Yes it is a Jewish state. You've got 22 arab statest that surround us and you would also like this one to be one also. If its a palestinian state you want well you could choose one of two currently available to you. Either under the Plo or Hamas. But the real agenda is that Israel should be a Palestinian state. By the way what democratic rights do Jews have in any of those 22 states. How about asking all of the Sphedardic Jews of Israel about how it was that they got kicked out of all of those states? By the way the author doesn't want to mention that all citizens of the state get to vote equally. And non citizens Jewish or other wise don't. All so the author doesnt' want to really reveal what is's like for an arab to live here. Come take a walk with me for a minute in the hospital of Tzfat.
The head of the Hemotology department is an arab as are many, many other doctors, nurses ,technicians. We have a university that has many if not a majority of arab students. And remember that the Jewish population of Tzfat suffered terribly during that massacres of 1929 and 1936. Arab citizens get the same rights with regard to national health care, education, etc. If you want to say that in education they are discriminated against well we as part of the so called ultra-religious community have the very same complaint.

As a Jew who is both firmly committed to Israel's continued existence as a Jewish state and intellectually honest, I admit that this article pains me because it makes good points that deserve serious consideration. While much of the discrimination that Israeli Arabs face can be eliminated without compromising Israel's Jewish character, the fact is that a Jewish state is at some level inherently discriminatory. But to say that Israel cannot be both Jewish and democratic is to embrace a completely false dichotomy. If Israel is not a democracy, with its freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and popularly elected legislature (which includes several Arabs), what exactly is it? Democracy is a spectrum. Should America not be considered a democracy because George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000, effectively disenfranchising the hundreds of thousands of voters who should have constituted Al Gore's margin of victory?

I might be more open to the idea of a bi-national state if thinkers like Dr. Rouhana explained much more concretely how exactly such a state would function. What would the flag be? What would the anthem be? What, beyond a common piece of real estate and an abstract commitment to a political system that countless other countries already have, could possibly bind a majority of its citizens together? What incentive would Israeli Jews have to live in a non-Jewish Israel when they could get the same democratic deal in America or Europe? Remember that Hamas and Hizbullah are committed not only to eradicating Israel as a Jewish state but to establishing an Islamic state in its place. Will they suddenly abandon their dream of driving the Jews into the sea if the Jews start playing nice?

Like the colonial powers' earlier attempts to cobble together nation states with no historical roots based on abstract criteria, Dr. Rouhana's plan is bound to generate more, not less, conflict. God bless America; its political model is quite possibly the finest humanity has ever produced, but to try to impose American-style democracy on any country, whether Iraq or Israel, is bound to fail. Political theorizing that doesn't take into account the people on the ground and what they can safely stomach is not only unwise but reckless.

Moreover, while Dr. Rouhana might seem to be making the eminently reasonable argument that the rights of individual Arabs should have primacy over the rights of the Jewish people as a whole, this is actually a mirage. In his view, "Israel's citizens have no state to call their own." But in what sense is this true? Israel distributes tax money to Arab communities. It protects Arabs from enemy attack. It gives them healthcare benefits and political freedoms that their kinsmen in Arab countries can only dream of. It is only as Arabs, as members of a particular ethnic community, and not as individuals, that Israel's Jewish character discriminates against them. If an Arab Israeli is bothered that his country's flag has a Jewish star, he is not bothered as a human being, for he is not likely to be hurt by a piece of cloth--he is bothered as an Arab. It is his own ethnic particularism that makes him feel discriminated against. For sure, Arabs are entitled to their nationalism--but so are Jews. And as long as Jews are the majority in their own state, they have every right to enshrine whatever symbols make them feel good so long as they don't harm anyone in the process. Every society, no matter how egalitarian and democratic, will make some people feel out of place.

The times are a changin'. This article would not have been possible a few years ago.

Walt and Mearsheimer deserve credit for opening the discussion on this volatile topic. Also, the massacre in Gaza opened alot of eyes as well.

from the NYTimes:

"Israel is simultaneously running three systems of government. The first is full democracy toward its Jewish citizens — ethnocracy. The second is racial discrimination toward the Palestinian minority — creeping Jim Crowism. And the third is occupation of the Palestinian territories with one set of laws for Palestinians and another for Jewish settlers — apartheid."

Op-Ed Contributor
A Harsh Reality for Palestinians
By AHMAD TIBI

Published: April 6, 2009

JERUSALEM — The right-wing coalition of the new Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, does not bode well for Palestinians in Israel. With the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister, the extremists are going after the indigenous population and threatening us with loyalty tests and the possibility of “transfer” into an area nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu’s intransigence vis-à-vis Palestinians in the occupied territories is certainly cause for concern. No less concerning is what the Netanyahu-Lieberman combination may mean to Palestinian citizens of Israel.
This government, particularly with Lieberman as foreign minister, should be boycotted by the international community, just as it once boycotted Jörg Haider, the late Austrian far-right politician who won global notoriety for his anti-immigrant views.
Lieberman, in one of many outrageous comments, declared in May 2004 that 90 percent of Israel’s Palestinian citizens “have no place here. They can take their bundles and get lost.”
But my family and I were on this land centuries before Lieberman arrived here in 1978 from Moldova. We are among the minority who managed to remain when some 700,000 Palestinians were forced out by Israel in 1948.
Today, Lieberman stokes anti-Palestinian sentiment with his threat of “transfer” — a euphemism for renewed ethnic cleansing. Henry Kissinger, too, has called for a territorial swap, and Lieberman cites Kissinger to give his noxious idea a more sophisticated sheen. Lieberman and Kissinger envision exchanging a portion of Israel for a portion of the occupied West Bank seized illegally by Jewish settlers.
But Israel has no legal right to any of the occupied Palestinian territories. And Lieberman has no right to offer the land my home is on in exchange for incorporating Jewish settlers into newly defined Israeli state borders. We are citizens of the state of Israel and do not want to exchange our second-class citizenship in our homeland — subject as we are to numerous laws that discriminate against us — for life in a Palestinian Bantustan.
We take our citizenship seriously and struggle daily to improve our lot and overcome discriminatory laws and practices.
We face discrimination in all fields of life. Arab citizens are 20 percent of the population, but only 6 percent of the employees in the public sector. Not one Arab employee is working in the central bank of Israel. Imagine if there was not one African-American citizen employed in the central bank of the United States.
Israel is simultaneously running three systems of government. The first is full democracy toward its Jewish citizens — ethnocracy. The second is racial discrimination toward the Palestinian minority — creeping Jim Crowism. And the third is occupation of the Palestinian territories with one set of laws for Palestinians and another for Jewish settlers — apartheid.
A few weeks ago, Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu Party led the charge in the Israeli Knesset to ban my party — the Arab Movement for Renewal — from participating in the elections. Netanyahu’s Likud also supported the action. The Supreme Court overturned the maneuvers of the politicians. But their attempt to ban our participation should expose Israel’s democracy to the world as fraudulent.
Lieberman’s inveighing against Palestinian citizens of Israel is not new. Less than three years ago, he called for my death and the death of some of my Palestinian Knesset colleagues for daring to meet with democratically elected Palestinian leaders. Speaking before the Knesset plenum, Lieberman stated: “World War II ended with the Nuremberg trials. The heads of the Nazi regime, along with their collaborators, were executed. I hope this will be the fate of the collaborators in this house.” Lieberman now has the power to put his vile views into practice.
We call for more attention from the Obama administration toward the Palestinian minority in Israel. It is a repressed minority suffering from inadequately shared state resources. The enormous annual American aid package to Israel fails almost entirely to reach our community.
Between Netanyahu and Lieberman, the Obama administration will have its hands full. Make no mistake that Netanyahu and Lieberman will press the new administration hard to accept Israeli actions in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem — as well as discriminatory anti-Palestinian actions in Israel itself. Settlements will grow and discrimination deepen. American backbone will be crucial in the months ahead.
Ahmad Tibi is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a member of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament.

America is founded on separation of church and state.

Israel is founded on conflating the two. (The other such lovely state is Pakistan)

Were it not for the right-wing Likud lobby, AIPAC, Americans would sooner wake up to the idiocy of Americans supporting institutionalized racism.

.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not commenting on whether Arab states are better or worse -- why I am I not commenting on that? BECAUSE we don't give them $5billion per year or $16million PER DAY.

Jewish Israel has a name; it is hypocrisy in every definition of the word.

Jewish Israel discriminates against the native Palestinians by denying them rights to breathe, eat, drink, live, read, travel and practice their religion etc.

The foreign East European Jews from Russia, Poland and America who constitute Jewish Israel are at the center of denying the fundamental human rights of the native Palestinians.

These East European Jews use thousands of military check-points, manned with beastly IDF soldiers to abuse native Palestinian civilians, men, women and children, in thousands of different ways EVERYDAY; these beastly Jew soldiers of Jewish Israeli harass, humiliate, arrest at their whim, deny trips to hospitals and schools Palestine all over occupied Palestine.

These beastly Jew soldiers of Jewish Israel don't harass, humiliate or arrest at their whim the foreign East European Jews from Russia, Poland and America. All their ugliness is reserved only for the hapless Palestinians trapped in this abomination called Jewish Israel.

And then the over-clever foreign East European Jews from Russia, Poland and America expect the Palestinians not to lash back and not fight for their land, their water, their homes, their villages and their lives.

It is not terrorism that the Palestinians practice; its RESISTANCE against Jewish Israel for the reasons cited above.

Jewish Israel and Palestinian Resistance are directly proportional to each other.

The more the foreign East European Jews from Russia, Poland and America pedal and push their Jewishness down the throats of Palestinians the more strident the Palestinian Resistance will become. The Palestinians have proved this by fighting back the foreign East European Jews from Russia, Poland and America for the past almost 100 years and, at this rate, for the next 1000 years.

The Palestinians are in the right; Jewish Israel is wrong as depicted by its ugly racism against the Palestinians.

Israel is a state of all it's citizens!!!! Not a perfect state but none the less a state for all it's citizens.

Under Israel's laws every citizen is equal under the law. That is the law and the discrepancy between the ideal and reality do not change that. There is no country where this utopian ideal is met. Failures to meet the high standards democracies impose on themselves in no way negates the democratic stature of these countries.

If we were to accept Nadim Rouhana's criteria then there are no democracies. Show me a country and I will show you people who face discrimination and have less than equal treatment before the law, contrary to the very laws and constitutions of these countries. That is the sad reality of the human condition.

Is the US with all the legacies of slavery, apartheid laws disproportionate and harsh criminal sentences routinely meted out to minorities and the less advantaged, the huge discrepancies in allocation of resources not a democracy? not a country of all it's citizens?

The situation is the same in virtually every European state.

The GROSS ABSURDITY of Nadim Rouhana's argument is quickly revealed by substituting the word Jewish with French, Japanese, Greek, Swedish, Russian, Norwegian, Czech, Canadian, Thai, Hungarian, British, Italian or just insert democratic country of your choice.

Does the very definition of France being a French State confer privilege to ethnic French? The Italian state confer privilege to ethnic Italians? Again insert and country and the adjective of said nation and we all see how ridiculous Nadim Rouhana's criteria is. I would also point out a number of these countries also have laws of return for the descendants of emigrants.

All democratic countries have minorities living there that frequently face varying degrees of discrimination and hardship. Nobody disputes their democratic credentials or suggests they are invidious racist enterprises or a nation 'not of all it's citizens'.

There is no democratic country in the world that would take kindly to any suggestion or accept that for the purposes of democracy they are required to discard national symbols of the nation, culture, history of the people or any such or similar expression of the majority so as to accommodate a minority(s) sense of inclusion.

The fact that Nadim Rouhana asks something from Israel that is asked of no other democratic country or in fact from any other country in the world demonstrates Nadim Rouhana's true nature.

What is it called when you propose discriminatory treatment of a people or propose to apply discriminating rules to only them? What is it called when these people are Jewish?

Nadim Rouhana's analysis is incomplete. The problem with Israel is not simply that it favors some of its citizens over others -- though that is bad enough. The problem is that Israel is "the state of the Jewish people" -- including those Jews who have no direct connection with the state. Through the Law of Return and its automatic conferral of citizenship rights to any Jew in the world (or rather, anyone who meets the racial criterion of one-quarter Jewish or more), Israel gives foreign Jews more rights than its indigenous non-Jews (whether they have Israeli citizenship or live under military occupation).

Therefore accusing Israel of discrimination is correct but imprecise: it is a specific form of discrimination that used to be quite widespread -- U.S., Australia, South Africa used to formally give white foreigners more rights than non-white natives as well (they now oppress natives through slightly less blatant means) -- but now is rejected by most of the world. Does that make "ordinary" discrimination acceptable? Of course not. But we should recognize Israel for the outlier that it is.

When Zionists protest that these other ex-settler colonial states are not condemned in the same way, they are admitting this commonality -- and ignoring the fact that such inequality is not just a historical crime in Israel/Palestine, but a current ongoing reality.

Let's see: Shulamit Aloni is the former Education Minister of Israel. She has been awarded both the Israel Prize and the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Here is her view:

http://www.counterpunch.org/aloni01082007.html

Yes, There is Apartheid in Israel

By SHULAMIT ALONI

Jewish self-righteousness is taken for granted among ourselves to such an extent that we fail to see what's right in front of our eyes. It's simply inconceivable that the ultimate victims, the Jews, can carry out evil deeds. Nevertheless, the state of Israel practises its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population.

The US Jewish Establishment's onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practises a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp. All this is done in order to keep an eye on the population's movements and to make its life difficult. Israel even imposes a total curfew whenever the settlers, who have illegally usurped the Palestinians' land, celebrate their holidays or conduct their parades.

If that were not enough, the generals commanding the region frequently issue further orders, regulations, instructions and rules (let us not forget: they are the lords of the land). By now they have requisitioned further lands for the purpose of constructing "Jewish only" roads. Wonderful roads, wide roads, well-paved roads, brightly lit at night--all that on stolen land. When a Palestinian drives on such a road, his vehicle is confiscated and he is sent on his way.

On one occasion I witnessed such an encounter between a driver and a soldier who was taking down the details before confiscating the vehicle and sending its owner away. "Why?" I asked the soldier. "It's an order--this is a Jews-only road", he replied. I inquired as to where was the sign indicating this fact and instructing [other] drivers not to use it. His answer was nothing short of amazing. "It is his responsibility to know it, and besides, what do you want us to do, put up a sign here and let some antisemitic reporter or journalist take a photo so he that can show the world that Apartheid exists here?"

Indeed Apartheid does exist here. And our army is not "the most moral army in the world" as we are told by its commanders. Sufficient to mention that every town and every village has turned into a detention centre and that every entry and every exit has been closed, cutting it off from arterial traffic. If it were not enough that Palestinians are not allowed to travel on the roads paved 'for Jews only', on their land, the current GOC found it necessary to land an additional blow on the natives in their own land with an "ingenious proposal".

Humanitarian activists cannot transport Palestinians either.

Major-General Naveh, renowned for his superior patriotism, has issued a new order. Coming into affect on 19 January, it prohibits the conveyance of Palestinians without a permit. The order determines that Israelis are not allowed to transport Palestinians in an Israeli vehicle (one registered in Israel regardless of what kind of numberplate it carries) unless they have received explicit permission to do so. The permit relates to both the driver and the Palestinian passenger. Of course none of this applies to those whose labour serves the settlers. They and their employers will naturally receive the required permits so they can continue to serve the lords of the land, the settlers.

Did man of peace President Carter truly err in concluding that Israel is creating Apartheid? Did he exaggerate? Don't the US Jewish community leaders recognise the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination of 7 March 1966, to which Israel is a signatory? Are the US Jews who launched the loud and abusive campaign against Carter for supposedly maligning Israel's character and its democratic and humanist nature unfamiliar with the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid of 30 November 1973? Apartheid is defined therein as an international crime that among other things includes using different legal instruments to rule over different racial groups, thus depriving people of their human rights. Isn't freedom of travel one of these rights?

In the past, the US Jewish community leaders were quite familiar with the meaning of those conventions. For some reason, however, they are convinced that Israel is allowed to contravene them. It's OK to kill civilians, women and children, old people and parents with their children, deliberately or otherwise without accepting any responsibility. It's permissible to rob people of their lands, destroy their crops, and cage them up like animals in the zoo. From now on, Israelis and International humanitarian organisations' volunteers are prohibited from assisting a woman in labour by taking her to the hospital. [Israeli human rights group] Yesh Din volunteers cannot take a robbed and beaten-up Palestinian to the police station to lodge a complaint. (Police stations are located at the heart of the settlements.) Is there anyone who believes that this is not Apartheid?

Jimmy Carter does not need me to defend his reputation that has been sullied by Israelophile community officials. The trouble is that their love of Israel distorts their judgment and blinds them from seeing what's in front of them. Israel is an occupying power that for 40 years has been oppressing an indigenous people, which is entitled to a sovereign and independent existence while living in peace with us. We should remember that we too used very violent terror against foreign rule because we wanted our own state. And the list of victims of terror is quite long and extensive.

We do limit ourselves to denying the [Palestinian] people human rights. We not only rob of them of their freedom, land and water. We apply collective punishment to millions of people and even, in revenge-driven frenzy, destroy the electricity supply for one and half million civilians. Let them "sit in the darkness" and "starve".

Employees cannot be paid their wages because Israel is holding 500 million shekels that belong to the Palestinians. And after all that we remain "pure as the driven snow". There are no moral blemishes on our actions. There is no racial separation. There is no Apartheid. It's an invention of the enemies of Israel. Hooray for our brothers and sisters in the US! Your devotion is very much appreciated. You have truly removed a nasty stain from us. Now there can be an extra spring in our step as we confidently abuse the Palestinian population, using the "most moral army in the world".

[Translated by Sol Salbe]

Shulamit Aloni is the former Education Minister of Israel. She has been awarded both the Israel Prize and the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

If being ethnocracy means to wish to live in the Jewish state where Zionism is a national movement, then we are not different from any other country and, in fact, Zionism was only another national movement during the rise of those in the 19th century.

If being ethnocracy means to wish to live in the Jewish state where the main religion is Judaism then once again we are not different from many other countries around the world. The flag of all Scandinavian countries contains a cross and in the second paragraph of Egyptian constitution is written that Islam is the religion of the state. Probably this is true for any other Muslim state.

If being ethnocracy means to wish to live in the Jewish state where the main ethnic (from genetic point of view) group is the Jewish one, then the statement is just wrong. For me, Jew from European origin, there is probably less in common to a Jew from Iraq than to the latter with his Arabic neighbor (there is a good article about it in “Human Genetics” http://www.springerlink.com/content/4b9fltx6cnc9l18q/)

And the last one, if being ethnocracy means to wish to live in the Jewish state where the basis of the ethnic group as a form of social organization is a cultural, rather than biological, then we go back to the first case…

"This inequality is expressed in various ways, including in Israel's Basic Laws and its laws of land control, immigration, and resource distribution

There's the claim, but where is the proof?

Where are the laws and statutes that serve as hard evidence of discrimination?

Where is the hard evidence that shows that Arab citizens of Israel are deliberately seperated and deliberately cordoned off from equitable state entitlements?

With deference to my friend "Mixalot," everyone is familiar with the treatments of occupation Arabs. Where's the info backing up the claims against Arab citizens of Israel?

Considering that, except for Lebanon (for now..) every single nation in the Middle East declares itself as Muslim, and that many nations in Europe and other places declare themselves Christian, one wonders why Israel - without a doubt a freer society than any nation in its region - is the one that gets written about in Foreign Policy. Is there something about Judaism that contradicts democracy in a different way than Islam or Christianity do?

America and Israel -- what is the connection?

America is founded on separation of church and state.

Israel is founded on conflating the two. (The other such lovely state is Pakistan)

Were it not for the right-wing Likud lobby, AIPAC, Americans would sooner wake up to the idiocy of Americans supporting institutionalized racism.

.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not commenting on whether Arab states are better or worse -- why I am I not commenting on that? BECAUSE we don't give them $5billion per year or $16million PER DAY.

Increasingly, the rhetoric from the anti-israeli side of the aisle is framed to draw an equivalency between the history of racial tension in the US and the state of affairs within Israel proper. The extreme form of this, obviously, is voiced by the Israel/Apartheid movement -- however, I'd like to address the subtler form here.

The power of this equivalency, at least in the States, is that it effectively uses white guilt over racial inequalities in order to marginalize the Israeli government. I find this especially interesting, since Israel - obvious to anyone who as spent any time there - is made up of a plurality of racial backgrounds. According to Wikipedia, about 35% of Israeli Jews are descendants of European Jews, 25% from Jews that immigrated from Arab countries, and the rest are descendants of Jews that immigrated from Ethiopia or India. The frame of a "white state" then, imposes a set of assumptions that those not knowledgeable about the Israel use in order to make inferences about Palestinian/Israeli issues. For example, plenty of people do not differentiate between Palestinians on the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Israeli Arabs. Each one of these groups has legitimate beefs with the status quo - and for each one of these populations, these beefs are likely to be addressed using different means - Israeli Arabs are undoubtable discriminated against within Israel, but they can address their circumstances by appealing to the courts (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1161597.html), the West Bank potentially by a unilateral declaration of statehood (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126594.html) and, well, who knows about Gaza.

The obvious advantage of lumping these very different problems together is that the most egregious Israeli offenses (such as in Gaza) can be used in a blurry way to argue that all Israeli Arabs are disenfranchised and have no means of redress. This is simply false -- the best means to redress, however, should be the ones used during the civil rights movement in the US.

Certainly, Israeli Arabs face institutionalized discrimination within Israel -- the level of this discrimination lies somewhere between Jim Crow laws and current anti-black sentiment in the US. While this sort of racism is despicable, it is qualitatively different than the situation of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Falsely painting all Israeli Jews as "white" oppressors and all Palestinians as a "black" underclass eliminates the possibility of any discussion because is puts the pro-Israel (even the left-leaning pro-Israel) camp on tenterhooks, fearful of stepping straight into the type of racial minefield that so characterizes US politics.

bitterlyunited.blogspost.com

1. Is AIPAC good, bad or inconsequential for America?
2. Does AIPAC exert any control over electoral representation?
3. How much does AIPAC influence proposed legislation?
4. What influence is there, if any, between AIPAC and Wall Street?
5. What influence is there, if any, between AIPAC and Main Street?
6. What influence is there, if any, between AIPAC and the Pentagon?
7. What is the connection between AIPAC and the Israeli government?
8. What connection is there between AIPAC and the CFI in London?
9. What influence, if any, has AIPAC over the US vote in the UN SC?
10. How many members of the senate are AIPAC supporters?
11. How many members of the House are AIPAC supporters?
12. What connection is there, if any, between AIPAC and US arms manufacturers?
13. What is the connection, if any, between AIPAC and Israeli arms manufacturers?
14. Which media companies, if any, are controlled by AIPAC members or their families?
15. Which lobby groups, if any, are controlled by AIPAC members or their families?
16. What percentage of the total American population are AIPAC members?
17. Is AIPAC an agent for Israel?
18. Is AIPAC beneficial to the democratic process, in America?
19. Should AIPAC be designated as an agent for a foreign state?
20. Which is essential to world peace, AIPAC or the Presidency, or both?

Israel has been a Jewish State, is a Jewish State, and will continue to be a Jewish state. I love foreign policy and thus i was expecting an amazing, accurate and informative article on the arab israeli conflict. Not only was this terribly written, it didn't provide any good info.
BOO

I would like the author to go to Lebanon and see how many "rights" the palestinians have there, or maybe Syria which the world seems to be so fond of recently, remember the city of hama, how many palestinians have died there, who do you think paid for Dr. Rouhama's PHD, yes the Israeli tax payers.
Once there is a palestinian state all of Israels arab population is welcomed to move there, and I can guarantee you that none of them will, because they like to collect social security and enjoy democracy, freedon of speech, and state funds, women's rights....etc mainly the high standard of living more than any arab nation . A majority of Israel's arab population don't serve in the military which is mandatory yet Israel doesn't make them, there is an oppertunity to do a type of community service in their own communities instead, yet they refuse to take part in any civilian duty. Most of what they do is cry and ask for more rights you can't have it from both sides you either want to be a citizen of israel or a palestinian citizen. There will only be one jewish state and democratic at the same time yes it is not perfect and we need to make imrovements but the distance from the autjors words and reallity is far.

I invite all the haters to come to Israel's mixed cities where arab's and jews live in peace, come to our universities and see for yourself how many arab students attend, we have affermitive action, we have arab members of parliment.

Where's the article on being Jewish in a Muslim country? Or Christian? Not to mention Wiccan, atheist, or apostate.

Interesting article, but despite all hardships it’s easier to be an honest citizen of any religion (or none) in Israel than to be a citizen of any religion but Islam in almost all other middle-eastern countries.

Israel isn’t perfect, and it has acted inappropriately at times during its history, but let’s face some pretty brutal facts, shall we?

They’re not trying to destroy all the countries that neighbor them. The same can’t be said of the other countries in the region.
They allow free practice of religions.
They’re at least *trying* (granted, with various levels of success) to find solutions that work for everyone.
People do get a chance to participate in government and live their lives more or less without interference from the government.

Nobody seems to have problems with the US recognizing other countries as “Arab,” “Muslim,” “Christian,” or anything else…why is this a problem for Israel? If we in the United States are in “silent complicity” with “official state policies of discrimination,” how much more are we complicit with the official policies of discrimination in the Arab countries, or for that matter with France in their more secular discrimination against all forms of outward religious expression?

If Professor Rouhana is truly concerned about such inequalities, perhaps attention from the Arab Center for Applied Social Research should first be focused on the social atrocities practiced in the Arab countries, before lashing out against other countries and cultures. When Arabs voice criticism of Islamic-based discrimination, human rights violations, terrorism and a host of other social injustices, I'll start to listen to them about Israel. But until then...clean up your own yard first.

Pity the poor Muslim living in the only Jewish country in the entire world. In fact, Israel is one of the only places in the world where all Jews can live without fear of persecution How quickly we forget how they came to be there! No one else would take them in.. So they came to Judea, named Palestine, by their Roman conquerors. Actually they returned to the land from which they had been dispersed by Romans and Arabs 1900 years previous. They are surrounded by Muslim countries that not only want to eliminate a Jewish state, but all readily admit that the goal is to eliminate all Jews. The rest of the world is either hostile to them or ambivalent. Is it any wonder they are defensive and look to a Jewish state for their security? Thousands of years of persecution, pograms, genocidal solutions and hatred have educated them to the reality that they are their only hope and defense. A true Jewish homeland is their only chance of survival. They know it and anyone with half a brain and a little historical knowledge knows it too. To pretend otherwise is foolishness. To pretend this article is anything other than propoganda is hypocrisy and fraud.

It would also be good if the zionists in Israel would not commit the same atrocities against the Palestinians that were committed against us Jews in the past.

I think everyone here would do well to listen to this senior Jewish British Member of Parliament on Israel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8

sums up things quite well.

Fair and balanced.

"The terms ‘democracy’ or ‘democratic’ are totally absent from the Declaration of Independence. This is not an accident. The intention of Zionism was not to bring democracy, needless to say. It was solely motivated by the creation in Eretz-Isrel of a Jewish state belonging to all the Jewish people and to the Jewish people alone. This is why any Jew of the Diaspora has the right to immigrate to Israel and to become a citizen of Israel."-Ariel Sharon, May 28, 1993 edition of Yedioth Ahronoth.

Jeff Halper, American Israeli, co-founder and coordinator of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and Professor of Anthropology, explains:

"An ethnocracy is the opposite of a democracy, although it might incorporate some elements of democracy such as universal citizenship and elections. It arises when one particular group-the Jews in Israel, the Russians in Russia, the Protestants in pre-1972 Northern Ireland, the whites in apartheid South Africa, the Shi’ite Muslims in Iran, the Malay in Malaysia and, if they had their way, the white Christian fundamentalists in the US-seize control of the government and armed forces in order to enforce a regime of exclusive privilege over other groups in what is in fact a multi-ethnic or multi-religious society. Ethnocracy, or ethno-nationalism, privileges ethnos over demos, whereby one’s ethnic affiliation, be it defined by race, descent, religion, language or national origin, takes precedence over citizenship in determining to whom a county actually 'belongs.'

In interviews with Jeff Halper, during my trips to Jerusalem, he informed this citizen journalist:

"Israel has no constitution but has a Declaration of Independence which promised that Israel would abide by conditions and UN resolutions. They have not fulfilled the agreement which was the basis of their independence.

"Tony Blair said 70% of all the conflicts in the world can be traced back to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. What gives us hope is that as this conflict worsens maybe Europe will figure out that American policies are against their interests and intervene...This conflict impacts the global community and especially everyone in the USA.

"If we do fix this conflict it would be a tremendous step forward in global reconciliation...This whole issue is based on Human Rights and it is a global issue requiring global intervention.

"It has been said that the Israelis do not love this land, they just want to possess it. There have been three stages to make this occupation permanent. The first was to establish the facts on the ground; the settlements. There are ½ million Israeli’s and four million Palestinians here. They have been forced into Bantustan; truncated mini states; prison states. It is apartheid and Bush and Hillary are both willing collaborators.

"In 1977, Sharon came in with a mandate, money and resources to make the Israeli presence in the West Bank irreversible. The second stage began in April 2004 when America approved the Apartheid/Convergence/Realignment Plan and eight settlement blocs. This is just like South Africa! The Bush Sharon letter exchange guaranteed that the USA considers the settlements non-negotiable. The Convergence Plan and The Wall create the borders and that is what defines Bantustans. Congress ratified the Bush plan and only Senator Byrd of West Virginia voted no and nine House Representatives.

"Israel has set up a matrix of control; a thick web of settlements guaranteed to make the occupation permanent by establishing facts on the ground. Israel denies there is an occupation, so everything is reduced to terrorism. It is our job to insist upon the human rights issue, for occupied people have International Law on their side.

"Israel is not a democracy, it is an ethnocracy: full rights to Jews, but not Palestinians."

http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1566&Itemid=228

Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"

Attack the critics -- well known Zionist strategies....eg. when they say Israel has committed war crimes, with OUR weapons, paid by you (Americans):

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-0422-terris-20100421-10,0,1480687.story

Attacking Richard Goldstone

Personal attacks on the man who investigated the Gaza conflict by defenders of Israel are wrong.

Daniel Terris

April 21, 2010 | 9:21 a.m.

The worldwide Jewish community can be thin skinned about criticism of the policies of the state of Israel, but the vitriol reached a new low last week. After members of the South African Jewish community threatened to disrupt the ceremony if he attended, Justice Richard Goldstone, author of a controversial United Nations report on the conflict in Gaza, canceled plans to attend his grandson's upcoming bar mitzvah ceremony in Johannesburg.

The Goldstone report, released in September, concluded that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the conflict in Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009, and that both had deliberately targeted the other side's civilian population in attempts to achieve their goals. It recommended criminal investigation and possible prosecution of those found responsible.

It is completely appropriate for critics to scrutinize, question and discuss the facts and conclusions of the Goldstone report. Intellectual and political dispute is deeply woven into Jewish learning, tradition and communal life, and the welfare of the state of Israel rightly engages the deepest passions of the Jewish people.

But prominent critics of the report quickly made the leap from debate to invective. Israeli President Shimon Peres called Goldstone "a small man, devoid of any sense of justice." Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School called him "a traitor to the Jewish people." An Israeli minister and numerous blog posts have labeled him an anti-Semite.

And now this. Threats that his grandson's bar mitzvah would be disrupted if he attended have forced Goldstone to make the agonizing decision to stay away from one of the sacred milestones of his grandson's life.

One leading rabbi explained the feelings of members of the South African Jewish community to the Center for Law and Justice: "[T]hey believe he put Israel in danger, and they wouldn't like him to be getting honor" by being called to the altar as part of the bar mitzvah ceremony. Goldstone clearly felt that after seven months of personal attacks, he could not put his family through yet another ordeal.

This is a man who courageously challenged apartheid in his native country two decades ago; who helped build the first international war crimes courts since Nuremburg; who last year won the MacArthur Foundation Award for International Justice; and who has served on the board of governors of Hebrew University. Goldstone currently chairs the advisory board of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University, which I direct.

This incident did not come out of the blue. And it is not just about one man's family occasion or about the content of one United Nations report. It grows out of a climate in which defenders of Israeli government policy have increasingly resorted to personal attacks on the government's critics. Jewish leaders around the world should decry the kind of personal attacks Goldstone has endured and speak out more forcefully against those who resort to personal attacks in an attempt to delegitimize Israel's critics.

It is especially important that those who disagree with the Goldstone report make clear their opposition to such personal attacks. Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York, who has led the opposition to the Goldstone report in the U.S. Congress, should be commended for his letter of outrage to the South African Zionist Federation. Others should follow suit.

Preventing Goldstone from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah isn't standing up for Israel. Labeling Jewish critics of Israel as traitors or anti-Semites isn't standing up for the Jewish people. Such steps are instead a brand of hatred that represents a direct assault on Jewish values of tradition and justice and conscience.

Daniel Terris is director of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998125,00.html

Monday, Oct. 09, 2000
Talking Out of School
By DOUGLAS WALLER;Matt Rees/Jerusalem

Martin Indyk's career as a U.S. diplomat has been bizarre, to say the least. "He's like a made-up person," marvels a colleague. An Australian who once worked for his country's intelligence service, Indyk caught Bill Clinton's eye in 1991 while heading a pro-Israel think tank in Washington. He became a U.S. citizen only 10 days before being named Clinton's top Middle East hand on the National Security Council. Two years later, he became the first Jewish-American ambassador to Israel. Then came a stint as Assistant Secretary of State for the region and a second round as ambassador to Israel. Indyk worked hard, ruffled feathers along the way and moved fast in the high-octane world of Middle East diplomacy.

Fast and perhaps loose, it now turns out. Late last month, Indyk's boss, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, suspended his security clearance after State Department security agents accused him of sloppy handling of classified documents for the past five years. The FBI has been called in to probe allegations that Indyk improperly took classified material home, talked about sensitive subjects in his car within earshot of his Israeli driver and typed confidential reports on an unclassified laptop computer. State Department sources say Indyk was warned months ago that he was violating regulations but that he allegedly continued to flout them.

Indyk is not accused of passing secrets to foreigners. He maintains that he "would never do anything to compromise" U.S. national security. Friends insist he did only what many ambassadors must do to cope with brutal schedules and constant demands from Washington: cram in work at home and during car rides.

Any other time, Indyk would probably have received a lighter administrative penalty. But Washington is in the grip of security paranoia. After the FBI's bungled espionage investigation of government nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, the Administration is eager to show it is not singling out Asian Americans for security violations. Albright, under fire from Congress for lax safeguards at the State Department, was not about to give Indyk just a slap on the wrist. Besides, relations between the two had grown chilly because of clashes over how the U.S. should deal with Iraq. "So she's hung Martin out to dry," complains a former U.S. diplomat.

Indyk is now like a lawyer disbarred. Practically every government document a diplomat touches is classified, so without clearance, the ambassador can do no work. Indyk cannot even walk around the State Department or his own embassy without an escort. Israeli officials fear his absence will damage the Middle East peace process, in which he was intensely involved. Prime Minister Ehud Barak considers him a trusted conduit for exchanges with Washington. Albright defends her decision. "Ambassadors have a responsibility to protect classified documents," she told TIME. But the crackdown could make doing their job more difficult.

--By Douglas Waller. With reporting by Matt Rees/Jerusalem

This always confused me; how can a country that declares itself a haven for a specific racial or religious group call itself a democracy? Someone commented earlier some stupidity about "citizens of Israel getting to vote and non-citizens, regardless of ethnicity, not", like that fact somehow proves Nadim is wrong. Well we already knew that part, but when you call somewhere a Jewish state you kind of already know who's ever going to become a citizen don't you?

The best defense Israelis and/or Zionists have been making here is that no country on earth is a true democracy; there's racism in some form everywhere. Well we know that too, and don't deny it (I'm an Egyptian and let me tell you there's a lot of racist idiocy going on here), but why do your posts give me the feeling that you think you're better than the rest of us lowly humans? The results certainly aren't showing it.

And I said it was the best defense made - but I didn't say it was a very good one either. While almost all countries still are picky about who they can call citizens, almost all these countries have been around for centuries in some form or another, and therefore have a lot of historical and tribal rivalries to deal with. You, Israel, didn't - 90 years ago there wasn't a trace of a country called Israel. That wasn't an insult, just a statement. and going on that, it meant you had what very few countries had: a chance to start over completely anew and with a clean slate, slowly incorporating yourselves into your new land (no matter all that muck about who gave it to you and who had a right to), making an arrangement with the existing populace that benefits all concerned, and working relations with your new neighbours. It doesn't matter what race I am to say this; you really had a shot to be that Promised Land you're so proud of, and you blew it at the first hurdle.

If all this still doesn't register, then I'll make it simple: replace in every single statement the Israeli media has made, the word 'Jewish' with 'Aryan' and it still would make sense. Just because you haven't actively tried to wipe out a whole race yet doesn't mean you're on the right track.

It's amazing how difficult it is to have an intellectual discussion on the issue of Israel in the U.S.! The fact that Palestinian citizens can vote does not make Israel not racist. The fact that there is only Jewish and not Israeli nationality in Isareli law is the root of the problem. You could indeed have a Jewish state and it could be democratic, IF the meaning of Jewish was not ethnically specific and thus exclusive. Sorry but you really can't have it both ways, at least not under conditions of modernity.

I think Tony Judt is right--Israel is an anachronism. But more importantly, the idea that Israel is a "Jewish" state is a case of half-real, half-delusion. That there are Palestinian citizens in Israel makes the notion of a "Jewish state" the expression of a wish. When you take a wish for ethnic exclusivity that doesn't actually exist (even partially) and make that into law then you have apartheid.

And I fully agree with the writer who said, "Not on my dime."

Why don't the Jews give Palestinians full citizenship rights?

They talk a lot about "democracy", "Western values", "liberalism" etc. but it all seems to be mere talk with a forked tongue.

The New Jews of Eastern Europe seem to be staunch religious fanatics and lovers of Apartheid in every which way they can. Very creative racists I must say.