Remember break up of Ma Bell, the air lines, and, as you suggest, elimination of the
chinese wall between commercial and investment banks? In one case, control of
the market is in the hands of a few companies, and in the other case, (total?) deregulation has the end result of little companies being bought up by the few, so we end up back where we started? I don’t think there’s any central quasi-governmental agency or
central function in the insurance industry as there is in the banking industry, to wit the Fed Reserve & Treasury… Is there?

The Syrian-based leadership of the militant Palestinian Hamas said Thursday it has rejected an Egyptian-mediated proposal to reconcile
with the rival Fatah group.

Hamas and seven other Damascus-based Palestinian factions issued a joint
statement saying the reconciliation plan must be revised to include a
reference to the Palestinian right to resist Israeli occupation

If this sort of behavior can go on for sixty years, essentially unchecked, I think we can rule out the notion of an appeal on moral and ethical grounds to Israel. We might as well be Neville Chamberlain reincarnate if we think Israel can be appeased, also.

Some posts above are arguing over whether the “control” [or "effect"] of The Lobby in the USA (over media, over universities, and especially over government) is “alien” [or merely "local"] “control” [or "effect"].

Perhaps these are the wrong questions. Perhaps we should ask how TOTAL are the control-like effects? What are the mechanisms of the control-like effects? Are the control-like effects consistent with (aka “local”) or antithetic to (aka “alien”) local political theoretical norms (e.g., “democracy”, “citizen-control of governance”)?

A homegrown [MILD form of] oligarchic totalitarianism (or is “national socialism” a better term?) is not foreign to (or at least not unknown within) the USA. Stalin and Hitler and militant Zionism were all models of the NON-MILD form! They modeled the proposition that “you’ve got to break some eggs to make an omelet”, that is, to hurt someone (usually not yourselves) to bring about a revolution which you favor. Sometimes they operated as “aliens” and sometimes they operated “at home”. Does the issue of alien/local really matter? Must “control” be total to qualify as “control”?

Was the “control” (or “effect”) of Hitler’s brown-shirts on the rest of German society any better because it was non-alien (assuming it was non-alien), or might it be said that ANY REVOLUTION is ALIEN because it seeks to overthrow the established order AND BREAK LOCAL EGGS? Was it any less “control” when (initially) it was not “total”?

In the USA, the model of [MILD] oligarchic totalitarian control is alive and well, substantially controlling us all. The large “lobbies” (to use a convenient term) all exercise “control” (or have a very large “effect”) on governance, on media, and sometimes on universities.

The BANKERS-LOBBY is a good recent example (consider how they contrived, on the whole, to be rewarded for the melt-down they caused, and contrived to receive rewards which did NOT have the effect of undoing most of the damage they caused. People still cannot get loans!). The MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-CONGRESSIONAL COMPLEX is another example, presently bleeding the USA for wars which are totally pointless. BIG PHARMA and BIG HEALTH INSURANCE are examples now in the news. THE RIGHT-WING PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY (“The Lobby”) is an example familiar to us all.

Our media (including such apparently “lefty” media as NPR’s “On the Media”) appear unable to point to and analyze the social controls (TABOOS, CENSORSHIPS, etc.) which make various topics (very much including the topic of such “social controls”) effectively undiscussable in MSM. But those social controls are real and very damaging. And often they are results of what I’ve been calling oligarchic totalitarianism.

Who among us, whether Zionist or anti-Zionist, doubts that The Lobby exercises a profound oligarchic totalitarian control in the USA? Who among us thinks that that is a good thing for American democracy? Why are Jimmy Carter and Walt & Mearsheimer and Tony Judt so lonely out there? Why have the tenured professors (whose rice-bowls seem safe) not organized conferences on “The Lobby”, “Quasi-Totalitarian Social Controls”, “Israeli Settlements and the Law”?

Some years ago I attended a law-school conference celebrating 50 years of progress on human rights law. The Fourth Geneva Convention was not even mentioned, nor were Israel’s occupations. A mere oversight? Or the effects of quasi-oligarchic-totalitarianism?

link to sabbah.biz

The article concludes with the recommendation that Obama use yet another leverage
tool in the US tool kit, our UN Security Council veto, a first ever refraining from exercising our veto in behalf Israel to allow the UN to fully vet the Goldstone Report.
PS: Note in constrast how quickly Obama put the kabosh on the eastern european missile shield even while he ignored Israel’s jeering, expanding settlements.

No the problem is Washington, where Obama is finding that there are things that cannot be changed.

Here’s proof that your theory of treating Israel with gloves is not only doomed, but it’s doomed because Washington is opposed to Fatah/Hams Unity.

link to uruknet.com

I trust this will be sufficient Ricahrd, to put an end to your endless bloviating about how it’s Hamas’ fault that a unity government hasn’t eventuated.

That could appeal to Israelis to change their policies?