Linking this to the points made by others, it’s “interesting” that he chooses to “slam” the kind of problem that individuals can easily avoid (since going there is entirely a choice) and which is outside his remit, but not at all the kind of problems which people cannot avoid and ARE in his remit, like the working poor in Britain or a foreign state murdering children with weapons he sends them.

One might even think he’s being a little, tiny, minuscule bit hypocrite in waving his left hand whilst shouting “look there” at the same time as his right hand repeatedly sticks knives in people’s backs.

In his defense, doing that is such a standard of British politics that nowadays there’s little else to it than that this kind of scam.

Correctly if I’m wrong, but I don’t think a “slamming” from Keir Starmer has any influence outside the UK.

Not that he’s wrong - it is to be expected that the broken clock of British politics is actually right once in a while.

I don’t think that a country of rapists not wanting to have anything to do with you is quite the flex this country of rapists thinks it is.

But it is not an obligation according to international law.

That’s just a variant of the “Law equals Moral” argument beloved by Fascists.

As for your example, it makes my point way more than it makes yours - hundreds of thousands of Gaza civilians dead at the hands of Israel, far more murdered Journalists every year than in the rest of the World put together, Europeans kidnapped from international waters and tortured and now the invasion of Lebanon, and all that France and Sweden do is the smallest least impactful restrictions on Trade with Israel imaginable.

In light of what they were willing to do against Russia, doing such minimalist and symbolic “action” stinks of the modern Western political scam of taking the smallest possible step to look like you’re doing something, so as to delay pressure from the Public for much larger steps, de facto delaying effective action rather than truly trying to address the situation.

Maybe you’ve not ever been involved in Politics in Europe, but I have and in two different countries, and the actions that the Politicians in power are taking on this are so obviously the typical Delaying Actions meant to go against the wishes of the European Public and avoid putting pressure in Israel thus actually opposing “movement forward”, that it hurts.

If you genuinely believe that’s really them trying to “move forward”, then you’re spectacularly politically naive or have been sleeping under a rock for the last 20 years and still believe in 1970s-style ideological politics.

You see, Europe (in the sense of the European Public) are not to blame for this shit - as the information pilled up on what was going on in Gaza the European Public turned against Israel and it’s actions, and that happened months ago in most of Europe, even in Germany and Britain it’s already happened.

It’s the politicians in power in most of Europe who are desperately trying to protect Israel by doing all they can to NOT abide by the wishes of most people in their countries when it comes to Israel by repeatedly doing lots of talkie-talkie plus a handful of symbolic near-zero-impact actions, until the Press have moved on and the Public has become distracted with something else at which point even those things are reversed, all of which is an extremely common strategy in Western Politics in the last 2 or 3 decades.

Europe is not to blame. European politicians in power are the ones to blame, and amongst other things this massive chasm between what the Public wants and what their elected representatives actually do is an indication of a huge Democratic Deficit in most of present day Europe.

Some of Europe absolutely and without a doubt still stand on the side of Israel, most notably Germany and Britain as well as at least part of the EU Commission, but I’ll grant you that for some or the rest it’s unclear if they’re on the side of Israel or holding a more neutral (we don’t stand by any principles but at least we aren’t giving weapons to Israel) position, whilst a tiny handful are in fact doing something to try and stop the Genocide (though very little).

Of course, how neutral is “neutral” has changed ever since the reaction of European nations to the Russian invasion of Ukraine since that has shown that Europe is perfectly capable of pushing back hard against an nation who is the aggressor in a War Of Aggression - which is the point I’m making: if the reasons given to the public then were truthful, then they would apply just as much now.

Clearly they were not, which would indicate that those maintaining neutral positions are being dishonest.

Ultimately your position seems to differ from others here by you not thinking there is a Duty Of Help - in your eyes if somebody is being beaten to death in the middle of the street and a passerby who can help does not, then that’s just fine and not a form of complicity - whilst others DO think that in such a situation not stopping what’s going on is a form of complicity.

That said, your argument of “Opposing nations can trade” is very much the Sociopath’s Rationale of “There is no such thing as Principles when there’s Money to be made”.

I mean, you do you, just don’t expect normal human beings not high in the Sociopath scale to look at that “Let’s not let mass murdering babies get in the way of Trading” way of thinking and agree with it.

Except Israel is not a Democracy, since about 30% of the people living there don’t get to vote because being born in the territory of Israel does not grant Israeli Citizenship (not to be confused with Israeli Nationality, which is different, grants more rights and only a Jewish Person can have) to a person unless they are Jewish, even when that person’s parents and grandparents have lived all their lives there.

The rest is all mainly main cheery picking and understating things, or applicable at the very start of the Israeli Genocide before it was recognized as a Genocide, but not anymore.

For example, you’re comparing something which multiple organizations including the UN have declared is a Genocide with a Blockade, which is like comparing mass murder with theft.

By the 3rd month of the Israeli Genocide in Gaza, just the list of babies, 1 year old or younger, killed in Gaza was 17 pages long.

It’s understandable that European reaction in the beginning, influenced by decades of Israeli propaganda and their very careful shaping of what came out early on about the events of 9 October to portray Israel as a pure victim, would be one of supporting Israel’s invasion of Gaza, it’s certainly not understandable by the time the list of duly identified Palestinian babies killed in Gaza by Israeli attacks had reached 17 pages long and mass graves with Hospital personnel killed by Israeli military were being found, European politicians were still proclaiming “unwavering support of the Jewish State” and sending Israel more weapons.

It’s even less understandable that by the time Israel is also invading Lebanon whilst at the same time starving Gazans to death, a large number of European governments still keep sending them weapons.

Now, maybe you’re making the point that European politicians in power are mainly cold callous sociopaths with no principles whatsoever, which I totally agree with, however that’s not the point you WERE making before and which I countered - you claimed that the EU and European countries were doing something about it and I pointed out that de facto they’re refraining from doing anything about it with any real impact and instead are just finger wagging and making zero impact loud proclamations, and I used the example of their reaction to the Russia invasion of Ukraine to show that they could have already for months done something about it with real impact if they wanted to because they have already done it in the recent past, thus one can only conclude that they do not want to do it now.

All your talkie-talkie in this post is just listing reasons that somebody who doesn’t care about mass murdering of babies could possibly give to justify keeping on letting the mass murders keep on mass murdering - totally logical stuff for sociopaths, but maybe we shouldn’t have sociopaths in positions of power in Europe.

Well, the other alternative explanation for just how deeply US Politics cares for and serves the interests of Israel is that the US is a vassal state of Israel.

That would indeed not be an alliance and be consistent with the point you’re making.

Now compare that with what has actually been done towards Russia when they invaded Ukraine.

That shit is hypocrite talkie-talkie done purelly with the objective of relieving the pressure of a public opinion who want Israel to actually be punished, not just be the recipients of a bit of frowning. De facto that loud stern finger wagging is a way to avoid or at least delay punishing measures towards Israel, the very opposite of what it says on the box.

Such bollocks would be believable before we all saw with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine what the EU and European countries can and will do against a murderous invading nation. After seeing that, this kind of performative stuff is about as believable as, after Iraq, America claiming a Middle Eastern country has WMDs to attack them.

Nah, the only nations in Europe genuinelly acting towards Israel according to the same Principles they used to support how they acted towards Russia are Spain, and the Republic Of Ireland. The rest are either active accomplices of Israel and their Genocide (literally still sending them the weapons used to murder Palestinian and Libanese children) or still dragging their feet way beyond their feet dragging just after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The asshole who headed the Dutch government then and most of the time since is the one currently busy licking Trump’s ass in his position as head of NATO.

He made sure the interests of America and its one real ally - Israel - were taken care of and later got that cosy NATO sinecure.

Great way to get American citizens exposed to Ebola travelling to the US to not inform anybody about it.

If I understand it correctly, what you’re saying is that what’s happening now is a version of Plan A?!

Even the door handles in the Tesla are a 1990s idea of what high tech looks like.

It’s like those cars were designed by an aged geek with no sophistication in taste rather than by a designer.

(And I am myself an aged geek, but, shit, I like to think I actually got a little bit more subtle and demanding with age in my appreciation of the beauty in things).

The big fat ass elevate screen in the middle of the dashboard looks like cheap shit.

The outside looks like a late 1990s European high end car.

It’s high tech made to look cheap using plastic and putting what’s basically a computer monitor as centerpiece rather smoothly intergrating it with the rest, all wrapped in a frame which is an outdated idea of a luxury car.

(IMHO, or course)

Tourism has its own negative externalities (i.e. it’s own kind of “polution”) that negativelly affect the rest of the Economy if it gets too much and might even kill the very things which attract tourists. This is generally manifested as a rising cost of housing and general cost of living in touristic areas which pushes out the local residents and businesses.

Also tourism doesn’t employ highly qualified people, but rather people with basic education.

So it’s only good for economies up to a certain level of tourism and how much that is depends on how much that’s a high value added Economy (roughly, how wealthy and developed a nation is) - much higher levels of Tourism are still a good thing in, say, a mid-development level Economy with basic universal education where before Tourism most people worked in the Primary sector, than they are in an Economy of high value added industries employing higly qualified people: a country can have an Economy where Tourism is a high percentage to pull itself up to about the level of the poorer European countries, but no matter how much you have of it Tourism will never turn a country into a high tech powerhouse, beyond a certain point quite the contrary (not least because high costs of living due to it kill starting companies, even high tech ones, because they make the costs of business go up at multiple levels).

A bit of Tourism can be a good thing, a lot of Tourism is only a good thing if the alternative was an economy of mostly Primary sector activities.

The comments of the OP can be read like it’s the fault of izakaya for not adapting to Tourism, but in the actual article it seems more like Japan has broader problems which are causing a fall in purchasing powers which has hit the clientele of izakaya and the flaw of izakaya was not taking advantage of Tourism to make up for the fall in local clientele causes by those problems in Japan which are not the fault of izakaya (or tourists).

I come from Lisbon in Portugal, which has also become extremelly touristic in the last 2 decades, and there Tourism is actually killing the rest of the Economy (mainly indirectly, by pushing up house prices and the cost of living more broadly, which in turn make it too expensive to live or operate a business in Lisbon). Anyways, my point is that anybody who expects more than a handful of establish traditional mom & pop restauration businesses to be capable of adapting by marketting themselves and catering to tourists, has no fucking clue of the kind of people who own and operate those businesses. I mean, sure they’ll serve tourists (in broken English or maybe French), but actually adjusting to look more appealing to Tourists (lets just say that good traditional food and fancy looks are uncorrelated, possibly even negativelly correlated, in the Portuguese restauration business), much less any form of marketing other than word of mouth, is beyond most of them.

The impression I get is that izakayas are also old fashioned, so I bet they’re run by the very same kind of old fashioned people from humble origins who grew up back when Education was less universal, that run most restaurants in Portugal.

The OP’s text is pretty close to how Tourism is killing all sorts of Mom & Pop businesses in Lisbon as its impact (mainly via the transformation of residential housing into AirBnBs) is pushing out the local businesses that cater for residents.

This means businesses like little grocery stores, taverns, hairdressers, even cobblers.

Now, if one takes the viewpoint that Tourists are more important than anybody else, then it’s all the fault of the small mom & pop grocery stores, taverns, hairdresses and cobbler for not having proper strategies to market themselves to tourists or at least not pivoting their businesses to sell more knick-knacks to tourists.

An alternative view is that Tourism has negative externalities (its version of “polution”) and has to be controlled so that it doesn’t destroy the very ambience that attracts tourists (in my example that would be things like the Traditional Lisbon neighbourhoods).

If indeed Tourism in Japan is pushing out the locals who frequented Izakayas be it directly (because those people don’t live there anymore) or indirectly (realestate prices going up because of Tourism, making everything more expensive including Izakayas), then this is a problem with Tourism rather than the Izakayas.

If that is not the case, then there is some other problem in Japan (maybe a falling real purchasing power or the slow change of habits as newer generation replace the older ones), in which case that’s unrelated to Tourism. Maybe Tourists could make up for it, but what I can tell you from my experience in growing up in a place which over my lifetime was “discovered” and became very touristic (and then incompetent politicians thought it was a silver bullet to the country’s problems and went full blown insane on it by which point all the negative externalities of Tourism really started to hurt, especially the realestate bubble), traditional business which morph to cater to tourists tend to become over time a bland parody of the local traditions rather than the real deal, plus a lot of supposedly “traditional” businesses popping-up to cater for tourists are a lot more like the versions you would find in an airport than the real traditional thing. Certainly the restauration business in Lisbon which cater to tourists are a lot more like the cookie cutter glitzy but bland continental food restaurants serving “universal food” you see in airports all over the World than the traditional restaurants in Portugal.

Sure, mate.

There is no such thing as the Royal Prerogative in Britain and the British Monarch definitely doesn’t have the Soverign’s Constitutional prerogative of Assent to Legislation.

Maybe you should learn more about the laws of your own fucking country since you clearly did not go to a proper school at the age of 11-13.

I’m starting to think the current posture of the German Authorities of unwavering support of Israel, to the point of officially declaring Jewish Voices For Peace an “extremist organization”, is pure unadulterated anti-semitism in the very same traditional style as inspired Hitler.

You see, the often given reason/excuse of “making amends for the NAZI actions” is disproven by a number of behaviors of the German Authorities, most notably:

• The above mentioned declaring of Jewish Voices For Peace as an extremist organization for its criticism of Israel, which is very much the non-Jewish German Authorities punishing some Jews for not doing what they think Jews are supposed to do when it comes to Jewish affairs.
• That other groups which were equally targeted for extermination by the NAZIs in the Holocaust, such as the Roma People or Communists, are in no any way form or shape recipients of the level of support that Israel gets.

You see, I think it’s all about supporting the project of an independent land far away from Germany to where all Jews are supposed to move to, not about making amends to the victims of the Holocaust, otherwise there would be no declaring a Jewish organization as “extremist” for criticizing a foreign nation or an entirely different posture towards other groups (including another ethnicity) who were explicitly targeted by the NAZIs for extermination and whose members were victims of the Holocaust in large numbers.

This is all about Jews leaving Germany: NAZI Plan A to “get rid of the Jews” failed, this is Plan B.

Certainly everything the German Authorities are doing seems consistent with supporting “the existence and expansion of a place which all Jews are incentivized to move to” by any and all means (even actively legally singling out and prosecuting as members of an extremist organization Jews who decry what is being done in their name to make that happen), whilst at least some things they do (as well as not do) show clear inconsistency with the claimed motive of “making amends for the Holocaust” and even some with the motive of supporting the Jewish People.

Ideally the thing should be broken into a “Camera captures images and makes it available in an open format” side and an “Application for Linux/Windows/Mac/iOS/Android/whatever reads said open format data and shows it to the use/records it in local hardware”, so that if one’s chosen provider for one of the sides enshittifies you can easily replace it, but I can understand the tendency to make and launch the whole thing fully integrated as one non-interoperable big bundle from a single provider given that in practice “do it and they’ll come” projects that just provide data in an open format in the expectation that other people will make the software that uses it, almost always fail.

Well, back in the 50s and 60s when a lot of working class people came back from WWII with military training, the elites did relax their choke-hold on power and the system did work much more as a Democracy, which is why things like Social Security, the National Health Service and most Public Housing in Britain date back to that era, but most of it has been walked back since and the present day Labour Party is a perfect example of how the era of electable politicians who actually represent most people is over.

Even with the growth of the Greenparty (disclamer: I was a member of that Party for a while when I lived in Britain) who are a mix of Ecologist and Social-Democrat (after all, consumer society and unfettered capitalism are incompatible with Ecology), the entire voting system is set-up to stop them getting a parliamentary representation matching their fraction of the vote (by quite a lot, even - for most of its life the party generally got 5% of the votes which that system translated to only 0.3% of parliamentary seats), the entire Press is set up to push them back (by relentlessly slandering their leaderes, the very opposite of what they do to the leaders of the far-right such as Reform UK) and there’s a long tradition of the police being caught having Ecologist movements and even elected Greenparty members under surveillance.

So yeah, the system will collapse due to its own weight (there’s only so far that debt-fueled rent-seeking can go before it collapses if the Homeland doesn’t have a lot of external territories - i.e. and Empire - to pillage to make up for producing less than it consumes) long before the power and money elites there ever concede the slightest drop of power or accept the tiniest slowing in the growth of their wealth - there is no prospect of the condition of post-War Britain with a strong united Working Class repeating.

One doesn’t even need to be a Socialist to see how Britain, even by Capitalist criteria, is neither stable nor politically or socially capable of resolving its instability in a fair way that minimizes pain for the many, so the likely futures are either collapse or increasing Authoritarianism with the country eventually morphing into a Fascist Dictatorship and, given that the elites would lose a lot in the former and much less in the latter, plus have a long tradition of belief in their inherent superiority and of actually liking Fascism (there are pictures of back before Hitler invaded Poland, were the King was teaching his niece - Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth - to do a NAZI salute) plus last but not least the actual trend at many levels, from Press independence to Surveillance and political repression, the latter seems much more likely than the former.