Nate Silver should stop calling Israel a democracy

Today on WNYC, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight described Israel as a democracy (rebroadcast from Dec. 21), right alongside the US and Britain.

We had pretty good polling in 2012, but in the 2014 midterms the polling was not great. In other countries there have been problems, in other democracies like Israel and the United Kingdom. So there definitely is reason to worry when it’s getting harder and harder to contact people by phone.

Silver should be aware that Israel’s governing coalition is all Jewish parties, under coalition-building guidelines driven by Israel’s “security” needs that exclude Palestinian parties. The government has only once had a coalition that included Palestinian parties and that was considered weak, it didn’t last long.

Palestinians make up 20 percent of Israel’s population of 8 million, but are not represented in the government. So the Israeli system is reminiscent of the American system in the South in the 1960s and earlier, when black representation was kept at a minimum.

In the picture of Netanyahu’s cabinet from last May, above, everyone is a Jew, with the exception of one Druze politician.

The makeup of the government is why some people call Israel an ethnocracy. Government lands are controlled for the use of Jews, the immigration policy discriminates in favor of Jews, barring Palestinians who once lived in the country; and there are many other laws that make Palestinians second-class citizens.

And yes, all democracies are flawed, but what makes the Israeli claim especially dubious is that the Israeli government rules another 5 million or so Palestinians in the occupied territories who haven’t had elections in nearly ten years and cannot vote for the government that controls their lives. Altogether, the number of Jews and Palestinians under Israeli rule are roughly 6 million and 6 million; but again, only Jews are in the government (with the exception of the Druze deputy minister of regional cooperation).

By the way, Silver’s website Five Thirty Eight blew the Israeli election last year– in sharp distinction to Nate Silver nailing the American election in 2012.

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Of, by, and for European Jews exclusively from day 1 to the present, who rule over, not with, all others in and beyond its borders.

Sidenote, have you guys seen this?

http://en.institutomanquehue.org/publications/commentary/brazil-cancels-contract-israeli-security.html#sthash.uoSEfvwZ.sfju

Seems the Israeli/Brazilian conflict is growing every day.

When suggesting that Israel is not a democracy it is useful to take a glance around the world we live in, continent by continent, and check; (a) which country comes even close to the democracy`s definition and (b) if it does how it compares to Israel in this regard.
It kind of provides a better appreciation of what Israel has managed to keep, in conditions that are immensely harder than most countries in the world face.

Adi Ophir, professor of philosophy, Tel Aviv University: “…the adoption of the political forms of an ethnocentric and racist nation-state in general, are turning Israel into the most dangerous place in the world for the humanity and morality of the Jewish community, for the continuity of Jewish cultures and perhaps for Jewish existence itself.” (1998 issue of “Theory and Criticism,” published in Israel)

Ronnie Kasrils, key player in the struggle against the former South African apartheid regime, minister for intelligence in the current government and a devout Jew: “The Palestinian minority in Israel has for decades been denied basic equality in health, education, housing and land possession, solely because it is not Jewish. The fact that this minority is allowed to vote hardly redresses the rampant injustice in all other basic human rights. They are excluded from the very definition of the ‘Jewish state’, and have virtually no influence on the laws, or political, social and economic policies. Hence, their similarity to the black South Africans [under apartheid].” (The Guardian, 25 May 2005)

“Former Foreign Ministry director-general invokes South Africa comparisons. ‘Joint Israel-West Bank’ reality is an apartheid state” EXCERPT: “Similarities between the ‘original apartheid’ as it was practiced in South Africa and the situation in ISRAEL [my emphasis] and the West Bank today ‘scream to the heavens,’ added [Alon] Liel, who was Israel’s ambassador in Pretoria from 1992 to 1994. There can be little doubt that the suffering of Palestinians is not less intense than that of blacks during apartheid-era South Africa, he asserted.” (Times of Israel, February 21, 2013)

Shlomo Gazit, retired IDF Major General: “[Israel’s] legal system that enforces the law in a discriminatory way on the basis of national identity, is actually maintaining an apartheid regime.” (Haaretz, July 19, 2011)

“…EU broadside over plight of Israel’s Arabs”
EXCERPT: “The confidential 27-page draft prepared by European diplomats… [shows] that Israeli Arabs suffer ‘economic disparities… unequal access to land and housing… discriminatory draft legislation and a political climate in which discriminatory rhetoric and practice go unsanctioned.'” (The Independent, Dec. 27/2011)

The U.S. State Department’s report on International Religious Freedom: “Arabs in Israel…are subject to various forms of discrimination [and the government] does not provide Israeli Arabs…with the same quality of education, housing, employment opportunities as Jews.”

Was the censoring of a short note, asking what’s the point of saying a Zionist “should” stop calling the Zionist entity a democracy, according to the published rules –the same ones allowing reams of Zionist propaganda? Just asking.