D

ec. 2, p. 7

Friends of Israel unite! The time has come to send a common message: Time is no longer on Israel’s side. Geopolitical forces are moving inexorably against it.

One cardinal mistake no small state should make is to put all its eggs into one basket, even a basket as strong as the US. Despite its huge influence, Israel cannot change the shifting geopolitical tides.

America’s power has peaked: Its economy will not shrink in absolute terms but it will shrink irresistibly in relative terms. This would have happened naturally but gradually. (By Kishore Mahbubani, London)

Your comments:

Israel has two bad politicians: The prime minister and his foreign minister. They are systematically destroying the image of Israel. Israel needs a clever politician like David Ben Gurion.

He used to be a Zionist, but in those days he was the best man in the history of Israel. Israel has now only fanatic Rabbis and militant politicians sitting in the Knesset. Israel cannot exist more than 10 years.

Xiao

It’s a dramatic loss of moral authority for US and its alliance.

Fath

I largely agree with this letter, but the “right enjoyed by virtually every other people in the world: statehood” argument is not very sincere.

Is that the voice of mankind represented by non-Western countries such as Turkey, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, etc?

What about Kurdistan, Tibet, Kashmir, the indigenous people of the Amazon or West Papua?

This argument can easily be reversed. There is only one state for Jewish people while there are
several states for Arab people and Muslims.

The opinion of the masses can easily be influenced indeed, but for the leaders of the “outsiders” of this conflict, it is more about geostrategic politics or even domestic politics, and that can be far more complex.

Was Ottoman-Turkish dominance in the region not destroyed for a significant part by Arab nationalism? Will China with Xinjiang not fear a rise of a new major Turkic power? What’s the place of Iran in this?

If there is a genuine chance to come to a real settlement in this conflict and this chance is missed purely by the Netanyahu administration, then they are indeed more arrogant, incompetent and stupid than one would think. But I don’t think it is that simple, either, and it takes two to tango.

Paolo Sclpini