1. How could a country call itself democratic when it oppresses millions of people inside its borders. Was South Africa a democracy during the Apartheid era? Was American south a true deomcracy before the civil war and during the slavery period? I don’t think anybody would dare call any of those systems a democracy. I am struck each time I hear Israel being called a beacon of democracy in the middle east. Until such time that Israel leaves the occupied territories according to the UN conventions, and stops building apartheid-style 7 meter tall Berlin Walls complete with checkpoints it can’t be considered a true democracy. No country can be a democracy while oppressing another nation residing in the lands it has occupied by force. A system where only a percentage of the population are entitled to democracy and another group has to live in walled “Bantustan” style communities in abject poverty and are considered less than human and have no civil and human rights can’t be considered a democracy by any measures.
When you drive a cat with its back to the wall, it will attack you with all its force if it thinks you really want to harm it. For him it is a struggle of life or death, it will try to defend its life by all means although it knows it is much weaker than you. You can't blame the cat in such a situation, you have to blame yourself by causing the circumstances that made it so ferocious. You have not left any other option for it. Israel can't blame the Palestinians for what is going on the occupied lands, it has to analyse what it has done wrong to Palestinians to bring them to acts of desperate terror. These Palestinians are not their fathers and grand-fathers, who were illiterate and submissive and could not stand up to a bunch of European and American colonialists invading their lands. They are now educated and can't be subdued like their forefathers. Israel has not yet grasped the immensity of this landslide change in a new Palestinian generation. The mentality of the Israeli rulers is still one of the European colonialists of half a centry ago, they have not accepted the sea change in Palestine population.
2. Jewish people used to be one of the most radical and mostly left-wing groups in western countries during 19th and early 20th century. Because they were oppressed they used to be open and accepting to radical left political ideas and at the vanguard of most revolutionary movements. A rather unproportional number of members of socialist and communist parties in the west always belonged to Jews. Just check the leaders of the German socialism or Russian socialist movement, or any left and unionist movement in North America. Israel brought an end to this proud heritage. Suddenly most jewish people anywhere turned into the most right wing and reactionary groups in their societies. It is sad to see these proud people supporting extra right groups like George Bush in US or Harper in Canada, just because they think it is their duty to support Israel. I ask why? Why you should sacrifice your idealistic and progressive opinions just because you feel obliged to support a government? Just because Israel is a government of the Jews does not oblige you to close your eyes to the tyranny going on there. Following that line of reason any citizen of any democracy should shut up and not utter a word against their own government because it is their national government?
3. Do Bahais demand a country because they are a distinct religion? Do Mormons demand a country of their own? Or Isamilis? Or Buddhists? What is the difference between those religions, or any other religion for that matter, and Judaism which entitles the Jews to claim a country of their own? And can a country established and based on one religion only be democratic at all? There will always be fundamental contradictions and discrepancies between adhering to the tenets of one religion and letting all different opinions and religions have their free say in such a system.
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