Naftali Bennett: "The truth is clear. Israel's standing in the United States is collapsing." The country is increasingly viewed as a "pariah state".

Perhaps a small glimmer of hope can be gleaned from that stark admission.

- Paul Kearns, in Tel Aviv.
www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

I hear there's a lock-in in Fagan's tonight...
#Aras25

Oh, and it would be nice if the people who would tweak with our neutrality would be upfront about the reason this has become urgent: Afghanistan fell and everyone saw, America can't and won't win wars alone anymore, other countries need to pay for western hegemony now.

I think we protecting neutrality and anti-war diplomacy is right because it's right.

I don't think it helps us in our dealings with other countries or means that anyone sees us as an honest broker. I'm sure lots of them think we're smug and rich.

But we should do it, even if it's unpopular.

But some other countries don't take our neutrality seriously. Stalin didn't. Most of our EU neighbours, especially the easterly ones, do not. And we do rely on the military assistance of other states in emergencies, like evacuating Irish citizens from Afghanistan.

Our history has shown us that borders are three problems in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a solution.

And it's nice to think that we can bring that experience to the rest of the world in positive ways.

Furthermore, we grant passports to descendants of citizens because we don't expect anyone to earn their citizenship on the battlefield.

We put animals on coins instead of murderers in uniform. We made a poet our first president, not some general.

It's not just neutrality, it's being anti-war.