Just as the Israelis cannot live with the “other people” who have been living in their region for thousands of years, so the Americans cannot live with the people of Earth in their diversity and common dignity. Human beings are holistically and intrinsically interdependent on this planet and will only survive and flourish if we work together under our common dignity and humanity. Yet both Israel and the USA think and behave as if exclusion from the rest of humankind were possible.

For the Israelis, Israel is “exceptional” among all nations, having been chosen by God and gifted the lands “from the river to the sea.” Their leaders act as if they are (somehow) intrinsically and religiously “purer” than the mass of humanity, especially Islamic humanity. For the “Americans” (who call themselves “Americans” to the exclusion of the rest of North and South America), America is “exceptional” because God has gifted it with a global mission of bringing “freedom and democracy” to all humankind. Since its violent founding in 1948 (the “Nakba” in which 680,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes and their lands to found Israel) the Israeli’s have bonded and collaborated with the more than willing politicians and ruling class of the USA.

They have committed Israel to being the front-line battalion of US imperialism within the hostile Arab world and in return, the US Administration and Congress have committed themselves to unwavering support for Israel’s appropriation of the lands of others under its so-called “right to exist” and fulfill it biblical mandate. The “exceptionalism” that both feel, appears “racial” (interpreted as an intrinsic superiority), as well as cultural, egoistic in the extreme, and, they think, divinely gifted. However, this criminal reciprocity is not only due to American or Israeli identities. It reflects a world system in which both nations fulfill their systemic role.

This hegemonic role of the US over most of the planet is effective because of the two dominant and interrelated institutions that have colonized the Earth: global capitalism and the system of sovereign nation-states. Any effective hegemon requires both: first, a system of economic relationships that ensure the flow of the world’s surplus wealth to the ruling classes within the imperial center, and second, the military superiority to undermine and prevent any nation or group worldwide from rebelling against or operating outside the system. “World Systems” theorists have investigated this interrelationship at least since the work of Immanuel Wallerstein in the 1970s. Noam Chomsky has named the reason for this attack on all attempts at deviation as “the threat of a good example.”

There have of course been several “global hegemons over the past several hundred years of the modern era, most clearly Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, and the USA. They all required both poles of the world system to flourish as hegemons. After the global war-system in World War II destroyed most of Europe and cut the British Empire off at the knees, the US self-consciously inherited the mantel of global empire and has worked to maintain its dominance ever since. I say “the US has worked” in this way, but it needs to be clear that the actions of the US are largely system-imperatives. Previously, the British Empire thought of itself as independent (and superior) from the rest of humanity and some other nation than Israel played the “front-line battalion” role as outpost of the Empire within a hostile world.

The global war and capital-accumulation system naturally bring to political and economic power mental lackeys of the system (those who cannot think outside the system). And these “one-dimensional” servants of the prevailing ideology take actions to preserve and promote the system. In this way, the system is largely self-reproducing: by nature, it limits the voices and influence of those who are able to think outside of it.

US leaders think “as Americans,” that is, as representatives of the militarized sovereign state with its “exceptional” mission for the world. This ideology (of struggle for control of the world on behalf of the imperial center) was articulated by Sir Halford Mackinder in 1904 Britain and later by Zbigniew Brezinski in this book The Grand Chessboard (1997) as well as by Paul Wolfowitz, US Under Secretary of Defense, who formulated the “Wolfowitz Doctrine” of 1992, declaring that the US must not allow any nation to ever-again rise to challenge its dominance, especially with respect to control of the immense resources found in the territories of Russia and Siberia.

Under these system imperatives, the US (and its minions in NATO) are now bound to attempt to bring down the autonomous economic and political developments characterizing Russia, China, or Iran of recent decades. System-imperatives require, for example, that Taiwan be militarized and incited to antagonism with China in order to weaken China and limit its autonomous development. Their strategic plan identifies assets and enemies: Ukraine needs to be an asset in the weakening and defeat of Russia. It matters little that the entire nation and its citizens are being destroyed in the process. Israel is the clearest asset in the struggle against Islamic “enemies” in Hamas-Gaza, Lebanon-Hezbollah, and the forces attempting to defeat Russian ally Syria. The US is also attempting to clandestinely incite a war between Israel and Iran in which it can come in as a military supporter of an Israeli victory, much as it has done with the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The two features (capitalism and the system of warring sovereign nation-states) go together, and that is why the US continues to supply Israel with the bombs to destroy Gaza while making timid remarks about “going too far” or “it’s time for a (nonbinding) ceasefire.” The US cannot, in principle, stand for “humanitarian international law” because the system that empowers its hegemony is an inhuman system of dollar-dependency, of capital exploitation of the world’s poor by its ruling classes, and enforcement of this system by worldwide wars and threats of wars. The moral outrage of the rest of the world means nothing to President Joe Biden, to most members of Congress, nor to the US high administration except as “bad publicity,” which they have to deal with through mealy-mouthed hypocrisy and overt contradictions, i.e., statements such that Israel “may have gone too far” or that the UN Security Council demand for a ceasefire is “nonbinding,” all the while continuing to supply the bombs that Israel is using in its genocide.

Any system will include system-imperatives, and that is why we must examine the world system as a whole and consider how to replace it with one that works for humanity. This is the topic of my new book Human Dignity and World Order: Holistic Foundations of Global Democracy that is now on “preorder” at Amazon.com and other outlets. The contradictions of the present world system are staring us in the face—as the US supports genocide in Gaza and the destruction of an entire nation in Ukraine in pursuit of its system-imperative goals of unconditional support for Israel and absolute need to weaken and destroy an autonomous Russia.

However, the greatest contradiction is not about the US pronouncements on its murderous policies in Ukraine or Gaza, fueled by a huge industrial-military complex that makes billions while promoting this war system worldwide. The greatest contradiction is that these senseless wars are taking place in the face of a collapsing climate, an increased possibility of nuclear war, and the pending struggle of humanity for its very survival on a ruined planet. Fossil fuel use worldwide is causing runaway temperature rises everywhere on Earth. Yet the system-imperative of capitalism and its technological wonders is predicated firmly on fossil fuels. Instead of spearheading conversion away from these poisonous fuels, nations are doubling down on their use for their war-machines and on behalf of the capitalist imperative for endless economic growth. The G-20 meetings hosted by India this past year took their stand firmly on the need to increase the gross domestic product (GDP) of every G-20 nation. To qualify this development as “sustainable” is to introduce a lie that distorts the very meaning of “sustainability,” as I showed in my 2021 book The Earth Constitution Solution: Design for a Living Planet.

If we reflect on the system offered by the Constitution for the Federation of Earth, we find that we can envision (or our computer modeling can predict) an entire range of different consequences for the Earth and our human future. The Earth Constitution reconceives the two features of the world system that are causing these insane system-imperatives. It reconceives sovereignty of nations to mean a reasonable autonomy within the community of nations and under the legitimate sovereignty of humanity as a whole. Hence, all nations join together in the House of Nations as one of the three houses of the World Parliament (Nations, Peoples, and Counselors). The system-imperative of struggle for power and ascendency is removed, and the nations become part of an interdependent community dedicated to the common good of the Earth and humanity. Genuine demilitarization is then possible precisely because the system-imperative for militarism is removed.

Secondly, the Constitution creates a planetary monetary and credit system based on global public banking, and mandates the World Parliament to pursue the common good of humanity through the debt-free financing of that goal that includes satisfying all reasonable human needs while simultaneously protecting and restoring our planetary ecosystem. This is the only way to achieve these goals. Banking worldwide is today overwhelmingly private, and the big bankers are themselves members of the global ruling classes who have an interest in maintaining the system that has given them such wealth and power. The system-imperatives of capitalist banking and monetary institutions include endless growth. Yet, as generations of environmental economists have declared: “You cannot have endless growth on a finite planet.”

Change the system, and its system-imperatives change. Replace the war-system with a peace system, and the system-imperatives will include peace. Replace the capitalist debt and endless growth system with a publicly grounded sustainability system, and the result will be a sustainable world economy. These principles are as simple as they are true. This is not rocket-science. The Earth Constitution is not “hopelessly utopian,” as some have declared. It is practical common sense. Change the system, and you will change its system-imperatives.

The absurdity of our current world system is there for all to see who care to look. A global economic collapse of 2008, followed by a devasting pandemic, and both of these accompanied by creation of the most extreme wealth-divide between the masses of the poor and the super-rich in the history of humanity! And now, we have these murderous wars that substantially increase the risk of nuclear holocaust while destroying the climate and whole peoples in the process. The UN has demonstrated its helplessness in the face of the Gaza genocide as well as the Ukraine debacle. And the world continues to wallow in a “what can we do?” attitude. There is a clear and compelling solution. Indeed, it is the only credible and practical solution that has the chance of being done before planetary warming makes our Earth unhabitable. Let us set about now ratifying the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.