Seemingly unrelated events all point to a tectonic shift in which Israel has begun preparing the ground to annex the occupied Palestinian territories.
Last week, during an address to students in New York, Israel’s education minister Naftali Bennett publicly disavowed even the notion of a Palestinian state. “We are done with that,” he said. “They have a Palestinian state in Gaza.”
It takes much to make a figure like Rex Tillerson seem not merely sane but competent. The Trump administration, with its almost paranormal sense of revisionism and fantasy, has managed to make old Rex seem mildly credible. His sacking, inflicted with adolescent petulance, was bound to happen.
Yesterday’s sharply-worded joint statement on the Skripal case issued by Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Theresa May, which included the latest reiteration of the strange accusations leveled against Russia, threatens to push the row between Russia and the West to a new, much more serious level. Why is this happening and and what is motivating these Western leaders?
History will remember that a Gulf state had a role in expelling the foreign minister of a superpower and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
— Abdulkhalez Abdullaa, UAE Political Science Professor
Much ado about nothing.
That’s the “Russian interference” in the 2016 American election.
A group of Russians operating from a building in St. Petersburg, we are told in a February 16 US government indictment, sent out tweets, Facebook and YouTube postings, etc. to gain support for Trump and hurt Clinton even though most of these messages did not even mention Trump or Clinton; and many were sent out before Trump was even a candidate.
Donald Trump’s days of playing the passive/aggressive host of a reality-television game show are coming to an end. Either he fires all the apprentices who might slightly hesitate to wage a much larger world war and lets the bombs fly, or he will be replaced by one who will. Signs are that he has learned what his job entails and the world will suffer more death and destruction as a result.
A Shabby Deck of Political Cards
For those folks who haven’t seen Ukraine on Fire (UOF), the Oliver Stone-produced documentary on the on-going Ukrainian crisis, it is not overstating the case to say it’s an essential historical document and one of the most important, insightful political documentaries of recent times. It may also be one of the most portentous.
Cognitive dissonance in Psychology
The psychological tension that occurs when one holds mutually exclusive beliefs or attitudes and that often motivates people to modify their thoughts or behaviors in order to reduce the tension.
Anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or incompatible attitudes, beliefs, or the like, as when one likes a person but disapproves of one of his or her habits.
Motivated Ignorance in Politics
The U.S. mainstream media has an important role to play as the fourth estate. Sometimes it does an excellent job of informing the public on issues, particularly on many social issues. However, the mainstream media long ago abrogated its responsibility of accurately informing the public about U.S. foreign policy. Instead it has become a tool to advance the interests advocated by the U.S. establishment, particularly the goal to maintain U.S. hegemony.
U.S. Foreign Policy Rationale
