From a perspective of continually searching for knowledge and relationships, for synthesizing information into a larger paradigm I have reached a point where the world - the human world and its cultural and physical geography - is reaching certain tipping or turning points. Several genres of interest - financial, military, and environmental - appear to be at a stage where whatever I could say, whatever I have said, will have no further impact and I can only observe events until some resolution is reached by whatever means.
These broad topics are deeply related, and the resolution of one will have strong ramifications for the others. They are not separate categories except as an organizer for the academic and political minds of today. Information gleaned from many books, the western mainstream media (MSM), alternate media (being for the most part various websites), and from other sources in Asia and Europe provides a broad base from which to formulate a perspective on current events.
There are some broad trends that should be obvious. Financially, the 'western' world is operating as a debt laden consumer society, competing with the rising strengths of China and Russia as co-leaders in an at best multi-polar world. Militarily, the U.S. and its allied NATO countries remain dominant, but that dominance is reckoned on the threats of a failed "full spectrum dominance" military, backed by an official first strike nuclear capability and policy.
As for the environment - the consumer society run by corporations with zero environmental concerns, and the military fighting for control of resources and for control of the financial world are dominant topics in the MSM, leaving the environment to change almost unheralded. These changes would be seriously aggravated by a larger war and /or significant financial changes.
There are two main ways to examine these faultlines. It can be done region by region, highlighting the impacts on the populations of defined areas. There are, however, no isolated regions, as one bleeds (literally) into another, with the global context quickly encroaching into any discussion of one country or region. Another examination could be approached from the genres mentioned above, in which an attempt to precis the global aspects of each would again bleed (literally, financially, and metaphorically!) one into the other. A third approach would take an even less well defined train of thought approach, following the bleeding as it encircles the world.
Good-bye Palestine
Palestine is the best place to start as it is the topic on which I had my first article posted online many years ago, at Palestine Chronicle. Without detailing the current events around then until now, it leads to the proposition that perhaps Netanyahu has achieved what he wants - a one state solution.
It is not a pretty one state solution, as it carries horrible complications. But the Palestinian people appear to have been effectively divided and controlled (the word conquered cannot be used yet, and hopefully never will be). Abbas and the Palestinian Authority seem to be fully complicit with the Israeli military occupation, guarding their own little sphere of influence and power.
Talk of a two state solution is just that - talk. The 'wall' encloses many of the settlements along with much prime Palestinian land (with many other settlements remaining in the West Bank). It serves not so much for a two state solution but as a manner to control the many bantustan style enclaves restricting the movement and freedoms of the Palestinian people. More talk simply provides more time to build more settlements while destroying more Palestinian settlements and encroaching upon more Palestinian land.
The only country that could currently affect change is the United States. It is very inconvenient for the U.S. to do anything because of the large influence AIPAC has on Congress and the various neocon/right wing think tanks spread throughout the country. Obama and Netanyahu have their differences, but the U.S. remains financially and militarily committed to Israel.
This is where it gets tricky, going beyond the current paradigm into the changing global situation. Israel is more or less allied with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in its rhetoric against Iran, and in its military actions from the annexed Golan Heights. The Arab states are where Israel wants them to be - at war with each other, impoverished, divided, and ineffective domestically. Israel is apparently aiding ISIL/al-Qaeda against Assad while controlling their own border on Syria's Golan Heights, cooperating with the Saudis in their manic fear of Iran, arguing then making good with Turkey and Egypt, and - this is even trickier to decipher - turning its trade and financial outlook towards Asia.
Gaza
All that goes without even touching Gaza. Is this to be a part of Netanyahu's one state? It would be dangerous to count it fully in from the Jewish perspective, as the 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned there would tip the demographic balance into uncertain territory if its population were included within Israel proper. Egypt does not want them, not for the financial burden nor for the political burden of a defiant people. The elimination of the population by violent means is not sufferable even for the Israelis under current conditions, nor is their any place for them to be removed to.
A free Gaza is not likely in the works, and it would be high conjecture to explore the various implications and ramifications were that feasible.
Perhaps though, Gaza is convenient. It is convenient like the talks for a two state solution, providing a distraction while more West Bank settlements are built. Convenient in that it carries the rhetoric of violent Islam, allowing the ongoing dogma against Iran, and in general providing a significant fear factor, a significant, different, and outlawed 'other' to be a domestic source of unity. It is convenient as well for carrying that fear factor abroad to harvest support from its western admirers. It might also prove to be convenient for Israel's exploration and extraction of carbon resources under the Mediterranean.
It would seem then, that Israel is comfortable in its miserable neighbourhood. But that neighbourhood has changed and will change significantly more. The U.S.' military entanglements and its increasingly violent actions in the Middle East are for the most part its attempts to assert its global dominance financially.
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