Comment by slowin
4 days ago
Israel was created by ethnically cleansing Palestinians during the Nakba. That's not a democracy, ethnically cleansed Palestinians aren't even allowed to live on their land, let alone vote. That's not including all of the Palestinians that have been straight up murdered.
In addition Israel is an apartheid state with many undemocratic features:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/66a134337e960f229da81...
This is not the definition of democracy. You just invented something. Which is cool but is not relevant.
People in Gaza who are indigenous to Palestine cannot vote in elections occurring in Palestine. That's not a democracy.
Now you are also inventing history. People in Gaza voted to elect Hamas in 2006. Since then the PA didn't held an elections.
What it has to do with Israel?
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> ethnically cleansed Palestinians aren't even allowed to live on their land, let alone vote
America was a democracy while we were exterminating our native population. Democracy is a system of government. Voters can democratically vote for terrible things.
Israeli Arabs are allowed to vote.
> Israel is an apartheid state
This is a valid argument, though still stretched–America didn't cease to be a democracy while we occupied Germany and Japan.
Murdered people can't vote. People forced off their land and over an artificially created border can't vote. Israel is no democracy.
> America was a democracy while we were exterminating our native population.
I would argue that it was not for the very same reasons (and of course there were many other classes not allowed to vote at the time). Killing someone robs them of their right to vote.
> Murdered people can't vote. People forced off their land and over an artificially created border can't vote
Sure. But this also describes a lot of well-accepted democracies' histories.
Perhaps you're thinking of a liberal democracy?
> would argue that it was not
Sure, according to a personal definition that countries cease to be democracies any time they go to war (or more narrowly, commit war crimes), Israel is not a democracy...
> there were many other classes not allowed to vote at the time
Most democracies also prohibit children and non-citizens from voting. The term you may be looking for is full democracy. And I think most people and experts agree Israel is not a full democracy [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
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By the way, the word "Nakba" is linguistically related to the Shoah, a.k.a. The Holocaust. If they admitted the Nakba happened they'd be admitting they did a Holocaust, so they don't admit that.