Which countries in The Middle East are more democratic than Israel?

John Gold,

Now is your chance to set the record straight.

Ok so Iran fiddled the election results last year,but so did your beloved Israel with the elections in Gaza just because they didn't like the outcome.

Please speak to some Israeli Palestinians as I have about their experiences of Israeli democracy. How they are only permitted to buy a fraction of property compared to their Jewish fellow citizens.
Spending on Palestinian Israelis education is a fraction of the Jews and they are forced to be taught the Jewish version of history which is false. Surely in a Democracy they have the right to learn history the way they want.

They are not allowed to marry Jews. For me this is the worst and really shows Israel at its worst.

Israel can't even begin to be taken seriously as a democracy when you consider that of the 4 million Palestinian they control in the west bank and Gaza none have any say in the running of Israel This is not Democracy.It is ethnocracy.

Norman Finkelstein is right. Israel is a lunatic state

eisner, you post is a defamation of the Jewish people. Iran slaughtered hundreds in the streets, and pro-democracy protestors were tortured in their hundreds in prison after the demonstrations were put down.

No such thing happens in Israel, which has free and fair elections. If you think it does, you are simply a propagandist liar. Finklestein also said that Jews talk about the Holocaust to make money. He is an antisemitic pig. That you admire him says a lot about your psychosis.

eisner, when did the Israeli controlled areas of Judea and Samaria have a population swell to 4 million?

Ignorant trash.

Eisner, the Jacob Brafman of the JC blogs strikes again.

For anybody who does not understand the reference, Brafman was a Jew who despicably slandered his own people in a loathsome publication in Tsarist Russia about 1860 that in many ways foreshadowed the Protocols.

Amber, I think Tom Brafman needs to check himself into the Weizmann Institute. With all the medical breakthroughs the Institute has made in the service of humankind, they might be able to devise a cure for his hate-filled delusion.

Tom,

Are you unable, or just unwilling, to answer the questions that I have posed?

when did the Israeli controlled areas of Judea and Samaria have a population swell to 4 million?

Amber I wrote that the Palestinian population of Gaza plus the west bank totals 4 million. Israel controls them but not democratically.

By the way I am pleased to tell all you Zios that we have just been outside our local Waitrose demonstrating against them selling products from Israel as part of the general boycottof Israeli products campaign. Most people coming to do their shopping supported us. There was only one person who objected.

tomeisner2
4 million eh?, not 14 million or 40 million?
The actual figures provided by UNRWA in conjunction with The Palestinian Central Bureau Of Statistics,(the clue is the word "Palestinian", in other words they provide/make up their own figures).
Are:-
Judea and Samaria - you persist in calling that region "The West Bank", population of Palestinian Arabs is 2,350,583 with an annual growth rate of 2.5%.
Gaza, population of Palestinian Arabs is 1,416,543 with an annual growth rate of 3.8%.
So, I make that a total for both areas 3,767,126.

so, tomeisner2, if you want to quote figures, it might be a good idea to do a bit of research first.

BTW I have just come back from a bit of shopping at Waitrose, I didn't see you there.
Let me know which Waitrose you go to and I will be more than happy to come and object next time.

3,767.126 or 4 million more or less the same. the point being is that although they are completely under Israeli control they don't enjoy the benefits of Israeli democracy.

Only Jews need apply.......

This is the Israel that the ignorant and malevolent would boycott, the nation which makes breakthroughs such as this:
Optical radar could bring sight to the blind | News | The Engineer
www.theengineer.co.uk

So far, nobody has been able to profer a country in the Middle East that is more democratic than Israel.

Yet, Israel incites hatred whilst the dictatorships attract no criticism. Such a perverse reaction to the real world is unfathomable. One can only conclude that Israel's detractors have such appalling double standards that they are unable to make a serious contribution to the debate.

Or perhaps Israel's enemies are admired because they are... Israel's enemies?

Garbage eisner - missed out those living in the Palestinian Authority - which isn't a democracy. Perhaps the Palestinians could get their own democracy established rather than castigate Israel because it refuses to lay down and die to the Jew haters.

eisner, the Palestinians in Gaza do not live under Israeli so-called "occupation". Israel left in 2005. More garbage.

eisner why don't you answer the question posed - which countries are more democratic than Israel?

And do you condemn Hamas, which advocates the extermination of the Jews?

Let us imagine the following, Hamas inspired, scenario:

(1) all the Jews leave Israel and return to their various homes in Yemen, Ethiopia, Libya, Egypt etc where they are welcomed.
(2) there is a unified Palestinian State.

Would it be democratic?
Would there be a free press?
Would homosexuals be at liberty?
Would the prisons be empty?
Would torture be routine?
Would Tel Aviv be governed like Tehran?
Would it declare war on Jordan and Egypt?

I wonder.