[gumby]

You can’t get a visa to KSA if you are Jewish, no matter where you are from. Used to be you couldn’t get one if you wrote “Atheist” either. Then again they don’t have tourist visas (though isn’t that what a visit to Mecca is?)

> Luckily this nonsense hasn't spread to Europe and North America for the most part.

Umm, you have it backwards: there are people still alive who were subject to such rules in the Europe and North America (famously up into the 1940s, but also through 1990s in Balkans at least) and there are large numbers of people trying to revive such rules, some of whom are in governments (e.g. Hungary, Poland, Austria, USA...)

[bhouston]

Isn't Israel denying voting and movement rights to millions of people within its formal borders merely because of the religious/ethnic identity of those individuals?

I could have sworn that is what the BSD movement is all about...

The Middle east is full of countries that act backwards. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, to name just the worst...

[linkmotif]

People say Israel withholds Palestinian voting rights in the occupied territories, but that's simply not true since the Oslo Accords. Palestinians aren't Israeli citizens. They can vote in PA elections, and do, when they have elections. Except the PA rarely has elections but that has nothing to do with Israel or the occupation.

Israeli Arabs, like all Israeli citizens, can vote in Israeli elections, and do. Israel is the only place in the Middle East Arabs regularly vote.

[sshumaker]

The Palestinian Territories aren’t within Israel’s formal borders, and it has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity. There are 1.7mm Israeli Arabs (20% of population, 90% are Muslim) who vote and have representation in government.

[Cyph0n]

But Israel occupies a large portion of the Palestinian Territories and maintains settlements throughout the occupied lands.

As the saying goes, Israel wants to have its cake and eat it too.

[reitanqild]

IIRC Israel has been willing to negotiate about those areas for a permanent peace.

So far I think Egypt is the only neighbouring country that isn't formally at war with them anymore.

Given those circumstances I kind of understand why they wont give away anything gor now.

[Cyph0n]

> why they wont give away anything gor now.

Nobody said that. A good start would be to cease construction of new settlements on illegal land. I am sure many neighboring countries would see that as a move in the right direction.

> So far I think Egypt is the only neighbouring country that isn't formally at war with them anymore.

That is false. None of the Middle Eastern countries are "at war" with Israel. On the contrary, some countries like KSA has begun trying to normalize relations with Israel, which is something many of its citizens do not agree with.