Can we finally talk about...?

Looks like the Netanyahu government fell apart overnight (USA time):

Netanyahu was seeking to gain Lapid’s support for a number of contentious bills, chief among them a bill to declare Israel a “Jewish State.” While Israel’s Declaration of Independence already describes Israel as a Jewish State, the new bill is being touted by Netanyahu as necessary to establishing Israel’s national identity.

Critics say it is an unnecessary bill that will infuriate the country’s Palestinian citizens and fuel anti-democratic legislation.

Elections will overlap the start of the American primary-caucus season. Does this mean the US will finally be able to have an honest discussion about the Middle East?

I doubt it, so I won't say much more. Still afraid to. That said, Israel-Palestine is really my big concern about Hillary Clinton, a far bigger concern than her Hamburg Inn pie shake intake.

Not that Americans are strangers to our own forms of nationalism:

(The Republican) political dilemma here is pretty obvious. They can’t endorse a path to citizenship, or even just legal status for undocumented persons, because the conservative base wouldn't tolerate it. Ideas that attempt to find some middle ground, like Carson’s proposal, don’t fully address the problem. What the base really wants is to deport almost everyone living in the U.S. illegally—something that's not possible, as a practical matter, and would be political suicide if somehow it did work. Even those Hispanics sympathetic to the Republican Party now would abandon it.

Yep, the King Wing is making all the noise these days...  and Jay Michaelson argues in open letter format that it's the evangelicals who've been getting the short end of the stick for 30-plus years:

What happened to the Christian concern to “love the least of these,” the most vulnerable, the most destitute? In my opinion, supply-side Republicans have convinced many Christians not merely that the welfare state is a bad idea, but that generosity itself is a vice, that public assistance equals dependence, and that giving the wealthy even more breaks is the way for benefits to “trickle down” to the rest of us.

Don't worry, he talks about fetuses and stuff too.

Local item that fits nowhere else: Save Hoover folks already gearing up to knock off three Iowa City school board members. Technically, that September 8, 2015 vote is our next scheduled election, though I'll be shocked if we don't have one or even two more before that.

Speaking of special elections: Should Dems even bother to try in the two upcoming legislative special elections? Joni Ernst's seat is the third or fourth most Republican, and the late Dwayne Alons had the number ONE Republican House seat.