History Readings

As Tocqueville observed after visiting the new republic, the widespread perception that anyone can get ahead creates a presumption that everyone has an obligation to at least try.

two centuries later, both the perception and the sense of obligation that follows are still firmly in place. According to the World Values Survey, while 60 percent of Europeans say they think “the poor are trapped in poverty,” only 29 percent of Americans think so. Instead, 60 percent of Americans think “the poor are lazy,” compared with just 26 percent of Europeans.

Vast inequality may be acceptable to most citizens if anyone, or at least anyone’s grandchild, has a fair shot at the top. But if wealth and poverty simply perpetuate themselves within families, ever wider inequality becomes ever harder to justify. In America, the debate about inequality is, inevitably, also a debate about mobility.

Previous statements and smokescreens that suggested Netanyahu could support a two-state solution were proved profoundly disingenuous when the prime minister proudly and explicitly declared last week: “I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.” In other words, there are now no circumstances under which Netanyahu would accept the Palestinians establishing sovereign control over the West Bank.

The ongoing game theory behind the Israeli air strikes and ground invasion is, in effect, “The Netanyahu Peace Plan.” It is just far easier to attack Gaza—in the name of fighting Hamas—than it is to sign a peace agreement with moderates such as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. And the latter has never been Netanyahu’s goal. Quite the contrary: By bombarding Gaza, Netanyahu can dismiss all Palestinian claims to sovereignty and self-determination—in the name of security.

The moderate Palestinian leadership had already accepted all the conditions Netanyahu demanded. They renounced violence, recognized the state of Israel, and embraced a demilitarized Palestinian state. But in response, the Israeli government made no concessions, the result of which was to effectively destroy the moderate leadership within Palestinian society.

The peace agenda of Russell and his followers was always based on the assumption that war is simply a euphemism for the madness of state-sponsored mass murder, and that we could prevent it by standing up for moral and political sanity

But the paths to war are paved not with malice but with righteous self-certainty. People who choose to participate in military action are more likely to be altruists than egotists: they are prepared to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of something that transcends them

nothing will be gained by accusing them of selfishness, nihilism or moral idiocy, or delivering lectures about self-sacrifice, high principle and the future of humanity.

When you write that many "vastly more Palestinian families have been killed..because of differences in offensive weaponry and defensive systems and other factors" you might mention that the "other factors" included the Hamas government's refusal to build shelters and defensive systems to protect their people, as well as their use of civilians as shields to hide behind when they shoot rockets at Israeli civilians.

From Inside and Outside the Iron Dome, Once Again "If you continue looking up to the sky, you will not notice that the house is already burning from within." A reader in Jerusalem on the real threat to his country. James Fallows Jul 19 2014, 1:17 PM ET

When you write that many "vastly more Palestinian families have been killed..because of differences in offensive weaponry and defensive systems and other factors" you might mention that the "other factors" included the Hamas government's refusal to build shelters and defensive systems to protect their people, as well as their use of civilians as shields to hide behind when they shoot rockets at Israeli civilians.

86 percent of the households making $500,000 or more that left the city moved to four states with reputations for high taxes. Only 45 percent of the less wealthy households relocated to those states.

only 2 percent of the wealthier households bolted for Florida (compared with 10 percent of households that made less than $500,000, many of them retirees). Just over 4 percent of the wealthier households headed for Texas (as did exactly the same percentage of less wealthy households).

States known for lower taxes, among them, South Dakota, Delaware, New Mexico, Utah, Tennessee, Louisiana, Colorado, Alabama and Wyoming, did not even register on the study’s list of destinations for wealthier New York City movers.

Thrillbent, a website for free digital comics that began in 2012, rolled out a $3.99 per month subscription model.

Letting others into the comics sandbox is also a goal of the Panel Syndicate, a pay-what-you-want hub for original comics that was started last year

More “people pay something than pay nothing,” Mr. Vaughan said of the pay-what-you-want model. “Against all odds, we’re doing great.”

Since 1993, high-ranking bureaucrats, academics, members of parliament, business executives, and top law enforcement and security officials have shown rising levels of anti-Americanism

The source of this antipathy, according to Eduard Ponarin, a professor of sociology at the school, “is elite frustration over the failure to modernize their country along some foreign models.”

Anti-Americanism came from the top down. The Russian ruling class saw these events as hostile acts directed at Moscow by the West. President Putin, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev and their supporters found it politically useful to accentuate anti-American rhetoric to garner public support, especially as the economic growth that heralded Mr. Putin’s early years in power sputtered and faded.

It’s not true that all wars are fought in the name of religion, as some atheists assert. Of 1,723 armed conflicts documented in the three-volume “Encyclopedia of Wars,” only 123, or less than 7 percent, involved a religious cause.

the Miami-Fort Lauderdale region eclipsed Los Angeles in 2012 as the major metropolitan area with the largest share — 45 percent — of immigrant business owners

Colombians, who first began to settle here in the 1980s, are the largest group of South Americans. They now make up nearly 5 percent of Miami-Dade’s population. They are joined by Argentines, Peruvians and a growing number of Venezuelans. Brazilians, relative newcomers to Miami’s Hispanic hodgepodge, are now a distinct presence as well. The Venezuelan population jumped 117 percent over 10 years, a number that does not capture the surge in recent arrivals. Over half of Miami’s residents are foreign born, and 63 percent speak Spanish at home.

he latest surge of South Americans was turning the city into a year-round destination and luring more entrepreneurs and international businesses. Latin American banks have proliferated as they follow their customers here.

the latest poll from Pew on American attitudes toward other faiths. The researchers asked a panel of more than 3,200 nationally representative adults to take a "feeling thermometer" about religious groups in America, rating their level of "warmth" or "coolness" toward Jews, Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, evangelicals, atheists, and more

respondents were much more likely to report feeling "warmly" toward the religious group they were part of; Catholics were all about other Catholics, evangelicals were enthusiastic about evangelicals, etc.

despite the home-team advantage of the Christians in the survey, who made up more than two-thirds of the sample, Jews got the highest overall ratings. A good chunk of the respondents said they don't even know any Jewish people; only 60 percent said they'd ever met a Jew.

Both have been riding nationalist waves of xenophobia – and have done their best to inflame it some more; both believe that military force is the first resort when challenged; both have contempt for the United States under its current president; both regard Europeans as pathetic weaklings and moral squishes; both use a pliant mass media to instill the tropes of paranoia, wounded pride and revenge; both target “infiltrators” in their midst, whether it be African immigrants and Palestinians or gays and Westerners; and both have invaded and threatened their neighbors. Perhaps most important of all: both have lost control to the even more enraged extremists to their right.

Netanyahu’s endless provocations have led to a cabinet even more hawkish than he and a country ever further away from any reconciliation with the people whose land it took decades ago.

Operating against extremists committed to killing Jewish civilians seems like a necessary part of any Israeli national security strategy. But what happens after the inevitable ceasefire matters as well, and we lack signs that the Netanyahu government is thinking strategically. Setting back the cause of extremists is half the battle; buttressing moderates is the other half. Netanyahu and his ministers are notably inexpert at helping the more moderate Palestinian factions strengthen their hold on the West Bank, and they specialize in putting their collective thumb in the eye of Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. A clever post-conflict Israeli strategy would be to help the Palestinian Authority extend its mandate more deeply into Gaza

Israel must take the interim steps, regardless of Palestinian participation, to protect its democratic character. Israeli moderates must "demand a complete halt to construction in the settlements, the evacuation of illegal outposts, a reexamination—once the current tension has ebbed—of the Israel Defense Forces’ deployment in the West Bank, and the removal of what remains of the Gaza blockade (possibly in coordination with Egypt

I'm not hopeful at all that the Netanyahu government will listen to such advice. Because myopia has shown itself to be the enemy of compromise and progress in Israel, and not just in Gaza.

Israel could send Gaza back to whichever age it wishes. Its military advantage, its general dominance, over the Palestinians has never been greater since 1948. But it chooses otherwise. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s talk of a ground invasion is empty. The last thing Israel wants, short of a cataclysm, is to go into Gaza and get stuck.

What Israel wants is the status quo (minus Hamas rockets). Israel is the Middle East’s status quo power par excellence. It seeks a calm Gaza under Hamas control, a divided Palestinian movement with Fatah running the West Bank, a vacuous “peace process” to run down the clock, and continued prosperity. Divide and rule. Hamas is useful to Israel as long as it is quiescent.

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, is also a status quo man. Late in his life, he is not prepared to make the painful decisions necessary to attain a two-state peace, decisions that would include relinquishing, against compensation, the so-called “right of return” for millions of Palestinian refugees. He prefers the comforts of his position and the ambiguity of concessions not formalized.

Germany, I said, does not believe in quick fixes. It is worth repeating because it is an idea that sets the country apart in an age where a quick killing, tomorrow’s share price, instant gratification and short-termism are the norm. Germans on the whole think what the rest of the world builds is flimsy.

they have a point. The German time frame is longer.

Perhaps German success is the result of the immensity of past German failure. I think that has something to do with it, even a lot. Whatever its roots, German success is important and instructive.