> Israel is a democracy, and therefore (at least in theory) the government represents the people.
Netanyahu says the West Bank is Israel, and within Israel de facto and de jure it is. Yet Palestinians in the West Bank can not vote, and there is talk in the Knesset of disenfranchising Palestinians outside of the West Bank. Yet a Jew from Brooklyn can move to the West Bank, seize a Palestinian's land, and vote in elections.
Yet this is termed a democracy in comparison to Iran.
> Israel is not a democracy, a huge percentage of the populate cannot vote and have no civil rights or any sort.
This is absolutely not true. All Israeli citizens of age can vote, which is the main component of a democracy (though there are other points).
When talking about the "part of the populace that can't vote", as you put it, I assume you mean the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza. However, they are not Israeli citizens, and are represented by their own government, the Palestinian authority, which is ostensibly committed to pursuing an eventual negotiation with Israel to turn into an official state.
It's also a state recognized by multiple countries, a fact much applauded by "pro-Palestinian" activists.
Given that designation as a separate state, complaining that they can't vote in Israeli elections is like complaining that Canadians can't vote in US elections.
> I can also ask: why does so few other support the single somewhat functioning democracy in the region?
In the West Bank, Palestinians are not allowed to form an army, have control over borders, or even control of travel around the West Bank. So they are made to nit have their own country (which Israel opposes) but to be part of Israel. So can they vote for Knesset candidates? No. (Yet an orthodox Jew from Brooklyn who has never been to the Middle East can make aliyah to a West Bank settlement and vote for Knesset candidates immediately).
>There is not a single democratic govt in the ME sans Israel
The millions of Palestinians unable to vote for the government that controls their movement, trade, and lives in general would probably disagree with your characterization of Israel as a democracy.
What a laugh. A Palestinian in Hebron whose family has been there for thousands of years gets no vote, whereas a Jew from Brooklyn who just got off a plane and steals his land does get a vote in the Knesset. This is a democracy? How deluded do you think we all are?
> While Islamic democracies elsewhere (such as Indonesia) are doing fine, in the Arab world the very fabric of the state is weak.
The Western countries and Israel have been doing everything they can for the past century to keep Arab democracy weak.
In the soi disant "only democracy in the Middle East", the West bank, claimed by Israel, where ultraorthodox right off the plane from Russia can go to a West Bank settlement to vote, but in which Palestinians who have been there for thousands of years can not vote for any government which Israel or the US recognizes - why not let the Palestinians vote? Israel is no democracy - they claim the West Bank is Israel, in a defacto sense it is, and they do not let Arabs vote. We see the contemplation of Islam causing problems, why don't we look at Judaism in the same manner in how it is against democracy? Meir Kahane said as much himself, and his policies have been running Israel, and the US and European backing of Israel for the past years.
Meanwhile the US and UK destroyed Iranian democracy, its parliament, Mossadegh, and installed a dictator whose CIA-backed secret police arrested, tortured and killed those who wanted a return to democracy. We had France, the UK and Israel invade Egypt in 1956, and on and on and on.
The economic and military might of the west and Israel has been fighting autonomy and democracy in the Middle East for a century, and will continue to in the next century.
Despite this, as we can see the beginnings of in the Arab Spring, as well as a history rooted in pan-Arab nationalism, in the years to come Arabs will see themselves freed from the shackles of imperialism and Zionism, and restore power in the the Middle East to the people of the Middle East.
The rhetorical sleight-of-hand that you are obscuring is that most Arabs living in Israel are not, and will never be allowed to become Israeli citizens. This is despite both being born, and living on a territory that is very clearly under the military control of the Knesset.
It's either an indeterminate military occupation, or its apartheid. I don't care what you want to call it, but you have to pick one or the other, because in 2022, Palestine simply does not exist as a free, sovereign nation. It's either a civil territory of Israel, or occupied by Israel.
> Israel is the only real democracy in the entire region.
This tired fallacy needs to perish. Israel is not a democracy. Even Israelis' can see this, and its why a third of them don't bother voting - the Israeli people know that they don't have the right to select their leaders in the Knesset. The parties do.
If Israel become a real democracy, its Israeli-Arab population would rapidly change the identity of the country. This is why the fallacy is perpetuated.
And yet it hasn't. It's a democracy. Has been since the founding.
> run by religious extremists
It's run by whomever people of Israel elect. The purpose of this country is to protect the Jews from various pogroms and genocides that keep occurring to them with a disturbing regularity.
> Israel administers multiple territories, some of them democratically (e.g. Israel proper, where Arabs are citizens with equal legal rights), and some of them undemocratically (e.g. the West Bank).
This is one aspect of the whole conflict that has always seriously irked me.
The West effectively treats Israel as if it were the legal guardian of the Palestinians: Israel controls the entire territory, controls the tax revenue, population registry, borders, airspace, energy and water supply, can precisely restrict what (is allowed to) go in and out, can construct or demolish buildings at will, can arrest people at will, or even shoot them, can arbitrarily set the rules for court proceedings, etc. Western and neighbor countries fully support this view, to the point where, if Palestinians import or export goods into their own territories without Israel's authorisation, this is called "smuggling".
Yet at the same time, Israel seems to have no obligation to actually consider or represent the interests of the Palestinians: They are not allowed to vote in Israeli elections; they don't have any representation in the Knesset; laws can be passed that arbitrarily disadvantage them without loss of democratic status; Israeli politicians openly call the Palestinians "our bitter enemies".
In any situation where any individual person were the legal guardian of another person and at the same time called them "their bitter enemy", we'd be deeply alarmed and suspect an abusive relationship. Yet in the case of Israel and the Palestinians, that's "how things are supposed to be" and everyone who tries to change that status quo is the problem.
This feels extremely wrong to me.
(The UN is clearer here: They give Israel the specific legal role of "occupation force" and point to various obligations towards the occupied population that come with that role. However, the western countries somehow both deny that any occupation even takes place and demand that Israel must continue to have full control over the territories - which is contradictory in itself)
> Yet at the same time, Israel seems to have no obligation to actually consider or represent the interests of the Palestinians: They are not allowed to vote in Israeli elections; they don't have any representation in the Knesset...
Doesn't the US have a bunch of territories that don't have representation? Like Puerto Rico. It seems like this sort of arrangement is not alien even to Western politicians, although the treatment of people certainly differs.
I can vote in my local Elks Club elections as well.
People in the West Bank live in Israel but can not vote in Israeli elections.
Actually - Palestinians living in Israel in the West Bank can't vote. A haredi Jew from Brooklyn who arrived in the West Bank yesterday and stole land from a Palestinian family who has been there for centuries, he has a right to vote in the elections of the country he is living in.
> One could argue that Israel is running a system of apartheid against Palestinians and a campaign of ethnic cleansing
No, one couldn't argue that. It has no basis in reality whatsoever. Certainly there are facts that various vested interests like to spin in a way as deleterious to Israel as possible, but that's not the same as facts that actually support such vile claims.
> Israel can be considered an "active, healthy democracy" if you so happen to be Jewish, not so for anyone else.
Again false. Israel has had arabs citizens in its governments, in the high court, bedouin as high-ranking army officers, and other positions of power, influence and authority for decades.
> The reality is that Israeli parliament is weak and nearly wholly controlled by the government.
You have it exactly backwards: the government is selected from the MPs and is supported by the parliament. The most popular way to change a government is to call for (legislative) elections. (No executive elections — these were tried for a short period and cancelled.) The government is controlled by the parliament, not the other way around.
Netanyahu says the West Bank is Israel, and within Israel de facto and de jure it is. Yet Palestinians in the West Bank can not vote, and there is talk in the Knesset of disenfranchising Palestinians outside of the West Bank. Yet a Jew from Brooklyn can move to the West Bank, seize a Palestinian's land, and vote in elections.
Yet this is termed a democracy in comparison to Iran.
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