Any move by Israel to end the conflict with the Palestinians by unilateral moves - such as annexing the West Bank, delinking Gaza and declaring that there be no further diplomatic process - will lead to strong regional and global reactions, as well as intensify efforts at the UN and in civil society to brand Israel as an outlaw state dangerous to regional and world peace and guilty of criminal behavior.

We should not rule out the possibility that Trump's diplomacy could deescalate Middle East strife and international tensions, give the US a lower global profile and enable a more balanced world order to emerge, doing most of its damage here at home, through moves to implement his vision of nativist nationalism.

The Goldstone Report establishes the credibility of the accusations directed at Israel with respect to its tactics used during the 2008 - 09 attacks on Gaza, but was not able to facilitate the next step that would have involved activating accountability mechanisms either within Israel or at the level of international society.

The systemic incompatibility between free-market capitalism and the quality of democratic life and respect for human rights has to be modified to take account of such contextual variables as wartime, security threats, and the societal balance between entrepreneurial and working classes.

I do think there is an enhanced awareness of insecurity and vulnerability that induces anxiety that creates pressure on teachers and administrators to offer simplistic explanations and to be resistant to expressions of attitudes that can be viewed as unpatriotic, which is further interpreted as applicable to any tendency to challenge the government when it claims to be acting overseas to avoid repetitions of 9/11 or to encroach on domestic freedom to identify suspicious persons and behaviors.

I think if there is to be a crime of 'political genocide' it needs to be formulated with great care and precision to avoid unpopular views from being criminalised.

There was a deliberate decision after the failure of the League of Nations to make the next attempt to establish a global political actor sensitive to geopolitical realities. The underlying idea was to provide major states, defined in 1945 by reference to the winners in the Second World War (now an anachronism), with assurance that they could take part in the UN without jeopardising their national interests. In this regard, the UN has succeeded, as none of the big countries has withdrawn, and the Organisation has managed to achieve virtually universal membership of all sovereign states.