No he doesn't. Neither do I or the majority of people that don't depend on Fox News et al. for their news. In fact, what we do know, is that your country actively represses Palestinians and destroys or steals their homes, depriving entire families of shelter, as any random photo shoot of a Palestinian protest will show. Moreover, even foreign citizens (even if they're Jewish and American, which btw pay for your 'security') are targets of repression or even murder for protesting about the appalling situation that you impose on the Palestinian people.

Your country murders, abducts and steals from unarmed foreign citizens (including journalists) on international waters in what amounts to piracy if not even an act of war. Your country trapped the people of Gaza and conducted warfare against it, in what can be described only as collective punishment which is completely forbidden by the Geneva Convention to which Israel adhered, for no reason except disagreement with the outcome of a democratic process.

Also, while Iran may or may not be procuring nuclear weapons, the fact is that your country does have a sizeable nuclear arsenal and hasn't even signed the Treaty for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, and doesn't allow inspectors from the IAEA in your nuclear facilities.

So if there actually is a threat, the threat is Israel. No country (including your closest ally and financier, the USA) can trust that your military or secret services will not attack, abduct or murder any of it's citizens anywhere in the world, as all this has happened before. You claim to be a democracy but you restrain the rights of your own women to exercise their religion like men do. You restrain the right of Palestinians to become citizens of your country by marriage, which I think is unique in all claimed democracies in this world, and can be classified as nothing but racist. Perhaps the rest of the world, say Turkey for example, should do a preemptive strike on Israel lest you murder every Turkish on international waters... But we know what would happen then wouldn't we?

In conclusion, if there is such thing as a rogue state, then Israel is one by any objective consideration. Your victimising is no longer effective as people get alternatives to traditional news sources that are not under the payroll of your efficient lobbies, and actually witness what is happening in Palestine. Like the man said "You can't fool everyone all the time". Because of your nuclear WMDs your country is in effect militarily untouchable, but if you persist on your arrogant, contemptuous and delusional attitude towards the rest of the world you'll get more and more isolated internationally and you'll end up like North Korea, a pariah nuclear threat looming over the Middle East, Europe and the world.

Go on, cry anti-semitism now.

Yes we all see it. They're minding their own business. Which happens to be nuclear power. So, lets hear again why shouldn't Iran have nuclear power, military or otherwise?
I'll anticipate the answer: "Why, because they are Islamic fundamentalists and raving lunatics and they'll use it to wipe Israel off the map!!!!111!!"

Let's see, they are 1) Islamic fundamentalists - I don't see the problem, so is Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. (and to a much worse degree), but they're considered good friends of the US. I wonder why... Anyway, Islamic fundamentalism has never got in the way of being on the good graces of the West. 2) They're raving lunatics - well I wish the whole world was raving lunatic like they are, given they haven't invaded any country in centuries. Don't see why that would suddenly change now. 3) They want to wipe Israel off the map - ahh, now we're getting somewhere aren't we. But, in fact, that is completely baseless and pretty much amounts to deception. What the president of Iran said, was that Israel should disappear from the maps. The 'we'll wipe it off the map' thing was a (deliberate) deceptive translation from Farsi by MEMRI which is a shill for Israeli interests and provides translations of Muslim media, carefully tailored to their master's objectives. It is, by no means, an unbiased news source. And even if it was, their translation is wrong.

The question now is: Do you see what the US and Israeli elite are doing? Everyone knows. Anyone who cares to look can see this. They're leaving a pretty unmissable breadcrumb trail, and it passes through Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq and Pakistan. Except they're not using breadcrumbs. They're using cluster bombs.

I don't know if you're American, but if you are, they're using your tax money for it while at the same time claiming they can't pay for your healthcare. Anyone can see this. For a lot of people indeed, it was the last thing they ever saw. Why can't you?

I laid my arguments on a reply above, so if you care to know you can read them.

But I'll reply on some things you wrote because you seem to have misunderstood my point and taken offense, and that wasn't my intention.

Almost no one is telling you how to live, much less me or my compatriots, and we couldn't even if we wanted to. What we want, and I think the majority of the people in the world, is that you realize, because of the power your country projects, that your government's decisions matter no only to you and your People, but also to the rest of us. But, for now, almost only you and your People have the power to control your government. That's why we need you to think about us and care because we obviously can't do much.

First of all, you do have a saying on how my country is run. In fact, that pretty much applies for almost every other country in the world. Not you directly, but your government which is accountable to you, among others. So I'm already at a disadvantage. Now you can think whatever you want about who ought to have a say in how your country is run. That's fine with me. What I don't like in your opinion is that you don't care what other countries' people think about you or what you do, because that means you won't factor that in your own thinking, therefore voting. Normally that would be ok. But because of the power your country possesses, that entails potentially catastrophic scenarios for the rest of us, as many people from various countries around the world can perfectly illustrate to you.

Looks like "I don't give a shit" to me. But maybe I'm wrong.

If you don't care, how do you know? Besides, you still don't have to give a shit. Let's see how you fancy it when you do.

To conclude, I'm not trying to take your sovereignty away. I couldn't even if I wanted to. I merely think that, because of the power on which you have some measure of control, you should perhaps care a little more about how it affects other people. That means caring about what other people think of the US.

PS: there is a country that already took your sovereignty away to a large extent. It controls your legislative branch almost completely, lured your country into two pointless wars and absorbs quite a share of the taxes you pay. Perhaps the time when you have to care is not so far.

Oh but I do! What other country's people and government do, necessarily stems from what the country's people think (in democracies at least). It may be through direct or less direct ways but a country's actions always depends on the People's thinking (or lack thereof). The fact that the US can and will project it's power all over the world in multiple domains and through multiple vectors, makes it crucial for everyone to keep a close eye on American thinking.

Me, perhaps. But you, you can do more. Because your country can control what other countries do, it follows necessarily that you can control what other countries do too. Therefore, it seems to me that you have a bigger responsibility of trying to know what people in other countries think, since you have the power to influence their lives. Additionally, and because we in other countries are subject to that power in many ways, common sense would dictate that we care quite a lot about what the wielders of such power think.

I wish you wouldn't think like that. Because, you know, the government that you elect makes decisions which directly and indirectly affect how the rest of us live in other countries, so is the power that it wields. So, you might not care about what Germans think of the US, but the rest of the world does care about what Americans think. And let me tell you, the rest of us don't think much of what you people seem to think (although that is changing somewhat lately). Maybe precisely because of that attitude you seem to be displaying. The "I don't give a shit" attitude. Well, the people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Central America, South America, Europe and Africa do give a shit. Because they can't afford not to.

Perhaps the day will come when you'll also be forced to give a shit about what some other country thinks about yours. Let's hope they're not going to think like you.

What OP means, is that it is quite obvious that something is changing. I remember seasons being a lot more regular than they are now. And my grandparents even more so. Spring (weather) started March 21, give or take a day or two. Now, it's give or take two months, perhaps even more random in other places.

You can argue that it's natural, that it's some sort of natural cycle. Other people argue that it's god punishing us. The fact remains that the climate is changing, and therefore so is the weather, becoming more and more unpredictable and with more and more extreme phenomena happening all around the world. It doesn't take rocket science, ballistics or fluid dynamics to figure out the consequences to agriculture worldwide.

Not that I have a problem with your jocose pedantry, but OP is the one that should have 5, Insightful.

That's right. I did. And given that you actually bothered to go through my comment history, you surely noticed that this is something I don't do many times. Especially on these kinds of subjects.

The reason I chose to do so is that, simply, I find it quite impossible to debate rationally with people that hold the beliefs and world-view that you obviously do. The fact that you simply parrot propaganda that has been shown over and over again to be just plain false and mischievous, and would do so even to the point where you would try to push it to someone that has been to (and I assume is from: user "the entropy" ) a country that has been savagely devastated only 5 years ago by the people whose actions and intentions you seek to defend, is pretty much revealing that rational argument is not possible. You will simply deny any objective facts presented and ultimately launch the definite ad-hominem attack of anti-semitism, compared to which my simple remark pales. You see, there's a pattern you people follow.

Before I proceed to actually comment on the links you posted, let me tell you this: you are very lucky that it is me doing the ad hominem attack. Israeli ad hominem attacks are normally in the form of letal high speed lead projectiles, otherwise known as bullets. Any Palestinian or Lebanese person will be able to confirm this to you, if you ever have the courage to confront these people in person, without having them at gunpoint.

The links you posted are ridiculous. The Israeli Declaration of Independence is meaningless to the purposes of this discussion, not to mention that it is hardly an independent and unbiased source of information.
About the other link you posted on the partition of territory, I assume you intend to emphasise this part:

You'll want to notice the [citation needed] indicator. It means that anyone could have written this (it could have been you, AFAIK) and it is not referenced from any source, therefore it holds zero credibility.

In the remote chance that you'd actually be interested in learning the truth about this conflict, I recommend the works of Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky. Bear in mind that this is probably forbidden literature in your political circles and that if your propaganda masters find you reading this, they'll take away your good-boy badge. Read at your own risk:

Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-semitism and the Abuse of History
Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians

Well I could say the exact same about you. But I will actually challenge you. Please provide references for your claims. Oh, and by the way, Zionist handbooks are NOT the public record.

You inform us in your signature that you are not American. That's right. You're just an asshole. Now show us that public record.

Fox News headlines don't make neither an accurate nor fair description of the world they claim to depict.

That talk is old. Hamas fires hand made rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel. I calculated the kill ratio of these weapons from the casualty numbers of the last Gaza massacre (yes, because in a war, both sides are supposed to have military power. Hamas really doesn't) and it was about 400:1. This means that Hamas had to fire at least 400 rockets to get one casualty. I'm including military and civilian casualties, including one Israeli that died from a heart attack from being scared of the explosion of a rocket. Do I need to name the weapons the IDF has at its disposal (funded by the American taxpayer btw)?

You are delusional. Israel is digging its own grave. Israel has no friends. It's nothing but a PR nuisance that every executive has to deal with, because it has a powerful lobby that has the US and the UK politians by the balls. But while the lobby managed to get those two into wars with Iraq and Afghanistan that didn't have any serious military power - both being crippled by both international sanctions and recent conflicts - the two powers still managed to lose those wars. Iraq is plunged in civil war, and the US is going to retreat from Afghanistan with the tail between the legs, without achieving absolutely nothing: as soon as Americans pull out, the old status quo is going to become the new status quo in Afghanistan.

You are insane if you even think the US and NATO are going to risk a war with Turkey (that has considerable military power and, more importantly, military experience as they've been engaging in active ops against the PKK for the last decades, and is a NATO ally thus forcing every other ally to defend it in case of an unprovoked attack) and Egypt, risking turning the whole Middle East into an anti-American riot, jeopardizing the geo-economic interests of Anglo-American corporations.

Israel is doomed. The artificial threat of terrorism that was created to divert attention from the colonization process that is being carried on Palestine by Jewish settlers no longer convinces. It just doesn't work anymore. People are fed up of having to undress at airports, of not having cell coverage in the subways, of living in constant fear, and they're starting to realize that it's all because a country whose very existence is questionable, doesn't give a shit about no one else except themselves, doesn't make the slightest effort for even attempting to negotiate a solution to the very mess it itself created, while at the same time murdering even foreign citizens from allied nations with an army equipped with weapons funded by those very allied citizen taxpayers. At the same time, millions of Israeli citizens are realizing that their state not only doesn't give a fuck about allied nations, it doesn't give a fuck about them, it's own citizens.

Mark my words: Israel is doomed. Not that it will go without a fight. Unfortunately, it will probably make a lot more innocent victims before it finally collapses, especially because it's going to be fighting mainly itself. But it will collapse. And you know what? I don't think a lot of people gonna miss it and it's arrogant, dick-like attitude towards the rest of the world.

Perhaps you'd care to provide some reference for this claim? Because it sounds like BS. No, actually, it is BS. It's funny that tools like you never see fit to mention the fact that Zionists actually tricked, deceived and forced Eastern European Jews after WW2 to migrate to what is know known as Israel, by telling them that they we're to be moved into the US.

You talk about propaganda machines, yet you're nothing but a mindless parrot of the largest propaganda machine probably ever set in motion in the history of mankind, funded by the American taxpayer. There is anti-US propaganda due largely to the fact that the US unconditionally supports Israeli policy, something that she doesn't do even with her closest ally the UK. Unconditional support to Israel has been detrimental to the interest and national security of the US and pretty much every civilized country in the world including, ironically, Israel itself. Arab states don't provoke Israel into violent confrontation. It's the other way around. You didn't see the Turkish navy killing Israeli civilians in international waters. But I saw Israeli commandos murdering nine Turkish civilians and one American in international water. The whole world did. I also saw the Israeli army bulldozing Rachel Corrie and shooting a UK civilian in the head the next day or two.

This bullshit doesn't cut it anymore. I really don't know what you stand to gain by spilling this nonsense, but if you truly believe it, then let me tell you that if Israel and, to a larger extent, the US have a problem with terrorism, it's mainly due to shills like you that blindly refuse to acknowledge the plain fact that Israel is not the least interested in promoting peace in the region, as evidenced by her refusal to stop illegal settlements. I bet you also think Norman Finklestein is a self-hating Jew.

PS: When I say Israel, I mean the Israeli state, ultra-orthodox segments of society and their Zionist lobby in the US. There are people in Israel that see the issue quite clearly, and struggle for a truly fair and balanced solution to the conflict. Obviously, you're not one of them.

No. But their genes can (they do in queen bees, and adult humans), and that's what matters.

Indeed. Evolving is not so much an ability as it is a consequence of inexact replication.

No. They got killed because they were in the way. Converting wouldn't have saved them. In fact, nothing could have save them, except the measure of the extent to which their invaders were civilized.

Now who's the barbarian?

AFAIK, in most civilized countries, "justice" implies a proper, unbiased and free trial.

I think this was a great opportunity for the US and the West in general to show that they have the moral high ground and condemn this "state vigilante justice" like someone said above. Instead, all TVs shown people all over Western countries celebrating as if it was a reason of great joy. Worse, the leaders of those countries did pretty much everything but jumping around in joy too.

Lets not forget that if Osama had blood on his hands, as far as Muslims are concerned, the West has it's own hands drenched in it. Now they look at us and think: "They talk a lot about human rights, but when it comes down to it, they're no different of anybody. They kill when, where and what they want", and they're right, because we conveniently ignore basic human rights when it suits us. Like the US now did. To think that it is for a good reason, no matter what that reason is, makes us as bad as all those we condemn. Of course it would be a lot harder to try Bin Laden and condemn him in court (if he was to be considered guilty at all, lets not forget about presumption of innocence - another basic right we conveniently ignore sometimes) than to blow his head off in Pakistan, but it would have sent a clear message: a democracy will search, capture and force all criminals to answer for their crimes in front of a judge, and that is the right way to do it. But, instead, we just put a bullet in his head. Many more of them may now be thinking that they'd like their country to do the same to some Westerners, namely the ones that sent the Tomahawks that hit their houses in Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq, even if by mistake, and why shouldn't they? After all, that's what we do anyways...

The world is safer now? I seriously doubt it. It's probably become more dangerous.