Mediaboss Marketing

By Andy Brack | Baseball legend Yogi Berra used to say a lot of things that were a little odd and funny, but they often had little and big kernels of truth.

When considering whats happening across America in politics these days, this Yogi-ism seems particularly insightful: If you dont know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

The notion of feeling somewhere else not the America of just a decade ago seems to be permeating a politics where people dont listen to or appreciate others perspectives. Politics has become a spectator bloodsport where liberals and conservatives seem hellbent on pursuing my way of the highway solutions on everything from not defaulting on the national debt or changing immigration policy to abortion and peoples rights to live like they want.

Retired Clemson economics professor Holley Ulbrich offers a new book, Passionately Moderate, that fingers the need of polarized parties and tribes to talk, engage and compromise to practice real American democracy. If people dont negotiate, listen and compromise, the American experiment in ideas of freedom imbued in the Constitution is weakened.

In a democracy, unlike other forms of governance, each citizens needs, wants, preferences and opinions count for one and only one. One person, one vote, she writes.

Ignoring the rights, the concerns, the needs of one individual or group by giving undue preference to others undermines faith in the democracy and paves the way for some form of autocratic rule fascism on the right, communism on the left and ideology-free totalitarianism anywhere on the spectrum.

Perhaps thats why many Democrats feel like theyve been run over by a bulldozer driven by mostly white male Republicans pushing bans on abortion. Or Republicans feel President Joe Biden is being unreasonable on not making some budget cuts (ironically made necessary by lots of Republican spending and rich-guy preferential treatment during the Trump era).

Part of this national political disconnect among the people is due to an increasing cynicism by many about the media, which exists to report truths about those in power and to tell stories to connect us. But as the media diversified thanks to the Internet and traditional outlets got smaller, unsavory publishers and some governments worked to spread disinformation and misinformation, all of which are straining the American democratic process.

Information can breathe insight into a populace hungry for life, liberty and a pursuit of happiness, and this supports the idea of information being a source of power, writes longtime Ohio journalist Tony Ganzer in a new book, Kneading Journalism.

[But] the direct manipulation of information, and a press which might distribute it, is thus a way to foster distrust and quell tools of accountability.

Both books deal with sadly ebbing fundamentals for a stronger democracy. Ulbrich argues individuals need to passionately engage in moderation in politics to get acceptable outcomes maybe not the best every time, but outcomes that are good enough for now. Through reason and compromise, things can move forward, even though everybody isnt likely to be completely satisfied.

She writes that among virtues necessary for civil society to survive are acceptance, respect, prudence, honesty, fairness, justice, engagement, generosity, patience and courage. In other words, people should act like grownups and listen. Is that too much to ask of all citizen-patriots, regardless of party or point of view?

Similarly, Ganzer pushes the media, which provide information to allow citizens to make good decisions in their democracy, to be socially responsible by sticking to news fundamentals.

Stories are meant to be told clearly, accurately and concisely, he wrote. Do research. Account for cultural nuance. Consider your own bias. Confirm information: sometimes people manipulate the truth or out-right lie.

As citizens, lets strive to embrace moderation and compromise. As news consumers, lets demand truth, accuracy and broader information.

Andy Brack, recognized in 2022 as the best columnist in South Carolina, is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@charlestoncitypaper.com.

Read this article:
BRACK: Practice moderation to strengthen democracy Statehouse ... - Statehouse Report

It was supposed to have been a weeklong presidential trip showcasing the United States commitment to the Asia-Pacific region, but the debt ceiling crisis President Joe Biden left behind in Washington forced him to cancel the second half of his itinerary.

Gone, a planned summit in Sydney of leaders from the Quad countries: the U.S., Australia, India, and Japan. Nixed, a gathering of Pacific Island leaders in Port Moresby, Papua New Guineas capital, and a presidential announcement of an agreement to grant the U.S. military access to the island nations ports and airports.

In Japan, President Joe Biden is pursuing two pillars of his foreign policy: revitalizing U.S. alliances and demonstrating democracys virtues as an effective governing system. Hanging over both is the debt ceiling crisis he left behind in Washington.

For some, the disrupted and truncated tour will only reinforce concerns that a weakened America distracted by political divisions at home may not be up to leading the Indo-Pacific region as it confronts an increasingly assertive China.

Presence matters to all U.S. allies in the region, so yes, the cancellation of the second leg of President Bidens Asia trip is going to cause some disappointment and raise some questions, says Nicholas Szechenyi, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

But this can yet be a temporary blip on the radar screen, he adds, if the administration sticks to the very robust agenda and the extensive and multidimensional networking it has developed across the region.

As President Joe Biden meets with his G-7 colleagues in Hiroshima, Japan, this weekend, hes taking up an agenda of timely issues, from increased Western support for Ukraine to international regulation of artificial intelligence.

The leaders of host Japan, the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy announced new economic support for Ukraine Friday and another round of sanctions targeting Russia over its illegal, unjustifiable, and unprovoked aggression against Ukraine.

Mr. Biden told the G-7 leaders the U.S. now supported providing training to Ukrainian pilots on U.S.-made F-16 aircrafts,senior officials speaking on condition of anonymity told reporters. The initiative had been gaining support in Europe.

In Japan, President Joe Biden is pursuing two pillars of his foreign policy: revitalizing U.S. alliances and demonstrating democracys virtues as an effective governing system. Hanging over both is the debt ceiling crisis he left behind in Washington.

It was also announced Friday that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend the summits closing day Sunday,a further stop on the Ukrainian leaders own whirlwind diplomatic tour, which included an appeal for support Friday in Saudi Arabia to members of the Arab League.

But in Asia, Mr. Biden, beyond his short-term policy agenda, is also pursuing two key pillars of his presidencys foreign policy: revitalizing Americas alliances and demonstrating democracys virtues as an effective governing system in an era of advancing authoritarianism.

Hanging over both priorities is the debt ceiling crisis Mr. Biden left behind in Washington and how that unresolved domestic issue forced the White House to cancel the second half of what was to have been a weeklong trip showcasing the U.S. commitment to the Asia-Pacific region.

Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP/File

Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy greet each other during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 21, 2023.

Canceled were post-G-7 visits to Australia and the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea the latter proudly touted by the White House as the first visit by a sitting president to a South Pacific island nation.

Gone, a planned summit in Sydney of leaders from the Quad countries: the U.S., Australia, India, and Japan. Nixed, a gathering of Pacific Island leaders in Port Moresby, Papua New Guineas capital, and a presidential announcement of an agreement to grant the U.S. military access to the island nations ports and airports.

For some, the disrupted and truncated presidential tour will only reinforce concerns that a weakened America distracted by political divisions at home may not be up to leading the Indo-Pacific region as it confronts an increasingly assertive China.

Indeed, for some critics, the political brinkmanship on display in Washington over the debt limit Republican negotiators walked away from talks with the White House on Friday can only muffle Mr. Bidens ringing pro-democracy rhetoric on the international stage and delight Beijing.

Reflecting a regions disappointment, the Sydney Morning Heralds foreign affairs columnist Matthew Knott this week highlighted Washingtons mess and noted, The Quad summit in Sydney should have provided a powerful symbol of four proud democracies working together to get things done. Instead, he added, it will serve to highlight the systemic problems plaguing the worlds longest-standing democracy and its aspirations for ongoing global leadership.

Not exactly the kind of press and public-diplomacy impact the White House must have had in mind when planning the presidents Asia trip.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is joined by Republicans from the Senate and House as he leads an event on the debt limit negotiations, at the Capitol in Washington, May 17, 2023. On Friday, GOP negotiators walked away from talks with the White House.

Moreover, the spectacle of an American president having his wings clipped by an ornery opposition and dysfunctional politics at home has been widely characterized as a gift to Beijing, which has been critical of Washingtons stepped-up attention to South Pacific nations and strengthening alliance with Australia.

The contrast of an ascendant China with a weakened American superpower was underscored by reports of a smiling Chinese leader Xi Jinping holding his own summit with five Central Asian countries on the eve of the G-7 gathering.

Mr. Xis summit burnished an image of a confident global leader racking up a series of diplomatic triumphs over recent months without worries of an undermining political opposition at home.

Still, experts in Asian affairs and diplomatic relations say any setbacks to Mr. Bidens foreign policy agenda as a result of his canceled visits can be short-lived if the administration continues what some say has been intense groundwork and diplomatic engagement in the region.

And, of course, if the worlds largest economy can resolve the debt ceiling crisis before it damages an already fragile global economy.

Presence matters to all U.S. allies in the region, so yes, the cancellation of the second leg of President Bidens Asia trip is going to cause some disappointment and raise some questions. And it will certainly embolden China and others who oppose strong U.S. leadership in Asia to double down on their portraying of the U.S as an unreliable partner, says Nicholas Szechenyi, deputy director of the Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

But this can yet be a temporary blip on the radar screen, he adds, if the administration sticks to the very robust agenda and the extensive and multidimensional networking it has developed across the region.

Ding Haitao/Xinhua/AP

Chinese leader Xi Jinping (center) and his wife, Peng Liyuan (fourth from right), stand with Central Asian leaders at the Ziyun Tower in Xi'an in northwestern China's Shaanxi Province, May 18, 2023.

Theres no getting around the fact that the now-canceled stops in Papua New Guinea and Australia are missed opportunities for the U.S. to bolster relations and presence in a region it long overlooked, Mr. Szechenyi says.

But he notes that Mr. Biden plans to meet his three Quad counterparts on the sidelines of the G-7 summit (Japans Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, plus Australias Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who were invited to attend as non-G-7 leaders, as was South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol) while a planned trilateral meeting of the U.S., Japanese, and South Korean leaders remains on the agenda.

Others say any doubts about U.S. leadership raised by Mr. Bidens domestic political travails should be weighed against the administrations recent diplomatic successes on the Asia-Pacific front.

The split screen of the administration promoting democracy abroad while debilitated by political brawling at home is as jarring as the public curtailing of a carefully planned trip is disturbing, says Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia engagement at Defense Priorities in Washington.

But no one should overlook recent U.S. advances in the region, he adds.

We could say the Biden administration has had some run of successes in its Asia policy, he says, highlighting in particular President Yoons recent state visit to the White House and accords with the Philippines to expand the U.S. military presence there.

A successful weeklong trip around the Pacific was going to be the icing on the cake, Dr. Goldstein says. Losing that may not be good, he adds.

But more worrisome to his thinking is how intense attention to Mr. Bidens Asia summitry is obscuring the perils of an absence of high-level diplomacy with China.

Were putting too much effort into these symbolic meetings, he says, and not focusing enough on the ... situations that remain extremely dark, first and foremost deteriorating relations with China.

Stefan Rousseau/AP

Leaders attending the G-7 summit (from left) British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, U.S. President Joe Biden, European Council President Charles Michel, Japan's Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visit the Peace Memorial Park before attending the summit's first working session in Hiroshima, Japan, May 19, 2023.

On a recent extended trip to China to meet with officials, retired military officers, and academics, Dr. Goldstein says he was struck by a near-universal and deeply pessimistic perspective that the U.S., through its stepped-up military diplomacy and expanded basing in the region, must be preparing for war over Taiwan.

As for any damage to Mr. Bidens pro-democracy project, some experts note that the democratic world, starting with the G-7 leaders, will understand that tough domestic politics come with the territory. Others emphasize that Mr. Biden can mitigate any fallout from the unresolved debt ceiling crisis by highlighting the democratic underpinnings of the G-7 and other alliances the U.S. is strengthening, like the Quad.

Biden will be able to use his presence at the G-7 summit to rally the international community to support the rules-based international order that is essential to the regions prosperity and security, says Mr. Szechenyi. Strengthening the rules and norms of that order is one of Japans priorities for the summit, he adds, so we should expect to see considerable attention to the issue.

Some experts note that Mr. Biden will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders summit in San Francisco in November. The spectacle of disrupted U.S. diplomacy could be a faint memory by then, they say.

But if Mr. Biden aims to keep his Asia policy on track, he will have to get an Australia and South Pacific visit back on his agenda as soon as possible, Mr. Szechenyi adds.

Apparently acutely aware of this, the White House has taken to using phrases like until [the canceled visits] can be rescheduled in its statements from Hiroshima.

Visit link:
How Biden's curtailed trip affects his goals for Asia and democracy - The Christian Science Monitor

The American worker will never be free until they have the freedom to fire their boss.

Stay with me here, Im not even being a little facetious. Most Americans seem to value democracy, and they should. Theres an endless flood of articles one can read daily about threats to democracy, how our democracy is in peril were worried about something we apparently care deeply about.

Now, Ive written before that I think this is a bit silly political democracy in America is practically nonexistent, and if something doesnt exist it cant be threatened. Marx can best sum up what I was trying to say in that column: The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.

There are a million problems with our so-called political democracy in America, from gerrymandering to voter suppression, to the electoral college, to the Senate and Supreme Court and on and on. But the lack of democracy in America is most apparent not in the political sphere, but in the economic one.

The average person will spend 90,000 hours, or one third of a lifetime, at work. In the workplace, there is no democracy the worker must submit to the total authority of their boss.

[Related: OPINION: There will never be freedom under capitalism]

The owner of a capitalist enterprise was not chosen by their employees, but they dominate them. The owner decides what an employee must wear, how they must act, what they can and cannot say inside and outside the workplace, when they must arrive and when they are allowed to leave.

They control their pay and time off, they constantly monitor their emails and surveils their productivity and in most states Indiana included they can fire them for any reason, or no reason at all.

The capitalist enterprise is, in a word, a totalitarian enterprise. The average person spends a third of their life under the unalterable dictatorship of their employer.

For a country that seems to care so much about democracy, we seldom talk about economic democracy democracy in the workplace, worker ownership of the means of production.

What would such a democracy entail? For one, leaders would be democratically chosen, and subject to recall at any time. Furthermore, hours and conditions would be subject to input from the workers themselves, as well as what should be produced, how it should be produced and how the profits of that produce should be distributed. For most workers, such a workplace might seem unimaginable.

But the words profits and most workers give something away: a democratic workplace can, to an extent, exist under capitalism. The Mondragon Corporation in the Basque region of Spain is a prime example.

Mondragon is made up of 95 cooperatives and employs over 80,000 people, most of whom are partners, meaning they own the company. It is one of Spains largest companies.

Mondragons principles include a commitment to democratic organization (A one person, one vote system for election of the cooperatives governing bodies and for deciding on the most important issues) and sovereignty of labor (Profit is allocated on the basis of the work contributed by each member in order to achieve this profit).

Its also worth mentioning that Mondragon produces significantly less inequality than the typical capitalist enterprise. Salaries for executives at Mondragon are capped at six times the lowest wage; the chief executives at the largest 350 companies in the U.S., meanwhile, are paid about 320 times as much as the typical worker.

And its worth repeating that this isnt some small, fringe company: its one of the largest in Spain.

[Related: OPINION: There will never be equality under capitalism]

Of course, Mondragon isnt an end-all solution to capitalist tyranny. The company still competes in a market system for profit and still produces inequality, all things that are antithetical to socialism. But we can still view it as a blueprint of a future we should be moving toward.

If we truly value democracy, then that value should extend to the workplace, where we spend a sizeable chunk of our lives. And despite the problems with political democracy in this country, there is still the belief instilled within us that if we dont like a representative, if a politician is oppressing us, we vote them out of office. We fire the incumbent.

Let us embrace democracy to the fullest extent and fire the CEO as well.

Jared Quigg (he/him) is a senior studying journalism and political science.

Read the original here:
OPINION: We must have democracy in the workplace - Indiana Daily Student

America Decides plays as if the writers committed the pretrial discovery file to memory. The episode follows Tom Wambsgans, Shivs estranged husband and ATNs head, through an ulcer-making election night. He is sleep deprived and coked up, under pressure to deliver big ratings for the Roys and scary antifa stories for his audience, which is getting raw, uncut propaganda from ATNs farther-right competitors.

This was much the dynamic at work in the internal messages disclosed in the Dominion suit, which showed Fox stars and executives freaking out over competitors like Newsmax, who were gaining traction by embracing the election-fraud lie. (And of course, Foxs worries stemmed from viewers fury over election night, particularly about the network calling Arizona for soon-to-be President Biden.)

Asked why ATN isnt reporting the evidence that the ballots were torched by Menckenite brownshirts, Tom says, We need to respect our viewership phrasing almost verbatim from the Fox messages. Respecting this audience whether we agree or not is critical, the host Sean Hannity texted after the 2020 election.

So ATN brings out its sneering alt-rightist, Mark Ravenhead, to insinuate that the fire was a false flag, while Tom suggests booking an egghead historian to tell viewers that everything is fine and normal. Succession has always had a feel for how the shamelessness of extremists defeats, and is enabled by, the flaccid reasonableness of centrists.

Of course, ATN, like Fox, operates in a larger media environment, and the episode is less clear on how election night is playing elsewhere, especially on PGN, the in-world analog to CNN. Theres a brief clip suggesting that PGN, and presumably other mainstream news, is treating the election as undecided while the legal process plays out. (On a story level, this suggests that the election and Waystar Roycos fate may have a few turns yet to take.)

In our reality, mainstream outlets have their own pressures and owners. CNN, which is part of Warner Bros. Discovery, has a new head, Chris Licht, and a reported new corporate mandate to reposition after years of pugilistically covering President Trump.

See more here:
In 'Succession,' Democracy Goes Up in Smoke - The New York Times

Regardless of What Kind of Spin Is Put On

By Alon Ben-Meir*

NEW YORK, 19 May 2023 (IDN) My recent article entitled An Occupying Power Cannot Be a Beacon of Democracy engendered both criticism and compliments. Given the severity of the Israeli occupation and the need to end it under conditions of peace, I thought it was necessary to provide a counterargument to those who claim that an occupying power can be a beacon of democracy and others who allege that Israel is not an occupying power.

It is sad and bewildering, albeit not surprising, how many Israelis completely distort the nature and the ultimate objective of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. The reactions to my article from April 30, An Occupying Power Cannot Be a Beacon of Democracy, by many well-versed individuals, reveal how misguided they are and how comfortable they feel about their distorted views about the occupation, which they have embraced for more than five decades.

What is extremely disturbing is that these views are prevalent among Jews in and outside Israel, which has allowed successive Israeli governments to maintain the occupation for 56 years with near-impunity on the basis of several groundless arguments.

To demonstrate how absurd some of these arguments are, I selected six comments out of many which illuminate the irrationality and false equivalence they resort to in justifying their positions.

Before I provide counter arguments, I want first to briefly reestablish the premise on which my article was based. First, I argued that an occupying powerIsraelcannot be a beacon of democracy as long as it remains an occupying power. That successive right-wing Israeli governments have systematically been misleading and brainwashing the public to justify the occupation on the grounds of national security.

That they have methodically been portraying the Palestinians as an irredeemable foe, while engaging in misleading public narratives to keep the Israeli public minimally informed about the ruthlessness of the occupation.

That they are portraying the occupation as central to keeping the Palestinians at bay while stamping out their aspiration to establish an independent state of their own. That they have been promoting the notion that the Palestinians are bent on destroying Israel even if they establish their own state. And finally, that they have been normalizing the occupation of the West Bank as if it were simply an extension of Israel proper.

Given that the concept of democracy plays a significant role in these arguments, it is best to define it. Democracy, literally meaning rule by the people, empowers individuals to exercise political control over the form and functions of their government.

While democracies may vary in form, they all share certain features in common, including competitive elections, freedom of expression, and protection of individual civil liberties and human rights. Ultimately, democracy is a system of government based on the belief in freedom and equality between people. The concept of democracy derives its moral strength and legitimacy from two key principles.

First is individual autonomy, the idea that no one should be subject to rules which have been imposed by others. People should be able to exercise self-determination and control over their own lives. As the philosopher Alain Badiou puts it, democracy is a political system that does not prohibit or restrain, or not excessively. The second principle is equality, the idea that everyone should be granted an equal opportunity to influence the decisions that affect people in society.

The following are the six contrarian arguments and my counterarguments, which I believe shed important light at the extent of the absurdities which much of the Israeli public and some diaspora Jews invoke in making their case in favor of continuing the occupation.

Judaea and Samaria belong to Israel in accordance with the San Remo treaty. Israel is not an occupying power.

The San Remo Conference, which was held 19-26 April 1920, between Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, with the United States as a neutral observer, established that Palestine would be placed under British Mandatory rule, specifically stating The Mandatory will be responsible for. the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people

The critic, however conveniently ignored the second part of the sentence, which continues, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

Moreover, the critic also chose to disregard the fact that the UN Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 194 in 1947 (the Partition Plan) that called for the establishment of a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. The legitimacy that was accorded to the establishment of Israel by the UNSC is exactly the same that was accorded to the Palestinians. Dismissing Resolution 194 and selectively citing only a part of the San Remo agreement is gravely misleading and harmful as it does nothing but obscure the truth and help to prolong the conflict at a terrible political, economic, and psychological cost for both sides.

I think we can all agree that peace will be good for Israeli democracy, but its simply not true that an occupying power cant be a beacon of democracy. It can and often has been. Britain conquered and occupied many countries and not only remained a beacon of democracy. Its empire was instrumental in its spreading of democracy. India and many other countries wouldnt be democracies today except for this.

Same with Americas occupation of Japan and Germany. Same probably with the democracy and empire of classical Athens. As I remember it, Lewis Samuel Feuer gave some solid analysis on this in his book on imperialism.

An occupying power can indeed be a beacon of democracy, provided that such a power promulgates the principles of democracy in the country it occupies and subsequently leaves it to be governed by its own representative government.

Unlike Israel, however, neither Britain nor the US are building settlements, annexing Indian, Japanese, or German territory, or applying two sets of rulesone for the US or British citizens with all the rights and privileges, and another set of rules akin to marshal laws to govern these countries respective citizens.

If Britain still occupied India, or if the US similarly still occupied Japan and Germany and treated them the way Israel is treating the Palestinians next door, neither the US nor Britain would be considered democracies. Citing these examples by this critic is a fundamentally false equivalence.

Indeed, no country can be a democracy when it continues to occupy other people, especially when these people (the Palestinians) live on a contiguous land mass with Israel and even share the same territory, with hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews living in their midst in the West Bank, enjoying all the rights and privileges of Israeli citizenship while the Palestinians are subjugated to harsh military rules as Israel imposes in the West Bank.

An Occupying Power Cannot Be a Beacon of Democracy? Nonsense. How about US occupying a hunk of Germany? US occupying Japan? US occupying Afghanistan? US occupying Iraq? In each of those cases, US was a beacon of democracy. In some places it was followed by the occupied, in others it wasntbut the fact remains that what you say makes no sense Sorry

To equate the American military presence in Germany, which is an integral part of NATOs military installations in Europe, to Israels occupation of the West Bank, is baffling. Moreover, American troops in Germany are welcome in the country, and while the German people are split over the presence of US military bases, successive German governments want them to stay.

The critic obviously did not do his homework. There are military bases and American troops ranging from tens to tens of thousands in approximately 80 countries. Thus, according to the logic of this critic, the US currently occupies 80 different countries, which is of course the height of absurdity.

Furthermore, the US is not incarcerating thousands of foreign citizens in the countries where it maintains military bases. It is not conducting night raids, it is not restricting the movement of people in their own land, and it is not settling civilian communities throughout their territories, all of which Israel practices routinely in the West Bank.

If, for example South Korea or Japan had a contiguous land mass with the US and if their people lived side-by-side US citizens but did not enjoy the same rights and privileges as US citizens, then the US would be considered undemocratic, an apartheid state at that. Simply put, no country can call itself a democracy while it simultaneously exercises authoritarianism over other countries and people that share the same land mass.

How can a nation be an occupier of its own ancestral land? Or maybe you mean New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona? So, which is the occupier?

I wonder if this critic will be willing to apply the same postulate to other people anywhere else in the world. If every indigenous peoples came back to reclaim the land of their ancestors from 2,000 years ago, the worlds map would not even remotely resemble the current borders that delineate nearly 200 countries.

Moreover, I wonder how this critic will respond to the following hypothesis: suppose the Jews were living in Palestine for hundreds of years, yet the Palestinians occupied the same land more than 2,000 years before, and now have come back to reclaim it.

Should the Israeli Jews concede that the land indeed belongs to the Palestinians, because it was their ancestral land two millennia ago? Indeed, for how many centuries do people need to live on any land to claim it as their own?

Instead of finding a formula whereby both people, Israelis and Palestinians, can coexist peacefully and negotiate a two-state solution, if for no other reason other than the fact that Israel simply cannot evict all three million Palestinians from the West Bank, instead, Israel is opting to maintain the occupation and conveniently claim that a nation cannot be an occupier of its own ancestral land, despite the passage of thousands of years and the peoples who have lived on the land in the intervening millennia. If this is not twisted logic, I dont know what is.

You are delusional. Either the IDF controls Judea/Samaria or Iran controls Judea/Samaria. Pick one. I guess you pick Iran. So, tell your readers that!

Can this or any other critic tell us how and by what means Iran will be able to control Judea and Samaria, the West Bank? Any talk of a two-state solution that will put an end to the occupation will have to be based on categorical and unshakable security arrangements between Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. This has been discussed time and again in the past, and the Palestinians want such security arrangements for their own sake just the same. Even at the present, Israel and the Palestinian Authority collaborate on all security matters.

The PA knows full well that Israel will not relinquish a single inch of territory unless there is an iron clad security arrangement in place to ensure its national security. Moreover, no country, including Iran, will ever be in a position to control the West Bank given Israels formidable military prowess that will crush any foreign power that challenges Israels military dominance now or at any time in the future, even if an independent Palestinian state has been established.

I agree with every word you write. However, I think that before talking about a Palestinian state, Israel must improve the situation of its own Arab population. The Israeli Arabs can and must become the bridge between the Jewish Israelis and the Palestinians.

There should be no doubt that Israel must address the discrimination against its own Arab citizens; however, it cannot ignore the urgent need to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The two are not mutually exclusive and must be tackled simultaneously, as indeed one can complement the other.

In last weeks demonstration in Tel Aviv against the so-called judicial reforms, demonstrators also carried banners proclaiming that the occupation is incompatible with democracy. As they see it, the judicial reforms if enacted and the continuing occupation would destroy Israels democracy, and the public must now relentlessly fight against these two menaces to save Israels democracy.

To be sure, the Israeli occupation has no logical, political, or biblical justification or even national security implications. It not only adversely affects the Palestinians, instigating militancy and endless violence as we are witnessing day in and day out; the occupation is dangerously eroding Israels social fabric and moral standing, regardless of what kind of spins are put on it.

Admitting the truth about the occupation is the one bitter pill that none of its supporters wants to swallow. Should we now leave it to the demagogues who concoct utterly illogical scenarios to mislead the public about the true nature of the occupation, to which only fools would subscribe?

*Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies. [IDN-InDepthNews]

Photo: Protests in Israel against judicial reform in Israel. CC BY-SA 3.0

Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.

IDN is the flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate.

We believe in the free flow of information. Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, except for republished articles with permission.

Read the original here:
The Occupation Is Destroying Israels Democracy - IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters