The only positive thing to come out of the Trump presidency could be that he would drop the oil prices by removing all restrictions on fracking in the US. This will destroy the rouble and wipe Russia off the map. Which is why I think he won’t do it.
And that’s it for the bright side.
I would like to hope for the following bright side for me, but am afraid it won’t last:
\ Before Donald Trump won the presidency, Democratic foreign policy circles hummed with talk that an outgoing President Barack Obama could take a last stab at peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
But now that they’re on the verge of power, Trump aides say Obama shouldn’t even think about taking such steps.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.co.il/2016/11/trump-says-no-to-peace-talks.html
Those peace talks are a complete sham from both sides. Let’s live without them for a while. If they are necessary, Israelis and Palestinians must come to this conclusion themselves, without American pressure. Till we want them, nothing will happen anyway, talks or no talks.
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Let’s see if Trump really cuts the funding for Israel. He’ll need tons of money for his wall.
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Stranger things have happened but I would bet against it. As we know from american politics, one can be a rabid anti-semite and yet be a supporter of Israel. A whole slate of Christian conservatives supporting Israel because it’ll get them closer to Armageddon as prophesied in the Bible.
This is his chief of staff:
https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/797917368189992960
And AIPAC doesn’t have a word to say against this.
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The money for the wall has to come from somewhere. And Paul Ryan will sulk over every penny added to the debt. Of course, there is always the option to privatize social security.
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Paul Ryan doesn’t seem to have much power anymore, it seems. And who knows, the GOP congress might give Trump a massive infrastructure bill to sign. I mean, they were only opposing Obama as a strategic move, which paid off handsomely.
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Exactly. Paul Ryan is a scared little pissant of a wimp. Hate him.
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The idea that any Republican administration is going to be less supportive of Israel, or more sympathetic to Palestinian causes, than Obama was is purely wishful thinking.
To the extent that Trump has expressed any policy views on Israel at all, he’s indicated that he has no problem with Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
Netanyahu stayed strictly neutral during this U.S. election because he knew that either Hillary or Trump would be far friendlier to Israel than Obama.
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Nobody thinks Trump will be sympathetic to anything or anybody. Thinking this would make one plainly certifiable.
What I said was very clear: he will need money for his wall and might start cutting the funding for foreign engagements, especially since he doesn’t understand them.
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“Let’s live without them for a while.”
Or, more accurately, let ‘us’ live without them, and let ‘them’ die without them.
Great use of ‘both sides’ rhetoric here. One side has all the power, but you know, it’s a complex situation. Let us ponder over how to solve this problem for another hundred years or so, while we starve the Palestinian population to death.
I’m using your words here, btw. You’ve repeatedly stated that the the best thing for Israel would be to do nothing while the Palestinians suffer a slow death, and then there won’t be any Palestinians to speak of. Problem solved!
And then you have the gall to say that the peace talks are a sham.
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\ I’m using your words here, btw. You’ve repeatedly stated that the the best thing for Israel would be to do nothing while the Palestinians suffer a slow death, and then there won’t be any Palestinians to speak of. Problem solved!
I have never stated that Israel doing nothing would result in Palestinian genocide. You know it is untrue yourself, when you leave rhetoric aside.
The most that some Israelis hope for is for Palestinians to go to Jordan and Europe, and vast majority of Palestinians would do the latter gladly, according to surveys. I do not think it will ever happen. But even those Jews never think of a possibility of a genocide.
\ And then you have the gall to say that the peace talks are a sham.
But they are. For both sides, yes. If Abu Mazen tried to sign any real agreement, he would be murdered by Palestinian dissenters / extremists. He has no power to sign anything, only to talk a lot.
Anyway, if Trump “really cuts the funding for Israel,” as Clarissa wonders, it will hurt my country more than 101 additional rounds of peace talks that come to nothing, SB. So you may be happy about that in advance.
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“I have never stated that Israel doing nothing would result in Palestinian genocide.”
I didn’t use the word genocide, you did.
You have absolutely said that by doing nothing, Israel wins, so it’s in its best interest to do nothing. Just keep making life a living hell for them, day after day, year after year, extinguish all hope, take their water, don’t allow essential goods to pass through, bulldoze their homes and build settlements on top.
Not genocide, of course. That would be horrible.
“The most that some Israelis hope for is for Palestinians to go to Jordan and Europe”
So, ethnic cleansing?
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\ So, ethnic cleansing?
Yes. But I do not believe it will ever happen without a huge (almost?) total war in the Middle East. Looking at the Arab failed states here on the brink of collapse, at ISIS, at … this possibility can not be ruled out. I do not want such total war, obviously, but it won’t depend on me.
Many Israeli Jews think we should not sign anything with Palestinians till the entire region around us stops burning and/or becomes more stable.
Many also connect peace treaty with Palestinians with acceptance of Israel by Arab states around us.
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Yeah, more environmental destruction is not what I’d call ‘bright side’.
Clarissa, you’ve said oil is the biggest reason why the US supports client states like Saudi Arabia. Once we have an alternative to oil, it’s all over.
Along the same lines, what would need to happen for US to stop giving unconditional support to their other infamous client state, Israel?
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\ Along the same lines, what would need to happen for US to stop giving unconditional support to their other infamous client state, Israel?
I hope nothing like that will happen during my lifetime. And Israel is not a religious dictatorship with zero human rights like Saudi Arabia. Let’s not compare between us.
Besides, US support is not unconditional and is given only since it benefits US.
Btw, I am hopeful about BDS activists soon having a dilemma whether to use a new Israeli product 🙂 :
Israeli research successful in identifying possible HIV, AIDS cure
Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem have identified a protein called Gammora that they say can reduce HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, in infected patients by 97 percent.
http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Health-and-Science/Israeli-researchers-make-successful-stride-towards-HIV-cure-471509
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“Let’s not compare between us.”
It’s an apt comparison. Massively embarrassing, brutal client states that the US has to cover for 24/7, and in the process loses its own moral credibility in the world.
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The post title was sarcastic. Because there is no bright side. And I don’t believe that Paul Ryan, aka the Total Wimp, will be able to oppose Trump a whole lot.
If the US decides to abandon its role of “the world’s policeman” or the superpower, it will retreat from Israel. I don’t think it will be abrupt. Rather, it will be a gradual process as roles within the new global order are redefined. Everybody has a chance to redefine their role right now. It’s a huge opening for new strategies. Unfortunately, everybody seems too chicken to make a bold move towards the future and is clinging to the past.
I’d so love to see the US that ditches the parochialism and makes a huge push towards developing new green alternatives to oil and things like that. It’s an alternative way of being a superpower, one that doesn’t require sending troops anywhere. But this is not a choice that Americans are making. Americans want to pretend it’s still the 20th century.
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http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/03/news/economy/oklahoma-earthquake-fracking-oil/
The quake that struck Saturday is at least the second of its size to affect central Oklahoma since 2011.
Governor Fallin said six buildings on the Pawnee Nation reservation were left “uninhabitable” and emergency responders found a “variety of damage.”
Oklahoma has surpassed California for seismic activity for several years now.
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Why did Sheldon Adelson bankroll Trump’s campaign? Surely he knew about Trump’s flirtation with actual neo-nazis, his campaign manager’s anti-semitic media platform, Breitbart.
Did he get duped just like the working class white people in the rust belt?
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\ Why did Sheldon Adelson bankroll Trump’s campaign?
Because he supports Right in America, the way he does in Israel? His daily Israeli newspaper is so Right that I even stopped reading it, despite the paper being distributed free of charge on every corner.
It is not like Sheldon Adelson’s personality is one for Israel and another for America.
Also, your comment points at the unpleasantness of being a minority: even in free America, being Jewish supposedly limits one to supporting only one of the whole two (!) big parties that USA has. If a Jew is a Republican and always supports Republican candidates, he is a weird, duped kind of person.
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“If a Jew is a Republican and always supports Republican candidates, he is a weird, duped kind of person.”
This is not just another ‘republican’ candidate, you moron. I just cannot understand a person who gives money to Yad Vashem and to an explicitly anti-semitic candidate. This is not normal.
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“an explicitly anti-semitic candidate”
You do realize that his daughter (Ivanka) converted to Judaism when she married and he has Jewish grandchildren, don’t you?
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Um, is that supposed to be an argument?
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I’m not sure how “explicitly anti-semitic” squares with a (converted) Jewish daughter who he’s very close to and Jewish grandchildren.
How is he “explicitly anti-semitic”?
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Converted daughter or a crowd of relatives in no way precludes one from being a huge anti-semite. These are not even remotely related facts.
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The same way Strom Thurmond was an avid anti-segregationist and had a black illegitimate daughter whose college education he paid for, but never acknowledged publicly in his lifetime.
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All of the Jews I know in person were Bernie people.
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\ I just cannot understand a person who gives money to Yad Vashem and to an explicitly anti-semitic candidate. This is not normal.
Just learned something good about Trump which may help you understand:
\ President-elect Donald Trump assisted the Israeli government to establish infrastructure for new communities for Israelis being evacuated from the settlements in the Sinai in the1980s and from Gaza in 2005, Yedioth Ahronoth has learned.
Sinai was evacuated as part of a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt which Gush Katif in Gaza was done so at the behest of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a unilateral withdrawal.
According to various estimations, Trump’s financial donations amounted to millions of shekels.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4879458,00.html
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In his 1991 book Trumped!, the former president of Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, John R. O’Donnell, recalled Trump declaring that “laziness is a trait in blacks,” and exclaiming: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” Trump acknowledged in a Playboy interview (5/97; cited Huffington Post, 4/29/11), “The stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true.”
But his son-in-law is a Jew. Absolved!
Appointed Steve Bannon as his chief of staff.
God help us from Trump, but before that God help us from people like Cliff who’re trying their best to normalize this.
‘Move along folks, nothing to see here.’
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His entire campaign. The people he listens to. His campaign ads.
His retweeting of neo-nazis.
Cliff here, just JAQing (Just Asking Questions) off here. ‘What do you mean, anti-semite?’
“the ad casts three prominent Jewish people as bad guys: Fed Chair Janet Yellen, financier George Soros and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.”
I’m not crazy about any of those guys either, especaly Soros and anyone connected with the vampire squid known as Goldman Sachs.
“‘What do you mean, anti-semite?’”
For me an anti-semite is a person who who see Jews, as a group and individualy, as non-human, sub-human or super-human (I could do something longer but the season two finale of How to Get Away with Murder awaits…..)
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“John R. O’Donnell, recalled Trump ”
hearsay
“people like Cliff who’re trying their best to normalize this.”
If by normalize you mean ‘not panicking as if this was the end of the world’ then….. yeah I guess. I wouldn’t have voted for him but the country will survive him.
If he was an especially bad choice then maybe the electorate will learn something from it.
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It’s not the end of the world, I agree. It’s probably the end of the long American Century, that’s what it is.
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“hearsay”
Trump acknowledged in a Playboy interview (5/97; cited Huffington Post, 4/29/11), “The stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true.”
Try again.
Also, this is why dog whistles work. Remember folks it’s not racism unless the person signs an affidavit with ‘This is a racist thing. I just said it. Yes, I’m a racist’.
So people like Cliff can claim plausible deniability.
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“a crowd of relatives in no way precludes one from being a huge anti-semite”
What has he said or written that is especially anti-semitic? I’m curious as I miss a lot of US news in my fortress of sauerkraut.
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“I’m curious as I miss a lot of US news in my fortress of sauerkraut.”
Nope, you’re JAQing off. Nobody who reads Breitbart religiously can claim to not be aware of what’s going on. Yeah, you’re just an expat who never reads news. Nice try.
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There is so much that it’s boring to list. The star of David cartoon, the Jewish conspiracy speech, the tweets. What does it matter? He’s a hateful creep all around. It doesn’t add anything very new to his image that he hates Jews as well as Muslims. And whoever was dumb enough to get entangled with his trashy daughter – he just thinks of him as a fool he palmed off the broad onto very successfully.
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I honestly didn’t realize that Trump’s antisemitism is up for debate. It’s a well-established part of his persona. He taps into the seemingly contradictory but very real “anti Jewish but pro Isreal” demographic.
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“The same way Strom Thurmond was an avid anti-segregationist and had a black illegitimate daughter whose college education he paid for, but never acknowledged publicly in his lifetime.”
It’s shameful that you had to spell it out for him. Such a trivial point.
Also note, the argument isn’t even that he married a Jew so he can’t be an anti-semite. His daughter married a Jew, so he can’t be an anti-semite. God, that’s some reach.
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My mother-in-law hates both Jews and Ukrainians. And I have heard so much trash over the years about Ukrainians from my Jewish relatives that I don’t get this argument at all.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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