On 28 May 2001, at 20:32, Dan Minette wrote:
> > Ibrahim wrote:
> > > On Tue, 29 May 2001, Andrew Crystall wrote:
> > >
> > > > Only one democracy has even declared war on another
> > > > Democracy. Israel.
> >
> > > Israel a democracy? Thats stretching the commonly accepted
> > > Western definition a wee bit.
> >
> > On what do you base that conclusion? Just wondering, as I'm a
> > Westerner, and Israel's government has always been accepted as
> > "democratic" (acknowledging that it's really more of a republic then
> > a pure democracy, like all other "democracies") in the sources I'm
> > familiar with.
> >
> I think the fact that voting privileges are somewhat race based. I
> don't think that's enough to declare it not a democracy, because the
> Arabs who live in Israel can vote. Where the asymmetry comes in is
> the fact that Jewish settlers in the West Bank can vote, but
> Palestinians cannot. So, it is a democratic country semi-permanently
> occupying another country. It will settle that country, but it cannot
> annex it while staying a democracy.
EVERYONE within Israel can vote. Jews, Arabs, everyone else.
Mind you, certain minorities don't serve in the armed forces, but
that's another story entirely.
However, much of the west bank is called occupied teratory
because it is just that, occupied, as Israel never formally anexed it
(as they did Gaza and East Jerusalem). The fact that the residents
of those regions cannot vote is one of the great Isralie social issues
which has never been resolved, and there are dozens of nearly as
pressing social issues behind it.
Israel is still a young society, but one that needs to get round to
fixing some of it's problems, and soon. That's not to say it dosn't
have it's advantages, and it does, but it is deeply divided on many
cruial issues like the entire schooling system....
Andy
Dawn Falcon
