Keeponstalin,

Sure, if you ignore the discrimination and inequality of the millions of Palestinian citizens of Israel, on top of the millions within the Occupied Territories that have been under Israeli Military Control since 1967. If you ignore all of that, then your criteria of ‘how well government cares about its citizens’ could make sense.

Yet holding elections is not enough. Totalitarian regimes also engage in a process they refer to as “elections,” but this does not make them democracies. Democratic elections must reflect core principles such as equality, liberty and freedom of expression. These allow not only the act of voting itself, but also the free exchange of ideas and meaningful participation in shaping the future. Democratic elections must also ensure one vote for every citizen that is exactly equal to all others, and allow all citizens to run for office, present their platforms and work to further their agendas. Legal restrictions on voting and on running for office must be extremely limited, if at all permitted.

Roughly 5.5 million Palestinian subjects live in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967: about 3.5 million in the West Bank (including roughly 350,000 in East Jerusalem) and some 2 million in the Gaza Strip. None of them are allowed to vote or run for Knesset, and they have no representation in the political institutions that dictate their lives.

Your criteria doesn’t make sense, and ignores the reality of Apartheid. If you consider a democracy based on equality, liberty and freedom of expression, and also consider all aspects of the Apartheid Regime; Israel falls tremendously short of being a Democracy.

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