It's not about democracy. If it were, we wouldn't have overthrown countless democratically elected leaders throughout South America during the 20th Century.
Our elected leaders constantly attempt to expand their own power. To maximally punish whistleblowers. Our election system is ran by a duopoly who exerts extreme power over those voicing alternative views and opinions.
About democracy, it is not.
Let's say it was though. What gives us the right to blow other countries off the face of the planet? Are we somehow so much better than everyone else because we believe we're democratic? We don't even rank in the top 10 most democratic countries. We throw more people in jail than China. Per capita AND total overall. We throw more kids in jail than any other first world country [0].
Surely, democracy does not automagically lend to treating people fairly. We have enough problems in our own damn democracy to worry about. Crazy to be starting wars to "help" someone who never asked for it. Forcing violence upon those who never consented is absolutely abhorrent.
Whose fault is that? The US and Russia have propped and warred every angle to extract as much oil as possible. The instability maintains a heavy flow of refugees into Europe, destabilising the freedoms they have there and pushing the politics further right.
The sudden switch yesterday from "they can't make nukes" to "they're a fortnight away from ICBMs" felt a little too reminiscent of Iraq twenty years ago.
If we want a stable Middle East, we have to stop bombing the shit out of it, and invest. Negotiate fairly for resources. Offer them a future. And demand Israel stop committing war crimes.
It can be simultaneously true that Iran is sitting on a huge pike of precursor materials for nuclear weapons, and is not currently actually making bombs. Last week she was emphasising the latter, now she’s emphasising the former. Disingenuous? Sure.
Trump and his people are children in the back of a car that found mummy’s gun in her purse. They have no idea what they are doing. I understand what Israel is doing but the US administration are clueless and rudderless.
I don’t think you understand what you linked to. That is about government census forms that track ethnicity, same as any other country. Nationality here doesn’t mean citizenship, but rather something closer to “tribe.”
Some well meaning citizens said “I want to check Israeli rather than Jew, Druze, Arab, etc.” Except Israeli is not a nationality in this sense. Nor is Jewish, on this form, a religious identification. It is a way of tracking, for census reasons, something closer to ethnicity. Not for nefarious purposes, but just to track demographics.
That is a very dishonest interpretation not only because the national registry is not a mere question of census but of identity, but because the Supreme Court clearly outlines that it in black and white that it is about the question of Jewish supremacy.
from the article:
> the court explained that doing so would have “weighty implications” on the State of Israel and could pose a danger to Israel’s founding principle: to be a Jewish state for the Jewish people.
- There is only one Israeli citizenship. Jews have it. Israeli Arab Muslims have it. Israeli Arab Christians have it. Druze have it. It's the same.
Is there discrimination, in all directions? Yup. The world is a tribal place.
But you should move on from that "tiered" thing. I live here. I have been doing a project with Arabs for the last two weeks. We have lunch together most days. Move on.
- Constitution -- You clearly have not read the constitutions of Syria, Saudi Arabia, or many other countries. Ethnic groups are all over the identities of most of the world's countries.
- Automatic citizenship - How narrow do you define this? African Americans can go to Liberia and other countries of Africa. Until just twenty years ago or so anyone with a German grandparent could automatically get German citizenship. If you are Cuban you can get American citizenship. Are you thinking this through?
- NPT, I am not sure anyone cares, but this is very different than your other topics.
> But you should move on from that "tiered" thing. I live here. I have been doing a project with Arabs for the last two weeks. We have lunch together most days. Move on.
As convincing as your lunch anecdote is, I'm not sure you're can hand waive away the problem so easily.
A March 2010 poll by Tel Aviv University found that 49.5% of Israeli Jewish high school students believe Israeli Arabs should not be entitled to the same rights as Jews in Israel
An October 2010 poll by the Dahaf polling agency found that 36% of Israeli Jews favor eliminating voting rights for non-Jews
A 2012 poll revealed widespread support among Israeli Jews for discrimination against Israeli Arabs, including 33% of respondents believing Israeli Arabs should be denied the right to vote, 42% objecting to their children going to the same schools as Arabs, and 49% "[wanting] the state to treat Jews better than Arabs"
I live here. In places like Jerusalem, Jews and Arabs are together all day, every day. 40% of the police officers in Jerusalem are Arabs.
What is your problem?
Why do you selectively omit the polls of Arabs and Palestinians... about lots of things.... (attitudes to Jews, support of violent Jihadist groups, etc etc)
If you want peace, push for peace.
If you want violence and blood, keep doing what you are doing.
My problem is that Isreal is killing innocent people every day and I want them to stop it. Their horrible record of human rights violations is undeniable.
So I'm sorry if this colors my view of Israelis treatment of non-Jewish people within Israel and makes polls like the one's I cited easy to believe. But you're right I don't live there so I don't know the ground truth.
> If you want peace, push for peace.
That's exactly what I want. How do you suggest I push for it then? Because from where I sit, a good start is to be critical of (or at to least stop supporting) the biggest perpetrator of civilian death on the planet.
1. You have to define 'Israel' quite carefully to make it work. Palestinians in East Jerusalem cannot vote in Israeli elections. Is East Jerusalem part of Israel or not?
2. There are several other democracies in the Middle East, for example Iraq and Lebanon.
3. Some of the countries which aren't democratic, would be democratic, except that representative governments were overthrown by the United States, in part to enforce cooperation with Israel, against the wishes of most of the people in the country. For example, Egypt.
East Jerusalem is ... not a nut anyone here is going to crack.
What do those folks want for themselves? Be part of the Palestinian Authority? (Not the ones I have been doing a remodel with.) Make them part of Jordan?
Jerusalem is disputed territory. That makes it an uncomfortable mess, for more or less everyone.
The region needs more efforts toward peace, and less black and white, good/bad labeling.
East Jerusalemites are in limbo waiting for peace.
You seem to believe “democracy” is some kind of magic spell or something? This “democracy” just perpetrated and are continuing to perpetrate the worst kind of wanton and sadistic genocide in full view of the world and are doing it in high definition and with impunity. America is supposedly also a democracy and we just in fact bombed a place objectively without any provocation, in violation of our own supreme law, and being utterly counter to American interests, because an alien and foreign interest group has a stranglehold on America.
Democracy is not some magic word that justifies things
Israel, the democratic country whose prime minister appears to be deliberately prolonging the current conflict in Gaza and starting a new war with Iran to avoid facing corruption charges?
> Support for Israel extends beyond religious justifications
Yes, it extends that support to cover apartheid colonial occupation, more-than-likely genocide by all the accepted definitions, and the usual smattering of targeting civilians, executing paramedics in marked ambulances and ethic cleansing.
Hamas has started in on the 7th of october 2023, effectively rolling back years of negotiations done by Yasser Arafat. Where do you think they've got the weapons from? Netanyahu is no better, but they offered him the perfect motive for a response.
> Where do you think they've got the weapons from?
Ultimately, from the United States taxpayer. Who supply the Egyptian military government, who turn a small proportion over to the Islamists to keep them from too much rabble-rousing. Who smuggle them to Hamas.
Both Qatar and Iran supply money and other forms of support to Hamas. But no RPG makes it into Gaza (across a shorter than 10 mile border) without the Egyptian military sort of knowing about it.
