ISRAELI DEMOCRACY?

The claim that is made for Israel as the preeminent democracy in the Middle East.

I suggest you watch this video by Max Blumenthal (via The War in Context) not so much to confirm that some Israelis stand for universal human rights, or that there seem to represent so few, but for the behavior of the police you will notice at the end.

The evidence is not conclusive, but indicative of an authoritarian attitude. So is Israel the perpetrator of recent widespread overt violence in Lebanon and Gaza, not to mention persistent discrimination and other forms of structural violence, as illustrated by the “settlement program” and the exclusion of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, such a democratic country as we are led to believe?

As the person in the video commented, it is time for the rest of the world to save Israelis from themselves.

Is the Australian Labor Party listening? Probably not. Political operators may not see any inconsistency, given the paramount importance of political expediency, of the remnant Israeli Labor Party forming an alliance with a fascist party to be in the Likud Government led by “Mr Yahoo”.

In terms of representative government, Australian democracy is not such great shape either, but with less excuse.

POSTSCRIPT:

So what is with the clowns in the clip? A clue might be provided by Anna Brown via Common Dreams.

ELSEWHERE:

Despite the obvious pressures on Israeli democracy,such as the level of militarism and the behavior of the military in the West Bank, it seems to do better in allowing freedom of the press than others. For example, Glenn Greenwald observes:

According to Haaretz, a new poll in Israel finds that “only one in five Israeli Jews believes a nuclear-armed Iran would try to destroy Israel and most see life continuing as normal should the Islamic Republic get the bomb.” And that poll, for “budgetary reasons,” did not even include Israeli Arabs, who comprise 20% of Israel’s population. As Haaretz puts it, the poll “challenge[s] the argument of successive Israeli governments that Iran must be denied the means to make atomic weapons lest it threaten Israel’s existence.” As always, it’s striking how much more rational and open debates over Israeli security issues are within Israel as compared to within the U.S.

If true, why is it true?

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