[quercusgrisea]

>There is not a single democratic govt in the ME sans Israel

The millions of Palestinians unable to vote for the government that controls their movement, trade, and lives in general would probably disagree with your characterization of Israel as a democracy.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Unfortunately, "democracy" doesn't mean "liberal democracy" and it certainly doesn't mean "nice democracy".

For instance, in the Athenian democracy women and metics (immigrants) couldn't vote and slavery was legal. In modern times, the USA, the model of modern democracies, has the largest military in the world (in history!) and does not hesitate to use it to crush lesser nations.

I wouldn't be able to tell you what "democratic" means exactly (I'm not a political scientist) but I susepect having elections without limits on who can vote and who can stand for office, having independent courts and the rule of law are important criteria and under those Israel sure checks out as a democracy. Its people are free. It just happens to keep crushing some other people, who are not its own people, under its heel.

[frenchyatwork]

I think what the GP was getting at was that having a sizable population of people living within the de-facto boundaries of a state who are unable to vote (in this case, because they lack citizenship) makes it less democratic.

That's a slightly different problem than the fact that democracies can be terrible if the voters choose terrible things.