come up before. There are categories in my own subject of complex analysis, but in order to work with them you need a solid background of complex analysis at the beginning grad level. — jgill

I remember someone saying that basically set theory was first seen as a way to finally solve the problematic nature of analysis.

Category theory seems to be more a graduate school offering, whereas set theory can be presented at a much lower level. However, "New Math" of the 1960s and 1970s flopped when this was tried. Feynman was very critical of the effort. — jgill

I was a casualty of this "New Math" myself: on first grade they really started with set theory and believe me, for a first grader, it was indeed confusing. The old style with relating numbers to pieces of apples and toy cars with addition and substraction was far more understandable. I only remember how confusing "union of sets", "set substraction" and "intersection" was back then, because the teacher didn't give us any hint that somehow this was related to the old school addition and substraction. I also remember my grandfather and grandmother, both math teachers from my mother's side, having this negative attitude towards the new thing and talking with my parents and my other grandmother, that this is too difficult for a first grader.

Well, when you actually very easily get to "problems" like Hilbert Hotel and can discuss on a Philosophy Forum endlessly the basics of set theory (and the foundations of mathematics), it's no wonder just why "New Math" didn't meet the challenge.

As I studied in the Social Sciences Faculty in the university, I remember this math course what you could basically call a "Getting social science majors up to university-level math, because the school system has failed in this" -course. Or at least the teacher spoke about it so nearly every lecture. One of the best math courses ever that I took, actually. I remember how frustrated the math teacher was every time when some thing in mathematics was "just agreed upon to be so by an international convention" without any actual proof. He could just feel all the young social science majors thinking what on Earth is happening here. I remember just how many of these "agreements" there were in mathematics. Basically there is a huge gap between high school math and then university/graduate level mathematics.

I agree it's an undesirable situation. Unrestricted borders would be too big of a security risk for Israel. — BitconnectCarlos

Israel's basic paradox is that it would need a strong state capable of defending it's territory (as Egypt and Jordan) in order for there to be peace. These two countries can keep non-state actors out. Lebanon is a perfect example of a weak state incapable of controlling it's borders. Yet as there is no trust or faith in the other side, this won't happen. A Palestinian state capable of controlling it's borders would also present a threat to Israel. Hence it looks like present administration Israel wants to go for some kind of a "final solution" option in the long term.

I like this. However, category theory - which includes categories of sets - an outgrowth of algebraic topology and what ever else of similar abstraction seem to have gotten into the game. — jgill

Category theory would be the philosophers companion here, but uh... we haven't been trained in category theory in school or in the university. That is really something lacking!

But if Palestinians (not Hamas, Palestinians) are destabilising for Jordan and Egypt despite being mostly all charitable arab-muslim brothers, then it shouldn’t be hard to understand that Palestinians ruled by Hamas can be destabilising for Israel, right? — neomac

Your enemy in a conflict is naturally destabilizing. How could it be something else, because it's your enemy?

Yet you can see the obvious problem with let's say with the PLO and Jordan. Yes, King Hussein did give them sanctuary. But having a large independent armed force (or separate forces) in a little country isn't something very secure. The whole thing ended up with Black September, or what sometimes is called Jordanian Civil War. This event from history should be remembered, when people just assume that other Arab states should happily bare the burden of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Worth watching, if one isn't familiar with Jordanian and Palestinian history:

"Palestinianism" is nothing but a front for the expansion of Islam. An identity built purely on revanchism. — BitconnectCarlos

I disagree. The PLO doesn't have it's roots in Islamism, as Hamas has. As the area had been part of the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of Egypt, there hadn't existed Lebanon, Syria or Jordan as we now know these countries now. But this isn't at all some kind of refutation. Just as there hadn't been an independent state called Finland, that doesn't mean that there hadn't existed Finns. And anyway, I despise people who talk about "the artificiality" of any people compared to others, when millions of people do relate being of a nationality. Usually these people have very dubious incentives for this strange argumentation.

Palestinian identity has basically emerged from the conflict itself. These aren't citizens of Egypt or citizens of Jordan. They aren't Lebanese or Syrian either. Even when it was Jordan holding the West Bank until 1967, even then the country had to maneuver tightly on the international stage. And of course in the 1948 the neighboring Arab states weren't defending the Palestinians, but trying to carve up the former British Mandate.

Regarding different laws, all Israeli citizens have the same laws. But yes, Palestinians under the PA or Hamas will have their own laws. ↪ssu — BitconnectCarlos

And here lies the absurdity of the situation: you are referring to PA and Palestinians under Hamas, but then again would they have then their independent statehood? No. Hence they aren't the responsibility of Israel, but then they cannot be responsable in the way a sovereign state is of it's borders. And in the era of Trump, just shove them somewhere else.

I’d question the idea that failed diplomacy is always due to stupidity or irrationality. People’s interests are shaped by emotions, power dynamics, and values not just logic. Even when opinions and interests seem irreconcilable, there are often ways to avoid war if both sides are willing to make concessions. The challenge is that compromise often feels like a loss, which is why diplomacy sometimes falters. — ZisKnow

Clausewitz looks at war from the perspectives of nations states, but there's the notion of war as a civil war, which is a rather different kind of monster.

Civil wars can happen when the society simply breaks up and cannot take care of it's members as before. If someone can come up with a civil war erupting in a state where the economy was great and people prosperous, please tell me, because I don't know of such a civil war except for perhaps on exception (and likely here I'm showing my ignorance). The exception that comes to my mind is the American Civil War, where at least to history economical hardship wasn't the reason for the war. But here I can be wrong.

@Maw made that remark six years ago, so at least for me the link is saying "not found". Yeah, not everything stays in the net. And Scruton died five years ago. I would assume that Scruton as a traditional conservative wouldn't be so enthusiastic about the state of conservatism today, anyway.

Sad that conservatives like Scruton seem to be a dying breed.

I’m a bit late to the thread. Just to put you at ease, mathematical infinities are not the same thing as philosophical infinities. They are precisely defined and used as means to perform mathematical equations. Which is pretty much what sime has said. — Punshhh

Well, umm.... in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory infinity is taken as an axiom. Hence there's no proof for infinity.

Then there's open question of the Continuum Hypothesis and it's status, which tells us that even math / set theory doesn't precisely understand infinity. Even the Cantorian system of a cascade of larger infinities is something that is under debate.

Of course as @jgill mentioned above, mathematicians aren't bothered about all of this as they have their limits (plus you do have non-standard analysis for infinitesimals), so one could describe the situation like mathematicians have outsourced the philosophical problem to set theorists.

The pogroms aren't a great example. If this exile were to happen, it's because the Palestinians were defeated by another civilization. But yes, exiles can have value. It's about how the culture understands the exile and what they do from there. I understand that exile is no walk in the park, but it's a completely different matter from genocide. — BitconnectCarlos

The issue here is that the Palestinian identity is fixed on Palestine, the territory, just as Zionism has fixed the Jewish identity on the land of Israel, the same territory. A Palestinian abroad aren't migrants, but see themselves as refugees. Thus they won't adapt to be Americans, Egyptians, French or German or whoever. For many Jewish people their religion is not their national identity, but for Israeli Jews zionism is part of their identity. Similarly it is for the Palestinians: the Nakbah and those cherished keys to their old now nonexistent houses that the families hold on as relics is what makes the Palestinian identity.

Peoples identities are lost either by cultural assimilation or by genocide. The sad reality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that there is no option of cultural assimilation. Israel is the homeland for Jews, not a "multiethnic country that celebrates it's diversity". The conflict itself is part of the national character of both Jewish Israelis and the Palestinians. And when you have different laws to different people, this is totally evident. And this is why there is no "great solution" for this conflict. Only bad ones.

Forced transfer or forced settlement has been used numerous of times, famously used by Stalin and the Soviet Union to control it's Empire. Ethnic cleansing came to define similar actions only during the Yugoslav Civil War. I hardly think it's so positive as you depict it to be:

Sometimes in exile things improve for the people. It allows them to rebuild in a better way. — BitconnectCarlos

So like the Pogroms in Eastern Europe that drove many Jews to migrate to America was ...actually a splendid thing to happen? :chin:

Yet as I've stated already, Azerbaijan did use ethnic cleansing / forced transfers, yet simply declaring publicly that nobody will be forced out, it worked perfectly. No condemnations whatsoever! Thing seems to be forgotten. Because they (the Azeris) didn't tell publicly that they want every single Armenian out.

I think Jordan and Egypt (and possibly Indonesia) taking Palestinian refugees would be a great solution and I hope it works out. — BitconnectCarlos

It's not a great solution and likely won't happen. It is as delusional to especially think that it's a great solution as is the anti-semitist thinking that Israel is a Western colonial project and the European Jews that have migrated there ought to migrate back to where they came from. After all, the Crusader States were for longer than present Israel has been around.

And no, I'm not saying that to be any solution, but just an example of the offensive "solutions" that people give.

Model Trumpian choice. Wanted as governor of South Dakota to deploy the local National Guard to the southern border with the financing of a billionaire. Didn't go through, but actions like holding the Trump line that the 2016 elections were rigged, ensured that she would get a position. And as a grandmother she's not yet ugly, which is important for Trump.

No, global trade needs one currency. — frank

Nonsense!

Have you ever heard of a system called a market? And it's simple math to trade with a basket of currencies. No, seriously, the global economy doesn't need one currency. For the vast majority of human history there hasn't been a currency in the role as the dollar was post WW2. This is the major fallacy that Americans seem to have about their awesomeness. It's all related to WW2 and the role the US dollar was given in the post-war system. Ask just why would the Arab states buy an sell their oil in dollars if it wasn't the security guarantees that the US has given to them?

. It's the dollar now because the Chinese want it to be the dollar. When they change their minds, it will become the yuan. — frank

When the global system is dollar based, why not. China doesn't want a conflict with the American Superpower and China simply isn't as aggressive as the US portays it to be. But yes, that can change...

In China’s telling, these strategies are less about offense — trying to dethrone the U.S. dollar or replacing it in the global system with the renminbi — and more about defense: strengthening China’s financial security and reducing its geo-economic vulnerabilities within the existing dollar-dominated global economic and financial system. Beijing wants to minimize its exposure to a potential dollar liquidity crunch and ensure its continued access to global capital markets even during times of geopolitical crisis.

No Chinese leaders have publicly expressed an intention to dethrone the dollar despite escalating geopolitical and trade tensions between the U.S. and China beginning in 2018. However, as those tensions persist, Chinese financial regulators and scholars have explicitly expressed concerns about Beijing’s vulnerabilities and urged government officials to step up efforts to protect the financial system.

Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, has cautioned that China should urgently prepare for the possibility of being removed from the U.S. dollar-based global payment system — a form of “forced financial decoupling.” In such a scenario, Chinese entities would lose the ability to access the U.S. dollar or use it to conduct international transactions.

Hence it's obvious that the Chinese have had to think about this, especially seeing what happened to Russia after Putin invaded Ukraine. You can face then sanctions and severe problems in trade, but it's not an existential threat as Russia has shown. If they would invade Taiwan, the most likely response would be sanctions, freezing of assets and difficulties in normal trade.

They shouldn't. Remember what happened to Syria? — frank

What are you referring to? The line in the sand -speech by Obama?

The US debt will never be paid. It will disappear in the next global economic catastrophe. — frank

Well, then I guess it's paid with inflation. Looking forward to that 1000$ Big Mac? With a 1000$ Big Mac a trillion dollars isn't so much money. And there will be many trillionaires around.

Everyone will start over and Americans will turn back to their own resources. — frank

Oh don't be so dramatic. An economic crisis is just a rearrangement of assets and some generations finishing unemployed until they. But if you have invested well, you will profit from the debacle. And what "turning back to their own resources" are you talking about? That sounds very Trumpian. Do understand that the existence of our societies has always depended on trade.

I think what's finally dying out is the idea that the US is supposed to have global influence. That was cold war ideology. The new US only takes care of itself. That's been coming for a while. — frank

Well, it's taking a lousy effort to take care of itself. Because a lot of what it has depends on that it is a Superpower. Yet many think it's just the sheer awesomeness of the US that it has this role.

Starting from the role of the dollar. Without the US being the Superpower, there is no reason to give it's currency a special role global arena. The US dollar naturally would be important, but then it would be just one among many, just like basically the role that the euro has in international trade. This gives the US the ability to spend totally recklessly and have no worries about a current account crisis. It really affects the life of every American. We could be easily repeating the lines that only now Russia and China are talking about the "unfair" role that the US enjoys.

Then continuing to the simple fact that other countries listen to what the US president says. They don't listen to the prime minister of India says so much. Not even the Chinese leader gathers so much interest.That the West welcomes the US leadership role is again solely because of it's alliances and it's relations and it being a Superpower. In the 1930's or earlier that wasn't the case. So how much did the World listen to some US President? Only brief episode after WW1 was there a role for the US, but that went away quickly as the US went back home and withdrew.

It's sheer stupidity from the US to think that NATO isn't the Crown jewel of it's hegemony. A whole First World union equivalent of the size of the US has entrusted it's security to the US and wants the US to take the lead. How stupid can one be in giving up this dominant position? At worst make your allies former allies and either lukewarm or even hostile to you? It's now been repeated so many times over that the US possibly won't be there for it's allies that Europeans have understood this. Yet the Europeans are still treating the talks about Greenland as "Trump talk", but if Trump literally will want to expand the territory of the US as he said, even the most obstinate supporter of America's role in the security of Europe might change their heart.

I think the main reason is that nobody is telling to the Americans how their economy and thus their way of life has been depended on the country having the role it has. Nobody can tell Donald Trump what is the real price for him if the US would leave NATO.

The F-word has little use, as can bee seen in this thread. — Banno

Would the rapid decline of the liberal democracy and replacement of it with populist autocracy that is supported by few extremely wealthy oligarchs do? That really doesn't fit the f-ideology. That the democratic institutions become mere shadows of themselves and the liberal rule based order be replaced by might makes right as in the 19th Century? In the f-ideology the state institutions ought to be extremely powerful and dominant the extreme rich totally dependent on the state.

There is no ideology here to see, no 20th Century ideology as we have learnt. The only hugely popular accurate definition used by various different commentators (both American and foreign) is transactional. Everything is transactional. Trump supporters will define it as Trump measuring everything as what is profitable for the US and his opponents as what is profitable for Trump himself. If there's some guiding light in Trump's action, it is this transactional attitude toward everything. It explains the Trump talk of Europe "owing" to the US when the countries are spending less of defense.

Why call it "so-called", if Trump helps Netanyahu's dream to be fulfilled? The next issue will be to argue that "ethnic cleansing" isn't genocide, because it isn't mentioned in the definition of a genocide (as is for example of forcibly transferring children of the group to another group, which Russia is doing in Ukraine). For the Netanyahu government, removal of Palestinians from the borders of Isreal (which include Gaza, West Bank, Golan Heights) seems to be a plausible long term solution. And obtainable.

If the destabilization of especially Jordan (and Egypt) is the next issue on the agenda, then hardly anything else would be more effective that this. The last thing that the governments of these two countries want to be is willing participants and enablers of the ultra-nationalist zionists plans for moving all Palestinians out of Israel. As Jordan had to fight earlier the PLO earlier and the Egyptians are no backers of Hamas, the last thing for the two countries is to have huge refugee camps of Palestinians with Hamas.

Also, the fact that the border between Jordan and Egypt have stayed peaceful is because both of the countries armed forces can ensure their side of the peace deal with Israel. That's what an actual peace means. Hamas in the refugee camps won't have none of that.

And let's remember that their is an enthusiastic lust for war within the Netanyahu administration, who insist the war to continue. And why not? It isn't going to be that there's any sanctions hurled at Israel because of this, so simply keep on...

(Times of Israel, 15th Jan 2025) Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich insisted Wednesday that the war in the Gaza Strip must continue, but did not explicitly say whether he will back or oppose an emerging ceasefire deal to release hostages held by Hamas in the Palestinian enclave.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly pressuring Smotrich to resist a call from allied far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to exit the government if it approves the hostage agreement on the table.

Ben Gvir has now exited the administration, Smotrich is still hanging on. So the cease-fire is for six weeks. What happens then, we'll see.

Of course I'm not just talking about the Trump family. What rock have you been living under that you think oligarchy only became a thing under Trump? — Tzeentch

Again with the strawmans, Tzeentch. Do we start with the Robber Baron's era or United Fruit Company or Halliburton, or go with the Koch Brothers or with the so much loved George Soros?

Anyway, I think today it's far more obvious, with billionaires like Elon not putting their wealth and other duties on hold (or aside) when applying to government positions. At least formally Dick Cheney as vice President wasn't anymore the CEO of Halliburton. But DOGE is just there in the open and Elon can enjoy both worlds. And nobody cares.

Nothing new under the sun. The US has been an oligarchy for decades, and it still is. It's just that the previous oligarchs have been ousted and they don't like the new ones, so we have to suffer through the whole sanctimonious melodrama. — Tzeentch

Well, if you are talking about the Trump family with also the Kushner family, I guess you are right:

(BBC, 14th Feb 2024) After leaving the White House, Mr Kushner's private equity firm received a $2bn (£1.59bn) investment from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.

Mr Kushner worked closely with Saudi Arabia on a number of issues during the Trump administration.

He has denied that the investment represented a conflict of interest.

Add into the context Elon, and there's the obvious inner circle.

This has been common practice in the US for decades. The only difference now is that the billionaires are not on the team you like, so suddenly it's fascism. :yawn: — Tzeentch

Again, it isn't fascism when the state is working on behalf and for one rich individual. And even if similar things have happened before, it hasn't been so clear, so obvious. Earlier managers from corporations or rich people had to put aside their holdings when acting in a government position. Now Elon has simply circumvented that with the aloof DOGE and can be the World's richest man at the same time as he plans the US state to better for him.

For a leader (of the executive branch) to try to seize the control of the other branches and also to stifle the free press is something that can indeed happen in a republic without it being turned into a fascist state. I would argue that autocratic leadership doesn't have to mean that the country is fascist. One can argue that it's a "fascist" move. But then again a lot of political ideologies are against liberal democracy and the separation of powers. Think of Marxism-Leninism. The role of the government can actually be small and power can be with an oligarchy around the leader.

Fascism, obviously. — Tzeentch

Well, who'll be judge of that... Trump is already called that.

but it's not fascism in the way that it looms over the EU under the unelected Queen Ursula. — Tzeentch

What? Queen Ursula?

The EU is a de facto confederacy.

Yes, the institution tries desperately to push for federalism and tries to act as a United States of Europe, but that won't happen. The fact is that the union is made up of sovereign nation states, talking different languages, having different cultural and historical backgrounds and in the end, being sovereign nation states. You can imagine something else and perhaps convince the Americans here, but that is the fact. California or Texas aren't sovereign states and their foreign policy is handled in Washington DC, but Spain and Ireland are sovereign states and their foreign policy isn't done from Brussels.

The executive branch, the Commission, just as the Council of the European Union, is under the control of the sovereign states. It won't happen, there's always going to be a Hungary or an Austria or some country whose leader is opposed to things the majority are pushing. This is structural and endemic for the union.

What happens, and will happen, is that countries like Hungary (or similar) will try to portray the EU's executive branch as "fascist" or "deep state" or whatever. But this is just political rhetoric.

I wouldn't be happy with the EU Parliament taking more power, because that would undermine the Parliament of my own country. So people wanting to give more power to the EU Parliament are in my view crazy.

Took so long into the Trump presidency? I guess how this discourse will go: remember FDR! The 22nd amendment is so new, just given in 1951.

They have to put that through likely before the midterms, as likely then the honeymoon is likely over.

It’s such an elementary and obvious fact - that the consumers of the importing country are those who pay the tariffs — Wayfarer

Just like with inflation, people simply don't understand this or simply won't care. And thus any outrageous reasoning will carry through.

And as I've said, Brexit showed with the British people that once a populism takes hold and it's consequences start to really suck, those that went with the populist streak will be in denial for a really long time. People will believe in the "Morning for" -moment and think that the populists will make it better. These people will simply just become quite silent in the end and once the administration changes, then they have all of this built up fury about how things suck.

(Pity the poor staffers who have to try and explain this to him….’ahem, Mr President, the fact is….. :yikes: ) — Wayfarer

That was the stuff of the first Trump administration. Then people tried that. Not now. Nope. Nobody is going to tell him that. Likely Elon will tell Trump how much that will hurt Trump's own wealth and people can convince the most outrageous actions by reading what outrageous countertariffs EU or the World in general will put up with the US.

The real issue here is that Trump as many Americans are totally ignorant is that the whole economic system is rigged for the US, not against it. Trump is simply dismantling the Superpower status of the US. Why would the Middle Eastern oil producers just use US dollars in the oil trade? Why would the US dollar have the role it has in the global monetary system? It's really not because the US is so awesome, the economy of the rest of the World is larger than of the US. It's all because of the alliances, because of WW2, that the US enjoys this.

Yet a good question is really if this truly is fascism, as the term usually is used as a derogatory insult. There's not the worship of the state itself as in fascist Italy etc. Much looks more like a populist leader with an oligarchy which doesn't care about the separation of powers or the institutions.

Who'd like to take me up on a bet that in 4 years nothing of particular note will have happened, and you all are a bunch of hysterics? — Tzeentch

Define what is "of particular note".

Is it something like the collapse of the Soviet Union or unification of Germany? A financial crisis? Pandemic? End of the dollar system? Conflict over Taiwan? Breakup of NATO?

What would you consider as of particular note?

The difference is, it appears it won’t be filled with the typical symbolic crap, like when Biden violated the agreement with the Taliban by wanting to pull out of Afghanistan on September 11th, the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. And all that other cheapened rhetoric which serves only to further divide the people in that Slavic conflict. — NOS4A2

???

The divide is already there between the Russians and the Ukrainians. And Russians with others non-slavs.

ACTUALLY....

The crap did start with the Peace process made by Trump's administration. And here I can give some logic to Trump when you think about it. Because the reasoning just WHY the US was in Afghanistan was that otherwise it would be a "terrorist haven" from where the terrorist would somehow swim to attack Continental US. This idea was repeated again and again, that it made somehow far more sense to Americans than the Domino-theory from the Vietnam-era. If so, then the obvious point for Trump was that Taleban promised not to attack the US and not to be a "terrorist haven".

Well, the Taleban hadn't been in the first place the instigators of the 9/11 attacks, only the financier of the attack as a guest in Afghanistan. Hence it was obviously effortless for the Taleban to agree with this, because their objective was Afghanistan to be their Emirate (as it is now). Not attacking the US. This deal totally undermined the the Republic of Afghanistan: naturally the Taleban continued the fight, yet didn't attack the US.

Imagine if similar peace agreement was done by North Korea during the Korean war. I assume that gladly Kim Il Sung would agreed not to attack US forces or the USA, then dealt with Chinese help with the feeble South Korea.

Hope Trump has learnt the lesson of not trying to have a peace at all costs. Like with the Taleban. Because that was really crap.

I personally doubt this will work, since such actions have already been tried — NOS4A2

I agree. Typically nations that are in peace might be vulnerable to sanctions, but a country that is transforming to a wartime economy doesn't care so much about it. They are already playing that game at a totally different cost level.

60 million deaths in WW2? I thought it was more like 20-30 million.

They won't surely do that when Trump has such moments. Oh no. And one thing is of course that many Trump supporters are ignorant about a lot of things. Why wouldn't those Spaniards be part of the BRICS-nations. Isn't the S there for Spain? :wink:

Many won't notice the things the Trump says, just what "expanding our territory" sounds like to Panamanians. It's like George Bush invading Iraq and then claiming the it's a Crusade America is on. Al Qaeda had a field day with that gaffe.

And the gaffes don't stop. Just like George W did two years ago confusing Putin's invasion of Ukraine with his invasion of Iraq, which is just hilarious!!!

Lol. :lol: Don't assume that Americans would look objectively at both Biden and Trump in the gaffes they do. The vast majority of Americans are either for Trump or Biden and thus against the other. They will never accept such an obvious truth that both old men are showing signs of senility. Just as they will never accept that the disaster that happened in Afghanistan is the fault of both presidents and their administrations.

And this is one of things that Trump might not understand or take into account. If he let's say puts high tariffs against Denmark in order to get Greenland, he is basically doing it with all EU. So in the end, just like with the first Trump administration, one can think that Trump will avoid the worst disasters.

Yet things like Trump going for the Panama Canal might really happen. We shouldn't forget what happened during the older Bush administration. How that will play out this time will be interesting, because Latin American countries might not like it (or simply don't like it). And naturally Trump, as being totally honest with his intensions, doesn't hide the imperialism at all. For Trump the idea of "China controlling the Panama canal now" might be enough of a reason for military action. The idea behind that, I guess, is that a Hong Kong company won the contract for operation of the container shipping ports located at the canal's Atlantic and Pacific outlets.

Yes. Perhaps in many cases he doesn't have to care so much if the executive orders flop either in the courts or in Congress. Trump simply can state it as an example of "Deep State" fighting his administration. And likely his base will be OK with that. At least he tried.

For example the idea of changing the Constitution (or bypassing the Constitution) of taking the birth right citizenship away is likely not going to succeed. But that doesn't matter so much for Trump.

(The Hill, 21st Jan 2025) Twenty-two Democrat-led states and two cities challenged President Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship, which on Tuesday kicked off the first legal battles between his new Justice Department and Democratic attorneys general.

The two separate lawsuits, filed in Massachusetts and Washington state, ask federal judges to rule the order contradicts the Constitution, which under the 14th Amendment bestows citizenship on anyone born in the United States.

“President Trump now seeks to abrogate this well-established and longstanding Constitutional principle by executive fiat,” one group of states wrote in their complaint.

If executive fiat would really overturn here the courts or the courts up to the Supreme Court would OK changing the Constitution, that would extremely worrisome.

We shouldn't forget that the US still has separation of powers.

We'll see how that goes. But he cannot bypass both houses. He would have to have quite the leadership skills by going on ruling without the Congress. And now he still has a very good position in the Congress and a party that is loyal to him. Telling will be the midterms.

I wonder how that order will be implied when it's an Anti-Trump crowd trying to invade the White House. :snicker:

Then it will be "I want the US Army and Marines to fight these bastards." And actually we did see that earlier, btw. Just look how pissed off Trump was at general Milley. So this is just white washing and trying to rewrite history in a very Soviet way. Even if the Dems did go after him like the Republicans went after Clinton.

What is behind Trump's success is the Christian mythology of the westward movement being the will of God and churches believing Trump is God's chosen leader. — Athena

If you think about it, this idea of "Deus Vult" is all very same for all Abrahamic religions. I would argue that in Islam this is even more obvious as the link between state and the religion is far more larger as the Rashidun Caliphate basically was established by Muhammad himself. This isn't also something confined to the West. Just think about the former deity of the Japanese emperor.

I would argue that the West even with all it's formal separation of Church and State and it's secularity still have traces to religion and policies, especially when some somber issue like war, is viewed as the "Will of God". In a way you putting emphasis on Trump not putting his hand on the Bible (as he did the first time) tells that the link to our quite religious past hasn't been cut off. I would view it that he's just very old, like Biden was and thus gaffes happen.