[rudimental]

You bring up some reasonable points.

Argue the case. If you just did, it’s not a convincing one.

First, note I didn’t say long term residents of America. Just Canadian or Mexican citizens in general (be they long term residents of the US or not).

You may say it’s different. Maybe. Then just talk about those that aren’t long term residents.

The point here is equally true of citizens of Armenia, Vietnam, anywhere else (and I would say those that reside in America long term, or not) that aren’t US citizens. If they can’t vote in US elections, how can we consider the US a democracy?

Is democracy a binary? If so, is America one, or not one? At least is it closer to being one, or not being one?

Is democracy a spectrum? If so, where is America on the spectrum? Close to pure perfect democracy, or on the opposite end, close to the complete opposite of that? Or somewhere in the middle? You say its lacking. Where is that on the spectrum? What other countries are near it?

These types of discussion often happen around abstract, nebulous concepts like democracy, justice, good. Generally when they aren’t defined well by any participants.

If your point is the US could be more of a democracy, maybe. But even more so, it could be much less of one.

[runarberg]

I see your point now, sorry I misunderstood.

There is a fundamental difference though. Canada and Mexico are sovereign nations with their own national assemblies recognized fully by the USA. The same can not be said about Israel’s recognition of Palestine.

But USA is not fault free here either, as it does not grant federal representation to a portion of its citizens living in certain districts and territories (including DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.) This is a pretty serious gap in its democracy as has been pointed out by these citizens and others.

Israel is actually infinitely worse here though, not only do Palestinians lack the rights to vote, but they also lack many other rights you would expect in a democracy. Such as the rights to a fair trial, the rights to your possessions, the rights to live without a threat of violence from the state, etc. So if it can be argued that the USA has lax democracy, then it is easy to argue that Israels democracy is seriously flawed.

[rudimental]

Being a sovereign nation with its own national assemblies fully recognized isn't required.

Israel recognizes the Palestinian Authority or the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the political body responsible for certain agreed upon things including Palestinian elections. They also recognize Hamas as the ruling political entity in Gaza (though I am not sure how formal that is).

My point is about non-citizens. Stateless or otherwise. Citizens of Israel, be they Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Baháʼí, Palestinian, Russian, American, French, whatever, (more or less as far as I know) can vote in Israeli elections. Non-citizens can't. Similar to the US.

You mentioned some situations in which in the US, citizens can't vote (for example those convicted of felony crimes). Presumably situations like this occur in Israel and other democracies as well - I know this about some places but not all.

To be perfectly clear - Palestinians lack the right to vote in Israeli elections if they are not Israeli citizens. Palestinians that are Israeli citizens have full rights to vote like other Israeli citizens. And the other rights assured to citizens of Israel. Are they always fully fulfilled? No. Like every other country. But generally yes.

Citizens of Mexico, Canada, Spain, Vietnam, Armenia, etc. lack the right to vote in American elections if they are not American citizens. Does this make America not a democracy? Or substantially less of one?

My point isn't really about the US, and is really about Israel.

You have to tacitly admit Israel and the US are democracies, to argue they are not perfect democracies (in your words "flawed").

[runarberg]

> You have to tacitly admit Israel and the US are democracies, to argue they are not perfect democracies (in your words "flawed").

This is a common logical fallacy. “You have to admit the existence God in order to not believe in him.” You could read my post as saying that: If Israel is a democracy, then it has a serious flaw. This is a value judgement on the state of democracy in Israel, not a simple binary: If Israel has democracy then Israel is good, otherwise it is bad.

Now, whether foreign citizen can vote in a country they do not reside in I believe this is misleading the debate. If I hadn’t misunderstood your original point I probably wouldn’t have engage at all. But since I am already engaged I might as well continue (sunken cost fallacy).

Both the Mexican and the Canadian governments have full (or near full) control of their own territory, the same can not be said about the Palestinian Authority as their territories are constantly being encroached on by Israel settlers, sometimes with the permission of the Israeli authorities, and always without their interference. There is also the “puppet” nature of the Palestinian authority. In 2006 when the “wrong” party won a majority, they were promptly invaded by the Israel Military. That doesn’t sound very sovereign to me. There is no world where the USA military would invade Mexico after they would elect a government which the USA didn’t agree with.

No, Mexican relations to USA is not remotely comparable. That is unless you consider Palestine to be a completely separate and autonomous from Israel, which I kind of doubt.

[rudimental]

The context of this thread is fruitful. Someone claimed Israel isn’t a democracy - that “Israel may be considered a democracy, but only for the so-called "chosen people"" (they almost certainly mean for Jews / Jewish people).

They make other spurious claims as well.

I do not believe I am committing the logical fallacy you refer to. I don’t know if that commenter is either.

I am not claiming democracy = good, and I am not claiming not democracy = bad.

I believe talking about non-citizens voting is perfectly useful and fruitful for understanding Israel as a democracy. I do not hear people complain, generally, about other countries not allowing non-citizens to vote in elections. That is the state of affairs for Palestinians that aren’t Israeli citizens. Non-citizens not voting. It may just be a double standard applied to Israel for various reasons. This happens.

As I mentioned previously, full sovereignty does not seem relevant to this point, nor does full control of territory. You keep bringing up Palestinian sovereignty and sovereignty in general, but I have yet to understand why you think it’s relevant to this discussion.

Is Spain not a democracy because of Catalonia? Ireland and the UK because of North Ireland, or Scotland? No, these aren't identical situations, and there are obvious differences - note the similarities instead of the differences.

If it relates to ethnic nationalism and citizenship - is Estonia a democracy? Is Hungary? Lithuania? Others in this list generally considered democracies?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return

[runarberg]

> You keep bringing up Palestinian sovereignty and sovereignty in general, but I have yet to understand why you think it’s relevant to this discussion.

What is relevant is that a huge group of people under the authority of a government have no representation in the government. This is the antithesis of democracy. The people of Palestine are under the authority of the Israeli government but have no say in that government.

This is the reason people often say that South Africa wasn’t a democracy until after Apartheid ended in 1994. The fact that Namibians living and working in Namibia still cannot vote in South African elections has nothing to do with it since South Africa has no authority in Namibia.

> Is Spain not a democracy because of Catalonia? Ireland and the UK because of North Ireland, or Scotland? No, these aren't identical situations, and there are obvious differences - note the similarities instead of the differences.

I don’t know why you are bringing this point up now, Catalonians have the same rights as other Spanish citizens, including the right to vote to the national assembly. British citizens in Northern Ireland can still vote in British elections as they are under the authority of the UK and have the same rights as other British citizens. The same does not apply to Palestinians living under the authority of the state of Israel. The similarities here—the fact that a significant number of people want to secede—are superficial in this context. In the case of Northern Ireland the similarities are even less relevant since the UK allows Northern Ireland to secede and join the Republic of Ireland if demonstrated in a majority referendum, Israel does not grant that right to Palestine.

Just to reiterate, what sets Israel apart from other democracies is that a significant part of people living under the authority of the Israeli government are not guaranteed the same rights and freedoms you expect from other democracies.

[rudimental]

You make some good points - the people we are referring to of Catalonia, Northern Ireland, and Scotland are citizens of Spain or the UK. Not that many Palestinian people we are discussing are citizens of Israel (though ~21% of Israeli citizens are Arab, and I keep bringing up those within that group that identify as Palestinian and are citizens of Israel). Those are some key points on which I presume we fully agree.

The situation does not make Israel much less of a democracy (arguably it does somewhat, sure - see below). To recap history you may be familiar with, the democratically elected representatives of Israel came to a series of agreements with the widely recognized representatives of the Palestinian people - these are the Oslo Accords. These agreements divided up responsibility and authority for different aspects of life and governance of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In the West Bank, per Wikipedia: “The Palestinian Authority was designated to have exclusive control over both security-related and civilian issues in Palestinian urban areas (referred to as "Area A") and only civilian control over Palestinian rural areas ("Area B”).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_National_Authority Area A and Area B contain 96% of the Palestinian population of the West Bank (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank#Palestinian_enclaves).

Note these agreements did not grant all Palestinians Israeli citizenship, Israelis Palestinian citizenship, or the ability for non-citizens to vote in elections of the other political entity.

Palestinians have the right to vote in Palestinian elections. Israelis in general do not have that right. I don’t think this characteristic makes Palestinian elections much less democratic.

Arguably the situation in Area C is a problem, and diminishes Israel as a democracy in some way (moving it from full democracy to a flawed democracy but still squarely a democracy). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_law_in_the_West_Bank_s... Specifically I am referring to Israeli citizens that are subject to large portions of Israeli law whereas Palestinians are subject to a combination of Israeli military law and some local laws based on Jordanian law. Is this what you are saying? Or is it broader, and relates to Area A and B as well? Possibly also Gaza, possibly other things too.

Anyway, per Wikipedia Area C houses 4% of the Palestinian population of the West Bank. To be clear, is this what you are referring to when you say “significant part of people living under the authority of the Israeli government are not guaranteed the same rights and freedoms you expect from other democracies”? Do you think that’s what the original commenter had in mind, or what they actually said with their comment? I think neither of those is the case.

Throughout the past decades, some Palestinians have applied for and been granted Israeli citizenship (especially those living in Jerusalem). Those people can vote in Israeli elections, like other citizens of Israel.

Do you consider Palestinian citizens of Israel to be part of the "people of Palestine"? All of the citizens of Israel of Palestinian origin have the ability to elect representatives to the Israeli government by voting in elections. They have representation in the government, the ability to form political parties, be judges and politicians, start businesses, etc., according to Israeli law which they can help shape as citizens in a democracy.

Non-citizens do not necessarily have all of these rights (or privilege or however you wish to characterize it). Similar to the US and many other democracies in the world.

Arab citizens of Israel (and non-Jewish citizens of Israel generally) are afforded the same rights in general under the law as other citizens of Israel, be they Palestinian or not Palestinian. Hence my original comment to the person that said Israel is only a democracy for Jews / Jewish Israeli citizens. It's just a democracy, in general, albeit with some issues (perhaps, as you are saying, like the US, and I would say likely in Area C of the West Bank but not related to voting in elections).

I could see how you could argue that if the US isn’t a perfect democracy. Would it be reasonable to then argue the US in fact not a democracy? Despite its flaws, most reasonable people would still consider the US a democracy (even if flawed), right? And they should do the same for Israel. As a non-perfect place, it deserves proportionate attention in the world stage to improve. Unfortunately it receives far beyond that much, for mostly bad reasons.

Israel is more or less a democracy, even if flawed, and it is in general such a democracy for all its citizens - Jewish and not-Jewish alike. Speaking of it otherwise, as the person I originally responded to did, leads to words being diluted of their usual meaning, helps to perpetuate animus, and contributes to an incorrect understanding of the world.