I profoundly dislike Netanyahu. My dislike for him does not extend to the nation he leads.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I put Netanyahyu in the same category as Duterte, Edrgodan, Modi, and Trump and it brings me much pain to do so. Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak were sincere about pursuing peace. The former gave his life. Patriotism, yes. Nationalism, no. We all have to live in this world.

My fervent hope is that Israel, the Philippines, Turkey and India reclaim their democratic roots.

[atreides1]

1. Keep hoping!

But, it appears that all 4 of those countries have little use for democracy, mainly because it's not an easy path to follow!

[Mosby]

5. when did Israel become a dictatorship?

Seems to me that Israel has a vigorous, pluralistic democracy, you just don't like the person and party that keeps dominating the coalition system they use.

Maybe you should write a letter or something.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. To be fair all of us don't like the regime in Washington D.C. at the moment.

[backscatter712]

14. When they built their own wall, made policy of killing children, and enacted an apartheid state.

[Mosby]

15. The GOI has a policy of killing children?

Could you link that up?

And electronic intifada, press tv, counterpunch, memo, mondoweiss, zerohedge, veteransnewsnow, ifamericansknew, whatreallyhappened, rense, wsws, and +972 dont count.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. It could happen on April 9

Probably not, but the result of that election is likely to be an unstable coalition, resulting in another election soon, perhaps later this year. That one might do the trick.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Every coalition he has built has been narrow.

I used to follow domestic Israeli politics closely. What happened to Labor?

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Labor's decline is, to me, both a mystery and a tragedy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. The Sephardim vote for the party that takes the hardest line on Palestine.

[DavidDvorkin]

7. And the increase in Mizrahi Jews

Likud's growth was built on that. But the younger generation of Mizrahis should be different, or so I had expected.

[Mosby]

8. why?

Have the Muslim Arab countries surrounding Israel paid the Mizrahi back for what they stole from them?

Have the Persians stopped calling for Israel to be destroyed?

Are Israeli Jews now allowed to travel to these countries?

Are Israeli athletes allowed to compete against Arabs now?

Can Jews now pray at our holy sites, in our own country?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. I agreed with a lot of what you wrote yesterday but not all of it.

I would add my grandmother was from the same shtetl as Ben Gurion and that was a source of pride to her.

[Mosby]

12. thanks for that.

I thought we were having good discussions in that thread.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. I had an Israeli friend, gay, who had a Palestinian boyfriend in Ramallah

They were both so excited about the future during the heady days of Oslo. I shudder to think what happened to the Palestinian guy.