BECK: Israel, ¿A democratic State?
Cold war value: bulwark to constraint the Soviet influence in Middle East. The West support it because of that.
Now, even though western countries claim it relations with Israel are based in common and share value, the fact is that because of the crimes commited to palestine, we cannot call it like that
Today's reason to keep relations with Israel is the fact the country is the only democracy surrounded by autocracies in the area
Freedom House have always labeled it as a democracy
Then. ¿Why isn't it a democracy?
Lots of scholars are studying this aspect and certainly one of them,Ilan Pappe, outline that one of the constituents of democracy is TOLERANCE to minorities living in the country. Regarding this aspect, Israel has failed.
Discussion: Why Israel is not demicratic
Smooha: Israel is not a western style democracy but an Ethnic democracy
Palestinians are still discriminated and "somehow" represed
Though, Palestinians have full access of democratic political rights
Controverted point of view
Problems with the application of democracy definition
Democracy definition is somehow arbitrary and if scholars deeply analyze all available politcal system, then almost all of them can hardly be recognized as democracies. Cause all of them cause some kind of discrimination againts minorities groups.
That is why they prefer to label Israel as a democracy
Definitions are not meant to be true or false but useful and apropiate. A thin or thick concept of democracy depends on the aims of the study
When speaking about Israel, a thin definition is more usefull
Evidently, Israel conquered Palestinian territories between 1940 and 1967, the fact that it include the population on the Israeli political system, change the image
the annex and the fact that people of this area did not had citizenship rights
Key element to differentiate ethnic democracy from fully founded democracy
East Jerusalem intergated into Israel polity
Though, Israel has refarined full citizenship rights to all iinhabitant of Jerusalem in clear violation of democratic values
Also, the ocupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip would only not violate democratic standards if the occupation were temporary
However the 15 year colonozation of East Jerusalem and west bank + the 10 year occupation of Gaza make the "temporary assumptio" lacks legitimacy
Because of that Israel can be defined as a "flawed" democracy, tehnic democracy and democracy state not well grounded