A first-past-the-post bicameral legislature, a president chosen through an electoral college, an unusually powerful supreme court, and a fuckton of veto points. It's amazing we have only had one ultra-bloody civil war honestly.

The West Bank-ification of much of southwest Syria is already under way with checkpoints, Israeli only roads (thus far for the occupation army), the demand that local villages ask the Israeli occupation for permission to travel, and so on. Settlement is the natural extension of this process.