The banks would disagree.

There is nothing inherently nasty about balancing the budget. It depends entirely upon who’s back you do it.

Money is. Wealth isn’t.

And even the Labour Party has promised that “next time” they will balance the books – how nasty of them!

+ 1

I don’t know how bad Trump would be for the Palestinians, given it’s hard to know what he would do about anything at all. But given Hillary is a huge supporter of Netanyahu, Trump would have to try quite hard to be worse. That is not an endorsement of Trump, it is just being real about how screwed the Palestinians are, regardless of who becomes president.

I’m not sure Hillary will have that positive an impact on the plight of single woman and their children either. Maybe superficially, but really addressing the issue requires that she do something about an economy that is stacked against the poor in favour of the 1%. Such steps will simply never come from a corporate candidate like Hillary. If I turn out to be wrong, I’ll be ecstatic to admit it, but I think her real loyalties are not in doubt.

I thought Netanyahu was going to lose the last election until he made that scare-tactic speech at the least minute, and later denied even making.

Thanks Paxton.

I think that Bernie, being a Jew, could have taken a hard line with Natanyahu and moved the conversation forward. Obama confronted him as much as he could and was plenty vilified, though not universally. I don’t sense that Hillary is going to take a hard line with him. Trump, who knows. The fact that Bibi thinks he can negotiate, to hold out for even more military handouts from the US is outrageous. Especially after the way he dissed the president on the Iran deal. There’s a growing movement among Jewish young people in the US to reject the occupation and the settlements and to make it clear that the Israeli government does not represent them.

Good article. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. I find NZ politics a bit boring as a commentator, but as a citizen I appreciate it.

The protesting students forget that there are other people who also regard the campus as home who want to hear the speakers.

I was a member of an anti-racism group when I was at university. Although some members were pretty aggressive in their tactics, I always thought it was better for racists to be given the opportunity to expose their revolting views and retain the moral high ground. The strongest supporters of things like torture and racism rarely change their mind, but those open to change aren’t going to be attracted to the behaviour displayed by those who who become violent.

Opposition to Trump rallies was great until they started engaging in the same tactics that Trump encouraged in his supporters. Then his supporters were able to take the moral high ground and turn the situation around.

Free speech does cut both ways, and that’s exactly my point. You have to be prepared to let those you don’t agree with speak too.

Hi Heather, the party platform in the US doesn’t really commit the candidate to anything. It’s a set of principles that different candidates can pick and choose from for their campaigns. It’s understandable that some Dems (say dws) don’t want to Rock the boat on Israel. But it’s an issue that won’t go away, and the occupation is surely at odds with most principles of the Democratic Party.