The Israeli nation is currently engaged in lawless, illegal and outlawed actions. Israel has operated in this ill manner frequently, all too often and without consequences and at the expense of Israel’s Arab and Persian neighbors since the 1948 creation and imposition of Israel on Arabs and Persians.
Israel has frequently engaged in a plethora of actions which have been declared illegal and outrageous by the United Nations, the United States and the European Economic Union or the EEU-EEC and yet Israel continues with full speed ahead, to indulge in egregious actions which affronts all treaties, protocols and conventions
Israel literarily and metaphorically dictates American foreign policy towards Israel, Arabs, Persians and the entire Middle East, Persian Gulf Region. And American entanglements in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and to a large extent, Afghanistan, are inspired and motivated by America quest to support and “defend” Israel at all costs and even when it is not in America’s best strategic interests, measured whether in both short and long terms. The unthinking rush to support Israel at all costs, have resulted in the squanders of blood and treasure by America and that seem to continue without vigorous public debate by a plurality of Americans
A few weeks ago for instance, Vice President Joseph Biden was on an official visit to Israel, and upon his arrival there, Mr. Biden promptly announced that US policy on Iran and nuclear is because nobody can come between the US and Israel safety and security. And as if on cue and following a script, Mr. Biden, a sitting American vice president received a crude undiplomatic slap in the face; even Israeli press and media were caught off guard in surprise as Israeli government announced the start of construction of additional 1600 houses in East Jerusalem. Israeli Newspapers reported in screaming headlines, “Israel Slaps America In The Face Again And Embarrasses Vice President Biden
The question which should be asked is, but why is America smiling? Only a fool or buffoon would smile upon being slapped in the face, and America is no fool or buffoon, so why is America still smiling and encouraging Israel’s truancy, intransigence and recalcitrance in dealings with Palestinians, Arabs and Persians?
On Monday March 22, 2010, Mrs. Clinton effusively addressed American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC during which she loudly proclaimed America’s support for Israel as rock solid, this, even despite weeks of diplomatic row and public reaction over the uncouth and undiplomatic behavior by Israel, while VP Biden was Israel’s visitor and guest.
Israel is unrepentant, adamant and arrogant and yet, Mrs. Clinton attends AIPAC and Obama meets with Netanyahu and Senator George Mitchell is promptly dispatched to assure and reassure Netanyahu and then lunch with Obama
Mrs. Clinton glowingly states her personal commitment and entire administration’s heads over heels love for Israel; this attitude of effusively loving and hugging the wrongdoer, is exactly why Israel is power drunk, adamant and arrogant and hence, peace continues to elude Israel and Palestine and the entire Middle East. American engages in lopsided underhand deals with Israel at the expense of everyone else. The Americans have over and over shown that their are not an honest peace broker or dispassionate arbiter in the dispute between Israel and her Arabs and Persian neighbors
Israeli citizens married to Arabs are not allowed to live in Israel, because Israel want to keep its population free of Arabs. similar to miscegenation laws in Jim Crow America and Apartheid South Africa and this is ethnic cleansing (married and cannot live together for a whole year) men 35 women at 25 can get 6 months repeat extensions of stay, and such citizens are not allowed to work and have medical insurance this is a practice against right to love and raise family
Maintaining Israel as Jewish state and preventing Israel from becoming subsumed by Arabs populations, but bear in mind that the land where Israel is, is originally Arab, imagine the irony of the keeping a Jewish nation clear of Arabs and ethnic pure for Jews and cleanse of Arabs? Were any other nation on earth to engage in this practice by Israel, such nation would be accused of ethnic cleansing in search of ethnic and religious purity, which runs counter to a modern democratic state of a plural or multicultural type. Israel does have Jews, Arabs, and migrant workers from Asia and Africa
Israel killed a young and unarmed female American citizen but why is America smiling? Would America have smiled had these actions been undertaken by Palestine, Iraq or Iran or North Korea?
Biden goes and say, Mrs. Clinton restates that US and Israel has deep relationship blah blah blah
All this, even as Israel insists it will not change plans to expand settlement in East Jerusalem Netanyahu reaffirms plans to build 1600 houses with a blatant insult to VP Biden as Israel announced these settlements expansion as a banner greetings during the VP visit to Israel.
Israel have been emboldened over the years by formidable support by America and Europe. Israel is continually fortified by the United States which donates $5 billion dollars cash every year in financial aid, as well as supply to Israel advanced weapons and weapons technologies, while Arabs and Persians are denied the same or similar accoutrements and facilities
This historical advantage have been enjoyed by Israel and the expense of its Arabs and Persian neighbors and this have ensured a lopsided stacking of the deck in favor of Israel and have caused Israel to develop a mindset of itself as beyond reproach and beyond rebukes and any person, entity or nation which dares to buck the trend, is quickly harried, barraged and badgered with charges of being anti Semite, anti Jews and being anti Israel. Israelis and Jews worldwide who attempt redefine the narrative between Israel, Arabs and Persians to the middle and to a modicum of fair and balance debate, is labeled, castigated and attacked as was witnessed this week by J Street activists who were attacked and lampooned, for daring to criticize the arrogant and suicidal policies of Israel
Gutturals pronouncements by Netanyahu directed at Arabs and Persians which received guffaws and hilarities from AIPAC conference attendees in Washington DC on March 22nd, 2010, a conference which was earlier addressed by Mrs. Clinton, the United States Secretary of State. Israel reserves the option and will exercise such option against Iran. Netanyahu again spoke to AIPAC gloatingly and giddily and arrogant self contentment or even constipation
In the midst of all these, Israel PM reaffirms and stands firm, reasserted Israel right to build anywhere they want. These were the choice words and terms which were liberally deployed and used throughout American print and electronic media. It is as if everyone is preconditioned to used same words, terms and preconceived notions of Israel’s assumed superior right over Palestinians, Arabs and Persians.
In the face of criticism and condemnations which have greeted the planned expansion and the building of more Jewish settlements on Palestinians land and territories, many Israelis and Jews around the world have mounted spirited defense of the very obviously wrongheaded policies of Israel. The mayor of Jerusalem, who is not a Christian, resorted to biblical defense of Israel land grabs, the mayor stated that the city of Jerusalem is mentioned in the bible 663 times and not once in the Koran, but if everyone went by the bible and by the Koran and where the world was 2000 or 3000 ago, the world would be in chaos
The mayor of Jerusalem told a BBC interviewer that Jews pray for Jerusalem 3 times a day. He went on to add that Jews are not occupying since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, but instead he insists that Jews are merely formalizing the reunification of Jerusalem from separation in biblical times, this is clearly an absurdum
and most ludicrous!
All settlement activities must stop because they are illegal, and someone ought to drum this into the heads of Israeli political leaders and their supporters and enablers here in America; the bulk of Israel conducts regarding Palestine, Arabs and Persian neighbors are illegal, says UN, EEC, UK, US etc
These nonsensical biblical based arguments and references to Palestinians quarters and neighborhoods as Judea and Samaria are exercises in obfuscations. This was perfected and was frequently done or practiced by Ariel Sharon, the Israeli former military general and prime minister, and this entrenched attitude defeats every platitudes ever uttered in the name of peace talks or negotiations
The mayor of Jerusalem summoned illogic to becloud the solid evidence and facts of Palestinians’ ownership of their land and nation, as the mayor stated that Shalem is short form Hebrew word which means home, and Jerusalem, means home and that the whole of Jerusalem will be controlled and dominated by Jews, because Jerusalem is different from any city in the world, and no split is acceptable
British Turkish Roman occupied Jerusalem and they never claimed it, only Jews have ever claimed it and but belongs to Jews. Jerusalem is not a settlement, it Jewish capital? This is biblical gobbledygook and those who are hiding this spurious biblical arguments are disingenuous and dangerously inimical to peace. Jerusalem is heart and soul Jews and so it will be forever says Mayor of Jerusalem, but if we must follow the bible suasion to which Israeli politicians now heavily relies, the bible does say Jesus Christ return will be setting her symbolic feet on the soil of Jerusalem, does it mean that the next intractable internecine wars would be between Jews and Christians? Israel is enabled by her supporters, to arrogantly and adamantly, insist that Jerusalem is sacred ground and goes back 3,000 biblical certainty have been for Jews and Jews
Britain has expelled an Israel diplomat in connection with assassination of HAMAS leader, in which 12 British Passport were used, there is clear evidence that Israelis were involved in the passport swap and forgeries according to the serious crime branch of the British law enforcement apparatuses. Israeli diplomat in Britain is facing pressure over the use of British citizen passports to engage in forgeries and murder of a HAMAS helmsman. Israel has used 12 British passports in the past and Israel had assured Britain and yet, Israel repeats such crime. Germany, Ireland, Australia also had their passport used by Israel in murders
Here are some of the very many actions which Israel have taken against its Arabs and Persians neighbors of which Israel have merely received criticisms with smiles, winks and nods. It is public knowledge that there is no other nation on earth which can get away with half of all the egregious illegalities that have been ramped up by Israel
1. Israel deports children of migrant workers who have lived in Israel for decades in ethnic cleansing, as Israel excuses and justifies its actions on the very tenuous ground of keeping Israel “pure” as Jewish religious nation.
2. Israel unilaterally takes properties of Arabs and reallocate land to newly arriving Jewish settlers on lands that are undisputedly the proper properties of Palestinians in Palestinian territories and nation as contemplated by the so-called two states solution of Israel and Palestine coexisting side by side. Netanyahu compared continued expansion in East Jerusalem to doing same in Tel Aviv, he pretends ignorance of the volatile nature, the utter provocation and inflammatory nature of Israeli recent land-grabs in Palestine.
3. Israel recently took a large swath of Palestinian Arab territory and declared it as an Israel religiously relevant site and as a matter of course, Israel expect Palestinians to go away quietly
4. Israel with a population of about 5 million, receives more foreign aid than ten poorer nations on earth put together, and Israel squander these monies on erecting stone and steel apartheid walls against children, women and the elderly, all in the name of security for Israel, instead of actually examining the root causes of Palestinian resistance which arises from Israel’s land grabs and occupation and manacling of Palestinians on their on land
5. Israel is notorious worldwide as the champion and progenitor of nations which surreptitiously clandestinely procure nuclear weapons. Israel have aggressively promoted and marketed a patented nonsense also known as “strategic ambiguity” which is the idea of saying no and yes whenever asked pointed questions as to having or not having nuclear weapons and such capabilities. And so, Israel is one such nation with undeclared nuclear weapons, nuclear capability and without nuclear inspections as Israel is not a signatory to IAEA nuclear nonproliferation treaties. And yet, Israel and supporters of Israel are quick to cry hypocritical crocodile tears, over Iran nuclear ambitions, as was Iraq before Iran.
6. Strategic Ambiguity as a term and mode of operation copyrighted by Israel was employed again recently, as Israel refuses to confirm or deny the daring assassination of a HAMAS leader in broad daylight in Dubai in which Israeli MOSSAD signature and fingerprints were seen by many observers worldwide. Britain is threatening to expel an Israel diplomat out of London because Britain linked Israel’s Intelligence Services as fraudulently and illegally procuring passports of several British citizens in the assassination project and operations which were carried out in Dubai.
In effect, Israel engages in targeted killings, state sponsored terrorisms, assassinations, invasions and occupations, land-grabs and territorial conquest only identical with medieval crusades and colonialism of more than 300 years ago. And yet, some are content to pretend that Israel does no wrong and that reactions from Palestine, Arabs and Persians are unreasoned, unthinking and motivated by the search of virgins and religious bloodbath and bloodlusts?
7. Israel killed Amy Currie of Seattle an American who was in a peaceful protest. imagine if another nation other than Israel had killed an unarmed American engaged in peaceful protest?
The so-called roadmap to peace between Israel and Palestine has since been shredded by the ineptitude of President George W. Bush administration. There are too many actions by Israeli government which ensures total collapse of any pretense of peace talks negotiations, there are too many road blocks which makes basic daily life miserable for Palestinians and there are still thousands of Palestinians prisoners in Israeli prisons.
There are these outrageous and alarming, suffocating actions which stifles and stymies political and economic growth and stability in Palestine, including excruciating Israeli military blockade and the United Nations Secretary General Mr. Ban Kim Moon, and fourteen months later, the blockade is still in place even as UN Secretary General visit’s the areas. Mr. Ban Ki Moon condemns Israel East Jerusalem
Netanyahu despite all this, get a private meeting and express pass to the White House to meet with President Obama. This is happening, soon after the slap in the face meted out to VP Joe Biden by Israel during Mr. Biden recent visit to Israel. This slap in the face subsequent provocative statements by Mr. Netanyahu before leaving Israel for a visit to the US and further provocative and inflammatory statement by Netanyahu since arriving the US and in particular, while addressing AIPAC, ought to act as a wake up call for America. But instead, Netanyahu earns a coveted invitation to see Mr. Obama again. And as a precursor, Mrs. Clinton effusively proclaims that her relationship with Israel and is the same with entire Obama administration and all of America and she said proudly, it is forever, with such money back guarantee why should Israel alter or modify their behaviors?
Israel should be encouraged to e
ngaged in more responsible behavior in the Middle East and to be more respectful in her relations with the United States which Israel has taken for granted. Israel continues to receive billions in US foreign aid dollars every year. Israel receives military hardware and software from the United States, which are not similarly available to Palestine, Arab and Persian nations, and yet, Israel shows or demonstrates very little respect or care what the United States thinks of Israel’s domestic and foreign policies, in fact, Israel has spied on the United States and other nations in western Europe so many times. And on Tuesday, March 23rd 2010, British Foreign Secretary Mibrand advised British citizens to be mindful and watch their passports if visiting Israel in view of Israel’s theft of several passports of British citizens for assassination enterprise in Dubai. Britain has formally expelled an Israeli diplomat from London.
Former United States President Jimmy Carter has forthrightly described current American policy on Israel-Palestine peace negotiations and peace as fumble and stumble and I suspect this as a deliberately calibrated policy. Why else would VP Biden endure that recent humiliation during his visit to Israel, and then, there is this stampede soon thereafter t coddle and embrace Israel, Netanyahu and AIPAC by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama?
The benign contempt of AIPAC for Clinton, the applause for her when she praised Israel and the loud silence when she chastised Israel for her arrogance and insults to Biden and Netanyahu unapologetic comments before and since arriving in the US ominously demonstrates where the lever of control is.
The more than 7000 American Jews in a three day conference with casts of speakers, who were speaking in favor of Israel were testament to who pulls that power lever and who controls American foreign policy and why America appears heading for a self-destructive path in support of Israel.
American Jews with dissenting opinions are marginalized and ignored and muted and this was again made clear in Washington DC during these several days of AIPAC conference.
The truth of the matter is that, American Jews and all supporters of Israel, including the Secretary of State Mrs. Clinton, and President Obama himself, need to show Israelis tough love and tell them bitter truths.
Bitter truths, including the need for Israel to aspire to conduct itself as a mature nation and to get out of the gory, sordid business of targeted killings, assassinations, arrogant land grabs, unilateral invasions and occupations of other nations, arbitrary seizures, confiscations and or demolitions of properties of Palestinians, desist from imposing punishing blockades and ethnic cleansing based on whether a person in Israel is Jewish or not etc. Israel should learn to follow the norm, treaties, conventions and protocols and refrain from illegalities and lawlessness. Israel should stop being an outlaw nation.
8 comments
thegiftedhands,ever heard anything about the balfour declaration?check your history books.
I think Mr. Paul has Nazi blood flowing through his veins and though i believe he may not have the balls to be another Farouk, he may be funding these extremists monetarily. Am not sure if he read my reply to his article as he claimed to have done. A very vital question I asked him was why he concluded that Arabs owned the present location of the Jewish State when at the time of the British Mandate, Palestine was not a sovereign state. Just like Israel, Palestine as an independent sovereign state lost power after the Ottoman conquered the land in 1516CE. Mr. Paul is sure an ignorant fanatic on this issue.
Mr. Adujie; why don’t you just stay with the issue at hand rather than beat around the bush as you did in your rebuttal? The issue at hand is pretty heavy enough for you to carry without having to increase your burden of carrying it by adding more tangential issues to it. At what point in my response did I mention the Holy Bible in connection with this issue? Didn’t I at one time recommend a book for your edification? Was the book the Holy Bible? Why do you hate Jewish people so much? That’s my main question for you. What have they done to you?
The more I read what you write about those people the more I am convinced that you would not mind being an Iranian agent under the command of Ahmadinejad who wants that tiny State of Israel annihilated.
You quoted some Jews who are against Israeli government’s position on the status of Jerusalem. Am I supposed to take you seriously with such quotes? When was the last time you found a country where everybody was in agreement on any issue? Just because those people’s position is in agreement with yours doesn’t mean you are right. Even if the kind of “Americanized Jews” you quoted, Jews who voted for Obama and don’t live in Israel, are in the majority (which they are not), their agreement with you will still not be a test of your rightness since TRUTH is not determined by majority or even minority. TRUTH is just what it is” TRUTH”. And you don’t care for it! If you did, you would be quoting Israelis Jews who are under constant attacks in their own country.
In yesterday’s London Telegraph, you will read all about the humiliation to which Netenyahu was subjected by your man Obama. And as if that wasn’t bad enough for the only true friend America has in that region, you piled on with your insidious and malicious headline: “Israel Is an Outlaw and Lawless Nation, Like No Other!”
This small group of people are under constant attack for no justification at all. These people are surrounded by enemies as far as eyes can see. They are under constant vigilance in their own small country. And yet people like you embolden their enemies with your headlines.
What have those Jewish people done to you to earn your vitriol and hatred? Hnn?
I am well aware of Jew-hating American Jews. I am also well aware of Israeli Jews who love their tiny State enough to have voted for Netenyahu at this crucial point in their existence. Also, I am well aware of disinformation sources like New York Times which is apparently your Holy Bible. You and I can go toe to toe forever copying and pasting the arguments of those who are for and against our individual positions. But my position is that there is something known as THE TRUTH irrespective of what others may write or say on this issue. It is that truth that you seem to have no interest in while you spend most of your time focusing on propaganda that SEEMINGLY support your erroneous and immoral position!
Israelis Against Israeli Settlements
By ROBERT MACKEY
The New York Times
Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Israeli police at a demonstration by thousands of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists in East Jerusalem on Saturday. The police kept most of the demonstrators from approaching homes occupied by Jewish families in the neighborhood.
Update | Wednesday | 10:01 a.m. On Wednesday morning an article and video report by my colleagues Isabel Kershner and Reem Makhoul on a dispute over homes in East Jerusalem discussed in this blog post was published on our Web site.
Original Post | Tuesday | 4:02 p.m. As my colleague Ethan Bronner reports, Israel’s Interior Ministry chose to announce plans to build 1,600 new homes in a part of Jerusalem that is home to thousands of Jewish settlers but also claimed by Palestinians as part of their future state on Tuesday, during a visit to the city by Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot’s Web site, Ynet News, reported that “sources from the Interior Ministry claimed the timing of the approval was coincidental and unrelated to Mr. Biden’s visit.” But Meir Margalit, a member of Jerusalem’s City Council told Ynet News that the ministry’s aim “is meant to sabotage the announcement that Netanyahu issued today regarding the renewal of indirect negotiations with the Palestinians. It is also a kind of slap in the face of the American administration.”
While the building project may scuttle plans for American-brokered indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians, the location of the planned homes, in a traditionally Arab part of Jerusalem, also ups the ante in an internal debate between Israelis who want to retain control over the entire city after any peace settlement and those who see sharing it with a Palestinian state as essential.
Ynet News reported that the Interior Ministry “confirmed that the housing units in question are located beyond the Green Line,” the border between Israel and the land it has occupied since 1967. A member of the Israeli group Peace Now, Hagit Ofran, told the news site, “This is a part that the world does not recognize as the State of Israel. This running rampant in Jerusalem endangers us all.” Another Israeli organization, Ir Amim, which focuses on Jerusalem, said in a statement, “All construction beyond the Green Line may be interpreted as Israeli provocation.”
The strength of feeling among Israelis who oppose moving more Israelis into Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem was demonstrated just last Saturday, when a large protest took place against the eviction of Palestinian families from homes in the city’s Sheikh Jarrah district. As The Jerusalem Post reported, “thousands of left-wing activists and Palestinians gathered in Sheikh Jarrah on Saturday night, in what turned out to be the largest such demonstration against home evictions in the northeast Jerusalem neighborhood to date.”
The Post explained that before the state of Israel was founded in 1948, that neighborhood was a Jewish enclave, but Jewish residents fled their homes when fighting broke out that year. In 1956, 28 Palestinian families who had also fled their homes during the war were resettled there by Jordanian authorities and the United Nations. Two of those families were evicted in August and Jewish families moved into the homes.
Protesters opposed to the evictions have gathered in the neighborhood each week for the past six months, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which posted video of Saturday’s demonstration on its Web site and reported that there were about 5,000 Israelis and Palestinians there. One of the rally’s organizers told the newspaper, “we are all united against the ‘Judaization’ of East Jerusalem.” The newspaper said that about 200 counter-demonstrators were kept away from the rally by Israeli police officers.
Tara Todras-Whitehill/Associated Press Counter-demonstrators protested a rally by Israeli and Palestinian peace activists in East Jerusalem on Saturday.
One of the Israelis at the demonstration against the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah on Saturday, a woman named Tamar, told The Jerusalem Post that the Israeli court’s ruling that those Jewish families had a right to return to homes the left during fighting in 1948 was “outright discrimination.” She added: “I imagine if the idea of returning to homes from pre-1948 were followed through equally, there would be Palestinians, perhaps even some who are here tonight, who would return to their [previous] homes in West Jerusalem.”
The demonstration on Saturday followed the publication of a video report on the Ynet News Web site last week that showed a boisterous celebration of the Jewish holiday of Purim by Israelis living in one of the homes that appeared to be a calculated affront to their new Arab neighbors. In the video, embedded below, Israeli men can be heard loudly singing a song in praise for Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli settler who murdered 29 Palestinians on the same holiday in 1994.
A video report from the Israeli Web site Ynet News published last week.
A columnist for Haaretz, Bradley Burston, wrote before Saturday’s demonstration that he was planning to attend the protest in East Jerusalem as a Zionist, “who believes in a sovereign homeland for the Jewish people, something which can only truly happen when there is also a sovereign homeland for their neighbors.” He added:
What kind of Zionist will go to the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah this weekend, and the next, and the one after that, to protest against a takeover of Palestinians’ homes by settlers who sing paeans to Jewish terrorists?
The kind who cares about the future of Israel. The kind who cares about the present-day Jerusalem. The kind who believes that the mayor and police of Jerusalem must not engage in incitement, or do the bidding of foreign millionaires competing to pry Palestinians from their homes in order to install settlers.
thegiftedhands: you have to excuse Paul Adujie’s gigantic ignorance on the issue of Israel although he’s a fanatic when it comes to raising it. There has to be something more to his hatred of Jewish people. That hatred screams everytime he dabbles into the relationship between Arabs and Jews and the State of Israel. He is a typical Jew-hating liberal like Jimmy Carter and now Obama. For whatever reason(s), liberals love to get “tough” for no justification with Israel while they also love to find any excuse in the book to justify criminal behaviors of Islamonazis all over the world!
I do not hate Jews and Jews are not Christians and I do not care about your dogmatic biblical beliefs and warped and twisted reading of the facts and evidences which are incontrovertible… the US and the UK demonstrated the truths contained in my article, by upbraiding Israel’s government this week… even though the upbraids were very mild compared with the egregious actions of the nation of Israel.
In any case, you are entitled to your opinions, no matter how ignorant and absurd and inconsistent with the facts and evidences regarding Israel on the one hand and Arabs and Persians on the other.
It is clear to me that you are not conversant with relevant information regarding Israel and the Middle East and even debates concerning Israel among American Jews, some actually share my views regarding Israel.
There Jews in America, in Europe and in fact, there are Jews worldwide who are not in support Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the sufferings and hardships imbued in the blockade and all the actions frequently engaged in by Israel… actions which have been condemned by the United Nations etc
You are invited to dig deeper, instead jumping up and down with your interpretation of the bible as sacrosanct on the intractable internecine crises between Israel and Arabs/Persians.
With all due respect Sir, I strongly disagree with your views on Israel and their presence in where you call Arab land. A reply to your article can be read at the link below.
planetprose.com/mag/2010/03/24/articles/news-society/why-israel-is-not-an-outlaw-and-lawless-nation/