The Ruble was on it's way to complete devaluation before Trump propped up the Russian economy by signaling he's willing to give them everything in exchange for nothing.
But it's also true that the west never really fully committed to the sanctions, the fact that you still had Russian oligrarchs traveling around Europe with relative ease was a pretty strong tell.
> seeing as I think my other points hold strongly.
But they aren't. The initial claim was about Arabs in israel (aka israeli arabs), not Palestinians in the west bank / east Jerusalem which is a different topic.
Now don't get me wrong, i'm not gonna protect Israel's treatment to it's arab population, but let's get some facts straight. In terms of human rights you're still better off being arab israeli than being an arab citizen in most of the arab countries.
That's just false. The Arab minority in Israel has right to vote, the right to establish political parties, freedom of expression, freedom of association, free press, religious autonomy, separate educational systems, legal rights, etc.
Yes there are differences, but claiming that Arab israelis only receive "token rights" is a far cry from the truth. Of course this doesn't mean theres' no racism, but that's a different issue.
It's a bit like a sport, you can have the skills and yet still have an off day or perform worse under pressure, so it's not just a matter of preparation.
Does not sound like Chomsky is saying "no, iran isn't a threat" to me.