AP Analysis: Is Israel democratic? Not so clear

[webfact]

AP Analysis: Is Israel democratic? Not so clear
By DAN PERRY

JERUSALEM (AP) — Is Israel a democracy? The answer is not so straightforward, and it increasingly matters given the diplomatic fallout over hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu's reelection last week.

The displeasure felt in some quarters over his win has placed front and center the world community's unwritten obligation to accept the results of a truly democratic vote. It is a basic tenet of the modern order which has survived the occasional awkward election result — as well as recent decades' emergence of some less-than-pristine democracies around the globe.

For Israel, the argument is especially piquant, because its claim to be the only true democracy in the Middle East has been key to its branding and its vitally important claim on U.S. military, diplomatic and financial support. Israel's elections, from campaign rules to vote counts, are indeed not suspect.

But with the occupation of the West Bank grinding on toward the half-century mark, and with Netanyahu's election-day suggestion that no change is imminent, hard questions arise.

Republican Sen. John McCain reflected the traditional appreciation of Israel when he advised President Barack Obama to "get over it" — a reference to reports that the United States was reassessing relations with Israel in the wake of the result. McCain told CNN that "there was a free and fair democratic election" in Israel — "the only nation in the region that will have such a thing."

But among Israelis themselves, there is increasing angst over the fact that their country of 8 million people also controls some 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians who have no voting rights for its parliament.

If the 2 million Palestinians of Gaza — a territory dominated indirectly by Israel — were added to the equation, then together with the 2 million Arab citizens of "Israel proper" the Holy Land would be home to a population of some 12 million, equally divided between Arabs and Jews.

Of the Arabs, only a third have voting rights. These are the "Israeli Arabs" who live in the areas that became Israel in the 1948-49 war, which established the country's borders.

Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 but Israel never annexed them, both for fear of world reaction and due to concerns about millions more Palestinians gaining the vote.

Israelis argue that since the areas are not formally part of Israel, the goings-on therein do not undermine the democracy claim. And some might note that few democracies are perfect; after all, some 4 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico cannot vote for the U.S. president because of that island's unusual arrangement. In the end, perhaps, these things are a matter of degree.

But critics increasingly consider it a little too convenient: Israel builds towns by the score in these non-annexed lands — communities which have bestowed an oddly controversial aspect upon the once-innocent term "settlements."

Through an amendment to the electoral law, Israel allows the settlers who live in these places to vote in its elections even though it otherwise has no provision for absentee balloting. Several top Cabinet figures, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, are in this extraordinary fashion not technically residents of Israel.

And Israel holds undeniable power over the lives of West Bank's Palestinians, despite their ostensive autonomy. In just one example, Palestinians with great fanfare built a new city in their territory — only for it to remain uninhabited in part because Israel has prevented the building of access roads and other infrastructure.

The supposedly temporary arrangement shows no sign of a change — at least not one initiated by Israel.

"Israel is galloping toward an anti-democratic, bi-national future saturated with hatred and racism," wrote columnist Ravit Hecht in the liberal Haaretz daily, echoing the rising stridency that has taken root among liberals in the days since the vote.

Besides the West Bank, that "bi-national future" would include three other Arab populations:

— Gaza's nearly 2 million Palestinians have been ruled by Hamas militants for most of the period since Israel withdrew settlers and troops in 2005. Many feel they are still occupied: Israel controls the airspace and sea access and together with Egypt blockades them by land. Israel's not-unfounded fear is that Hamas, if allowed, would arm itself to the teeth. Already the sides have fought three wars.

— Israel annexed East Jerusalem, and its approximately 200,000 Arabs can have voting rights if they choose. Most have rejected it —whether out of solidarity with the idea of Palestine or for fear of future retribution.

— Israel's Arab citizens are increasingly integrated and can point to success stories like Salim Jubran, the supreme court judge who presided over the election. But they also claim discrimination in a variety of ways — and are currently seething over Netanyahu's election day efforts to fire up his nationalist base with warnings that Arabs citizens "are streaming to the polls" in an effort to bring down his rule.

The Palestinian issue was almost absent from the campaign. Decades of failed peace talks have left many Israeli voters skeptical and hostile; dovish politicians seem unsure of what they can sell, and nationalists don't dwell on the messy situation much either.

But Netanyahu, trailing in the last campaign days, put it front and center nonetheless, declaring that no Palestinian state would arise on his watch because the region was too dangerous and the West Bank too strategically valuable. He has since tried to reverse himself — but trouble brews with the world community, not only because of his words but also his actions over the years.

A centrist coalition remains technically possible, but the talk for the moment is of a nationalist one with Netanyahu's "natural allies" — and that promises a deepening of Israel's hold on the land and a perpetuation of the status quo.

Under this arrangement, the vast majority of West Bank Palestinians live in islands of autonomy run collectively by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. The PA has full self-rule only in about 5 percent of West Bank land, centered on the urban areas where most Palestinians live. Another quarter of the land is under joint rule. Israel fully controls the rest, containing the settlements, much of the natural resources and open land.

Israel controls all entry and exit from the territory, whether with Jordan or Israel proper. It also controls the airspace, most water supplies and travel between the main urban areas. Checkpoints are set up at will — though less frequently than in the past — manned by soldiers whose decisions leave ordinary people with little practical recourse. It prevents the Palestinians from setting up an army and can limit the import of weapons or anything else.

It also controls roughly $1.5 billion in tax revenues that it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, over a third of the PA's budget. Israel occasionally withholds these sums when it considers a punishment to be due.

The arrangement is a relic of the 1990s interim accords, which were meant to be succeeded by a final agreement by 1999. That never happened, though two Israeli governments more amenable than Netanyahu's made far-reaching offers to the Palestinians for a state in all of Gaza and more than 90 percent of the West Bank, with a foothold in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu's security argument against concessions resonates strongly among Israelis, including many who vote for parties who would nonetheless seek to unload much of the land. They know that they face hostility among Palestinians that is likely to persist among radicals even after any peace deal.

And the West Bank is indeed strategic: a highland looming over central Israel, surrounding Jerusalem on three sides, visible on a clear day from Tel Aviv and leaving Israel some 10 miles (15 kilometers) wide at its narrowest point. At a time when jihadis rampage across the region, and given the strength of Hamas rejectionists among Palestinians, a reluctance to part with the territory is not difficult to understand.

But Israel has gone further, allowing, encouraging and subsidizing a settlement movement that increasingly entwines the territory with Israel proper.

Some 350,000 Israeli Jews now live throughout the territory. Some are fairly close to the old border and could be incorporated into Israel in a land swap. A third to half are deep inside, though, and many of these are religious or nationalist radicals who can be expected to refuse efforts to compel them to leave; Israelis can hardly contemplate leaving them behind, perhaps to be massacred.

Another four years of a Netanyahu government can be expected to add many thousands more settlers, complicating the prospects of a future pullout even more. That is causing a growing clamor among liberal Zionists who are the core of the Israeli opposition. It is difficult to tell what they fear more: the perpetuation of a situation that they increasingly compare to apartheid — or the emergence of a future, single, binational entity that in a trick of history would supplant the Jewish state.
___

Josef Federman and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-03-24

[sdanielmcev]

No.

[hard124get]

It's crystal clearly NOT !

[Ulysses G.]

Israel is a democracy for legal citizens of the country. Like most places, the enemy, don't get a vote.

[pbay]

It has never been a democracy, the over 50 laws that discriminate against Israeli Arab citizens show that fact. Plus the Israeli government bringing in laws to stop Arab parties running in the last election also show that fact, they had to actually combine to be able to field anyone and even then the Israelis went to the court to try and stop them.

A full report is here on discrimination against Israeli Arabs.

http://www.adalah.org/uploads/oldfiles/upfiles/2011/Adalah_The_Inequality_Report_March_2011.pdf

Edited March 24, 2015 by pbay

[ABCer]

DAN PERRY's analysis of Democracy in Israel is clearly personally biased.

• No 'Democracy' is the same in many countries claiming to be Democracies;
• No 'Democracy' is perfect or absolute (even the OP admits this);
• There are no major issues between Israeli Jews and Arabs (but if one wants to see them - they can be created);
• Arabs of Gaza are not Israelis. Arabs of Gaza are sworn enemies of Israel, Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs; Arabs of Gaza are paid to continue the war on Israel;
• IMHO Israel has to stop supporting their sworn enemies.

[pbay]

New discriminatory Laws against Israeli Arab citizens.

http://www.adalah.org/uploads/oldfiles/upfiles/2011/New_Discriminatory_Laws.pdf

Reporting from Jerusalem — Israel's conservative-led Knesset adopted two controversial laws Wednesday that critics warned will worsen discrimination against the nation's Arab minority and make it easier to prevent Arab citizens from moving into hundreds of Jewish towns and villages.

One law legalizes the practice of using "admissions committees" in small towns in the Negev and Galilee to reject would-be residents based on their social "suitability," a vague term opponents fear could be used to bar gays, black Israelis, single women, Christians, Muslims and secular families as well as Arabs.

The second law is aimed at imposing fines on Arab towns, local authorities and state-funded organizations that commemorate Nakba Day, which falls near Israel's Independence Day. Some Arab Israelis refer to the day Israel gained statehood as a nakba, or catastrophe, because it resulted in the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians.

"This is not just a racist law, it's an oppressive law," said Hassan Jabareen, founder of Adalah, an Israeli advocacy group focusing on legal rights of Arab citizens. "It sends the public message that Israel not only doesn't respect the history and memory of the Palestinian people, but they now prohibit Palestinians living under their regime from commemorating their own history and identity."

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/24/world/la-fg-israel-arab-laws-20110324

Edited March 24, 2015 by pbay

[zaphod reborn]

How typical. The US supports a democracy when the results are in-line with its foreign policy objectives, but is all for denouncing the results of an election, and even repudiating the process, when they run counter to its goals. This is exactly how the US ended up in the Vietnam war.

[pbay]

Knesset raises threshold to four seats, putting Arab parties at risk of not entering parliament

The new legislation will benefit medium-sized parties like the settlers’ Jewish Home and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, while increasing the influence of big money on politics.

The Knesset approved today (Tuesday) several changes in its elections and governance laws. Among other things, the changes will make it more difficult to challenge the government in a vote of non-confidence, and set the threshold for entering the Knesset at 3.25 percent, or roughly four Knesset seats.

The legislation is a joint initiative by Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party and Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beitenu (which united with Netanyahu’s Likud party prior to the last elections). The final vote in the Knesset passed by a 67-0 majority, with the entire opposition boycotting the vote to protest the coalition’s implementation of special procedural measures earlier this week.

The new law will mostly affect the three Palestinian parties, which usually win between 3-4 seats each. Hadash, the joint Arab-Jewish party, currently has four seats; the same goes for the United Arab List (a unification of three parties, including the Islamic Ta’al party). The secular Balad party, which currently has three seats, would not have made it into the Knesset under the new law. Prior to the last elections, Knesset members banned Balad MK Hanin Zoabi from participating in the elections, a decision that was later overruled by the Supreme Court.

http://972mag.com/knesset-raises-threshold-to-four-seats-putting-arab-parties-at-risk-of-not-entering-parliament/88305/

Trying to drive Arab Israeli parties out of the election, very democratic eh??????

[Seastallion]

The system itself is not democracy in it's truest form.

In this last election, Netanyahu got 25% of the vote. This means that 75% of Israelis don't want him!

[Steely Dan]

What is clear is that AP are parroting the same talking points made by the Obama administration in a fit of pique. Using voter participation as a yardstick Israeli arabs are far better integrated than African Americans, if you consider 65% of Israeli Arabs voted compared to less than 25% of African Americans at the last election.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5715/netanyahu_s_victory_and_obama_s_shameful_response

A recent poll found 77% of Israeli Arabs preferred even a right wing Israeli coalition to govern them than the Palestinian authority.

Of course the article omits to mention the far worse treatment the Palestinians receive from all the Countries surrounding Israel. You come to expect such bias from Eurabia, but it's sad to see the U.S administration and some of its media debase themselves like jackasses in a clumsy attempt to delegitimize Israel.

[ABCer]

Knesset raises threshold to four seats, putting Arab parties at risk of not entering parliament

The new legislation will benefit medium-sized parties like the settlers’ Jewish Home and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, while increasing the influence of big money on politics.

The Knesset approved today (Tuesday) several changes in its elections and governance laws. Among other things, the changes will make it more difficult to challenge the government in a vote of non-confidence, and set the threshold for entering the Knesset at 3.25 percent, or roughly four Knesset seats.

The legislation is a joint initiative by Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party and Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beitenu (which united with Netanyahu’s Likud party prior to the last elections). The final vote in the Knesset passed by a 67-0 majority, with the entire opposition boycotting the vote to protest the coalition’s implementation of special procedural measures earlier this week.

The new law will mostly affect the three Palestinian parties, which usually win between 3-4 seats each. Hadash, the joint Arab-Jewish party, currently has four seats; the same goes for the United Arab List (a unification of three parties, including the Islamic Ta’al party). The secular Balad party, which currently has three seats, would not have made it into the Knesset under the new law. Prior to the last elections, Knesset members banned Balad MK Hanin Zoabi from participating in the elections, a decision that was later overruled by the Supreme Court.

http://972mag.com/knesset-raises-threshold-to-four-seats-putting-arab-parties-at-risk-of-not-entering-parliament/88305/

Trying to drive Arab Israeli parties out of the election, very democratic eh??????

Please! show to me one Arab, Muslim or Islamic country which has any kind of Jewish Party - Legal, Registered, participating in elections and still alive!

Please! Put up or shut up!

[Lissos]

The articles claims that of an appx 200,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem, most reject the freedom to vote, for two possible reasons. In a way that is a microcosm of the many complications and complexities on the ground which need to be considered when outsiders seek absolutes in terms of democracy from their comfy armchairs.

[Jingthing]

A democracy?

Yes.

A perfect one?

No.

Where are the perfect ones?

[dexterm]

I thought the article was very good summary of the issues that we have been discussing on this forum in the leadup to the elections.

As the Israeli government swings further to the right, they are painting themselves into a corner with a one state solution. Namely what to do about the elephant in the room...2.5 million Palestinians under occupation in a so called democracy in which Israel controls almost every aspect of their lives.

Some on the right propose population "transfers"...that's a nice euphemism for ethnic cleansing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieberman_Plan

Deputy Knesset Speaker Moshe Feiglin even proposed herding Palestinians into tent cities in Sinai.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Feiglin#Feiglin.27s_views_on_Israel.27s_Arab_citizens

They may try to instigate this ethnic cleansing by the supremacist loophole law insisting that Israeli Arabs swear allegiance to the Jewish State of Israel, thus making themselves even more 2nd class citizens ..if not.. be deported from their homes and land which have been in their families for generations.

The only way for Israel to maintain its democracy and its Jewish character is a just 2 state solution, similar to the Ehud Barak Camp David idea or the Olmert plan... but with all T's crossed this time...not 97% but 100% in genuine land swaps

Alternatively allow Netanyahu to continue shooting himself in the foot as the Palestinian population grows over the years. I think Obama's recent censure demonstrates that US will not tolerate an apartheid state or ethnic cleansing. The EU Israel's largest trading partner certainly would not.

The status quo is unsustainable. The Zionists have left their run at colonialism (that other Europeans got away with) about 100 years too late. Why not call it quits, face reality, and negotiate a secure lasting peace with your neighbors?

What Israel needs is a far sighted FW de Klerk, and the Palestinians a Nelson Mandela.

Edited March 24, 2015 by dexterm

[pbay]

Knesset raises threshold to four seats, putting Arab parties at risk of not entering parliament

The new legislation will benefit medium-sized parties like the settlers’ Jewish Home and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, while increasing the influence of big money on politics.

The Knesset approved today (Tuesday) several changes in its elections and governance laws. Among other things, the changes will make it more difficult to challenge the government in a vote of non-confidence, and set the threshold for entering the Knesset at 3.25 percent, or roughly four Knesset seats.

The legislation is a joint initiative by Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party and Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beitenu (which united with Netanyahu’s Likud party prior to the last elections). The final vote in the Knesset passed by a 67-0 majority, with the entire opposition boycotting the vote to protest the coalition’s implementation of special procedural measures earlier this week.

The new law will mostly affect the three Palestinian parties, which usually win between 3-4 seats each. Hadash, the joint Arab-Jewish party, currently has four seats; the same goes for the United Arab List (a unification of three parties, including the Islamic Ta’al party). The secular Balad party, which currently has three seats, would not have made it into the Knesset under the new law. Prior to the last elections, Knesset members banned Balad MK Hanin Zoabi from participating in the elections, a decision that was later overruled by the Supreme Court.

http://972mag.com/knesset-raises-threshold-to-four-seats-putting-arab-parties-at-risk-of-not-entering-parliament/88305/

Trying to drive Arab Israeli parties out of the election, very democratic eh??????

Please! show to me one Arab, Muslim or Islamic country which has any kind of Jewish Party - Legal, Registered, participating in elections and still alive!

Please! Put up or shut up!

So you could not actually come up with any argument against what I posted, so instead you tried the old deflection tactic, the one all pro Israeli BS artists try when confronted with a fact based argument that they have no answer to.Yawn......

[mikebike]

Please! show to me one Arab, Muslim or Islamic country which has any kind of Jewish Party - Legal, Registered, participating in elections and still alive!

Please! Put up or shut up!

Genuine political parties in established democracies rarely organise on a strictly religious basis. It would be as difficult to find The Jewish Party in the west as in Arabic or Islamic countries...

[ezzra]

It has been said that anti-Semite is someone who hate Jews little more than the usual....

It has been established many times over that the haters in these forums are steadfast in

their utter disdain and contempt to anything and everything that has to do with Israel and Jews,

Given the smallest bit on information in these pages about Israel and you have the usual

talking heads coming out from hiding under some rocks, vilifying and demonizing

Israel, what ever Israel dose is wrong, the Palestinians are always right..

Say tomorrow Israel will go back to it's 1948 borders, not the 1967 one, still, the haters and

mud throwing crowd will still have something to say, it seems that some people in this world,

will not rest until they will see Israel gone and the Jews vanished from this earth,

such are this world and such are the people we come in contact every day...

Edited March 24, 2015 by ezzra

[Ulysses G.]

Please! show to me one Arab, Muslim or Islamic country which has any kind of Jewish Party - Legal, Registered, participating in elections and still alive!

Please! Put up or shut up!

Genuine political parties in established democracies rarely organise on a strictly religious basis.

Sounds like spin to deflect from what we all know already.There ISN'T one and would not be one, no matter what, but Israel is expected to be perfect. What hypocrisy.

[Ulysses G.]

Say tomorrow Israel will go back to it's 1948 borders, not the 1967 one, still, the haters and

mud throwing crowd will still have something to say, it seems that some people in this world,

will not rest until they will see Israel gone and the Jews vanished from this earth,

such are this world and such are the people we come in contact every day...

They think that replacing the word "Jews" with "Zionists" hides what they are, but the obsessive need to post poison on anything to do with Jews, anti-Semitism or Israel gives them away.

[ABCer]

Knesset raises threshold to four seats, putting Arab parties at risk of not entering parliament

The new legislation will benefit medium-sized parties like the settlers’ Jewish Home and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, while increasing the influence of big money on politics.

The Knesset approved today (Tuesday) several changes in its elections and governance laws. Among other things, the changes will make it more difficult to challenge the government in a vote of non-confidence, and set the threshold for entering the Knesset at 3.25 percent, or roughly four Knesset seats.

The legislation is a joint initiative by Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party and Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beitenu (which united with Netanyahu’s Likud party prior to the last elections). The final vote in the Knesset passed by a 67-0 majority, with the entire opposition boycotting the vote to protest the coalition’s implementation of special procedural measures earlier this week.

The new law will mostly affect the three Palestinian parties, which usually win between 3-4 seats each. Hadash, the joint Arab-Jewish party, currently has four seats; the same goes for the United Arab List (a unification of three parties, including the Islamic Ta’al party). The secular Balad party, which currently has three seats, would not have made it into the Knesset under the new law. Prior to the last elections, Knesset members banned Balad MK Hanin Zoabi from participating in the elections, a decision that was later overruled by the Supreme Court.

http://972mag.com/knesset-raises-threshold-to-four-seats-putting-arab-parties-at-risk-of-not-entering-parliament/88305/

Trying to drive Arab Israeli parties out of the election, very democratic eh??????

Please! show to me one Arab, Muslim or Islamic country which has any kind of Jewish Party - Legal, Registered, participating in elections and still alive!

Please! Put up or shut up!

So you could not actually come up with any argument against what I posted, so instead you tried the old deflection tactic, the one all pro Israeli BS artists try when confronted with a fact based argument that they have no answer to.Yawn......

Don't damage your jaw when yawning.

Personally I do not give a hood about Israelis, or their Arabs.

Within any Democracy in political games any legal trick is good and is used in any country.

Blaming Jews for using such tricks speaks more of your yawn than anything else.

Nobody was beheaded? Incarcerated? Expelled? Sent to Gaza? - so it is a kind of Democracy!

Are you sure your country has a better one? Show me.

Your options were - put up or shut up! But you can only yawn.

[lucky11]

How typical. The US supports a democracy when the results are in-line with its foreign policy objectives, but is all for denouncing the results of an election, and even repudiating the process, when they run counter to its goals. This is exactly how the US ended up in the Vietnam war.

About time they understood democracy a bit better!!

The way they currently see it is:

Elections = democracy (unless we don't like the people that are elected) then we will remonstrate against them because they don't fit into OUR system of governance.

Oh!! and a democratically elected government can do what it likes because it has been 'democratically elected'!!

If a Muslim party is elected then despite them being democratically elected the minority can protest, hold a coup and pass death sentences on those democratically elected if they so choose to do so!!!

Don't you just love democracy (American style).

[dexterm]

Another of the primary un-democratic discrimination laws specifically aimed at Israeli Arabs is the marriage law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_and_Entry_into_Israel_Law

Israeli Arabs are not allowed to marry Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza (and a list of other countries) and return to live with them in Israel even after a Shin Bet security vetting. Prior to 2003 they could do so...but too many were doing so.. Israelis cite "security concerns" for the new law and disingenuously say the law applies to Israeli Jews also. But how many Israeli Jews want to marry a Muslim West Bank Palestinian?.

It obviously all boils down again to demographics. Israel wants to maintain a Jewish racial majority

Citizenship law makes Israel an apartheid state

"We do not have to identify the characteristics of South African apartheid in the civil rights discrimination in Israel in order to call Israel an apartheid state. It is best that we not try to evade the truth: The Citizenship Law's existence turns Israel into an apartheid state."

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/citizenship-law-makes-israel-an-apartheid-state-1.248635

Netanyahu should perhaps divorce the West Bank with a fair division of the assets, before the in-laws move in with him.

Time marches on. The Palestinian population is growing. Global awareness of the injustice of occupation and sham democracy in Israel is increasing.

Netanyahu should bite the bullet and get serious about a just 2 state solution before Israelis wake up to a one state solution.

Personally I am in favor of the latter. Mai ben rai.

Edited March 24, 2015 by dexterm

[Rancid]

Israel is a democracy for legal citizens of the country. Like most places, the enemy, don't get a vote.

I find it interesting that someone that owns a bookshop has such a tunnel vision hard-core neocon view of the world. Might be time to put down the Tom Clancys and explore the non fiction section.

[ABCer]

Don't cry your eyes out, ezzra.

Don't try to beat them by logic, Jingthing.

Remember just one saying: - The dog is barking. The caravan walks on.

As W. Churchill said: - we (meaning Brits) are not hating Jews because we do not think they are smarter.

All anti-semitic people have an inferiority complex. Arabs hate them most. Their only achievement nowadays is pumping oil.

[dennnis]

Please! show to me one Arab, Muslim or Islamic country which has any kind of Jewish Party - Legal, Registered, participating in elections and still alive!

Please! Put up or shut up!

Genuine political parties in established democracies rarely organise on a strictly religious basis.

Sounds like spin to deflect from what we all know already.There ISN'T one and would not be one, no matter what, but Israel is expected to be perfect. What hypocrisy.

Egypt have a jewish president.

[Ulysses G.]

Egypt have a jewish president.

According to The Muslim Brotherhood. Somehow, they do not strike me as the honest type.

[hard124get]

Please! show to me one Arab, Muslim or Islamic country which has any kind of Jewish Party - Legal, Registered, participating in elections and still alive!

Please! Put up or shut up!

Genuine political parties in established democracies rarely organise on a strictly religious basis.

Sounds like spin to deflect from what we all know already.There ISN'T one and would not be one, no matter what, but Israel is expected to be perfect. What hypocrisy.

Egypt have a jewish president.

Moreh Sedgh is a Jewish MP, who represents the Jewish community in Iran.

[mikebike]

Please! show to me one Arab, Muslim or Islamic country which has any kind of Jewish Party - Legal, Registered, participating in elections and still alive!

Please! Put up or shut up!

Genuine political parties in established democracies rarely organise on a strictly religious basis.

Sounds like spin to deflect from what we all know already.There ISN'T one and would not be one, no matter what, but Israel is expected to be perfect. What hypocrisy.

Please UG, show me The Jewish Party or The Islamic Party in the USA... ABCer's request was to produce a straw man.

[BKKBobby]

Is all citizens in Israel equally equal? No. Is some citizens in Israel more equal than others? Yes. Was the first 'democracy' in the world democratic (equally equal rights for all inhabitants)? No. Is Israel a democracy? No.

Edited March 24, 2015 by BKKBobby