[Asafp]

Almost none of what you wrote above is true, no idea how is this a top comment. Israel is a democracy. Netanyahu's trail is still ongoing, the war did not stop the trails and until he is proven guilty (and if) he should not go to jail. He did not stop any elections, Israel have elections every 4 years, it still did not pass 4 years since last elections. Israel is not perfect, but it is a democracy. Source: Lives in Israel.

[mouveon]

Israel is so much of a democracy that netanyahu is prosecuted by the ICC court since almost a full year and still travels everywhere like a man free of guilt

[thyristan]

Prosecution is not equal to being guilty. In fact, during prosecution, he is still presumed innocent, only a trial that comes after the prosecution can find him guilty. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a basic tenet of jurisprudence, even in many non-democratic societies. For a democratic society, it is a necessary condition.

That Netanyahu still walks free is a consequence of a) Israel not being party to the ICC, therefore not bound to obey their prosecutors' requests and b) the countries he travels to not being party to the ICC either or c) the ICC member states he travels to guaranteeing diplomatic immunity as is tradition for an invited diplomatic guest.

c) is actually a problem, but not one of Israel being undemocratic, but of the respective member states being hypocrites for disobeying the ICC while still being members.

[wrasee]

Prosecution isn’t actually the issue, the ICC have issued an arrest warrant for him.

“All 125 ICC member states, including France and the United Kingdom, are required to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they enter the state's territory”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_a...

[thyristan]

Same difference. The arrest warrant was issued by the ICC prosecutor as part of his prosecution. The arrest warrant was not issued by an ICC judge after having reached a "guilty" verdict. In any case, the states you name are under category c), they should arrest him but don't. Still not an issue of Israel being undemocratic whatsoever.

[chgs]

How is that related to the method of selecting the government of Israel?

[Thorrez]

Isn't that how most people who are being prosecuted behave, except those for whom the judge imposed a travel restriction?

[lostlogin]

The ‘war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts’ sounds like something that warrants locking someone up pending trial as a matter of safety.

If he isn’t guilty, defend the charge.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court...

[Thorrez]

Oh, there's an arrest warrant for him. That's different from what I had thought. I thought he had been arrested and released on bail pending the outcome of a trial, which is quite common in the US.

Does he "still travel everywhere"? The article mentions him travelling to Hungary and not being arrested despite Hungary having signed the treaty. The article doesn't mention him travelling anywhere else.

[e-brake]

I question the legitimacy of the ICC, considering their impartiality and failure to take action against Hamas

[wrasee]

Except they have. They issued an arrest warrant for Mohammed Deif, the Hamas military commander who if arrested would almost certainly stand trial.

Of course that won’t happen now since Israel got to him first.

[thrance]

Israel is an apartheid state, many people living there can't get citizenship. Everything you call democratic there is not, then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_apartheid?wprov=sfla1

[DiogenesKynikos]

Israel is a democracy (albeit increasingly authoritarian) only if you belong to one ethnicity. There are 5 million Palestinians living under permanent Israeli rule who have no rights at all. No citizenship. No civil rights. Not even the most basic human rights. They can be imprisoned indefinitely without charges. They can be shot, and nothing will happen. This has been the situation for nearly 60 years now. No other country like this would be called a democracy.

[thyristan]

Afaik those 5 million Palestinians are not Israeli citizens because they don't want to be, and rather would have their refugee and Palestinian citizen status. There are also Palestinians who have chosen to be Israeli citizens, with the usual democratic rights and representation, with their own people in the Knesset, etc.

And shooting enemies in a war is unfortunately not something you would investigate, it isn't even murder, it is just a consequence of war under the articles of war. In cases where civilians are shot (what Israel defines to be civilians), there are investigations and sometimes even punishments for the perpetrators. Now you may (sometimes rightfully) claim that those investigations and punishments are too few, one-sided and not done by a neutral party. But those do happen, which by far isn't "nothing".

[McDyver]

It makes sense that people don't want to become citizens and legitimise the entity occupying their country and committing genocide, no?

> In cases where civilians are shot (what Israel defines to be civilians), there are investigations and sometimes even punishments for the perpetrators.

Obviously Israel doesn't consider children to be civilians

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gd01g1gxro

[thyristan]

> It makes sense that people don't want to become citizens and legitimise the entity occupying their country and committing genocide, no?

I can accept not wanting to be part of that. But in that case, whining about missing democratic representation is just silly, of course you won't be represented if you chose not to be, no matter the reason.

> Obviously Israel doesn't consider children to be civilians

You seem to assume that all children are always civilians, but that is wrong. The articles of war don't put an age limit on being an enemy combatant. If you take up arms, you are a legitimate target, no matter your age. Many armies use child soldiers, and it is totally OK to shoot those child soldiers in a war.

[McDyver]

I assume children queuing for food are not soldiers. Yes, yes I do.

If they are killed while they are in uniform and holding a gun during a gunfight, then they are soldiers.

[reliabilityguy]

> legitimise the entity occupying their country

What’s country? Palestine never existed as independent country.

[McDyver]

Exactly, what's a country?

Israel never existed either, until it was administratively created in 1948. Maybe it shouldn't have been created where other people were already living?

[reliabilityguy]

You started with “occupying their country”. Can you tell me what country is that?

[sva_]

> committing genocide

I've been hearing this for as long as I can remember, yet the population numbers tell a completely different story. It makes no sense to speak of a genocide if the birthrate far outpaces any casualties. In fact, the Palestinian population has been growing at a faster pace than Israeli over the past 35 years (that's how far the chart goes on Google)

[McDyver]

Ah, OK. So, in that case they can be killed, but just in a culling kind of way, is that it? Your children can be killed as long as you keep making them?

[reliabilityguy]

How do you propose to fight an asymmetric war?

Genocide requires intent, not just a number of dead. If you judge by the numbers only, then US committed many genocides in the past 50 years.

[tim333]

It tends to be in a defensive or retaliatory way rather than culling. Like things largely peaceful October 6th Hamas kill 1200 Israelis, rape, hostages etc. Israels amazingly enough hits back. Hamas: "help! genocide!"

[lostlogin]

So genocide hasn’t happened if the population grows?

‘Just adjust the frame of measurement. With this one simple trick, you can remove any genocide.’

[thyristan]

https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%2078/v78... PDF page 289ff (numbered 277).

> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

> (a) Killing members of the group;

> (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

> (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

> (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

> (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The tricky part isn't about (a) to (e), it is in "intent to destroy".

[7sigma]

Palestinian citizens in Israel do not have the same rights as the Israeli Jew, with more than 50 laws discrimination against them. They also face systemic discrimination and also you cannot marry between faiths, all the hallmarks of apartheid. Initially Palestinians within the Green lines were also under military occupation and only after 80% of the other Palestinians were either massacred or ethnically cleansed, so it was basically a forced acceptance. Israeli policy has always been to have a an ethnic supremacy for Jews, so the representation in the Knesset is tokenistic at best. If Israel decides to expel Palestinians in Israel, there's nothing they can do, its the tyranny of the majority.

Palestinians in the West Bank do not have the option of becoming Israeli citizens, except under rare circumstances.

Its laughable that when you say that there are investigations. The number of incidents of journalists, medics, hospital workers being murdered and even children being shot in the head with sniper bullets is shockingly high.

One case is the murder of Hind Rajab where more 300 bullets were shot at the car she was into. Despite managing to call for an ambulance, Israel shelled it killing all the ambulance crew and 6 year old Hind Rajab.

Another example is the 15 ambulance crew murdered by Israel forces and then buried.

Even before the genocide, the murder of the Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was proved to have been done by Israel, after they repeatedly lied and tried to cover it up. Another case was this one, where a soldier emptied his magazine in a 13 year old and was judged not guilty (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/16/israel2)

The examples and many others are many and have been documented by the ICC and other organisations. Saying that it's not nothing is a distinction without a difference

[reliabilityguy]

> and also you cannot marry between faiths, all the hallmarks of apartheid.

Marriage laws have nothing to do with apartheid, a system that uses race to differentiate peoples.

There are plenty of countries where marriage is done on religion basis and there is no civil marriage at all. What does it have to do with Palestinians?

[7sigma]

Because it is imposed by a a colonial population on the native Palestinians in order to maintain a jewish majority in the ethnostate.

[reliabilityguy]

> Because it is imposed by a a colonial population on the native Palestinians in order to maintain an ethnic majority.

So, the jews who fled from pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe to Ottoman Palestine in 1900s are colonizers? I thought that people whole flee violence are refugees. Why do you have a different standard for them?

Jews that moved to Ottoman Palestine, btw, were buying land from locals. Are you saying that buying land is an act of colonialism if jews are doing that?

Why are you twisting the facts to fit your narrative?

[xdennis]

> with more than 50 laws discrimination against them

List them.

> you cannot marry between faiths

Which law bans this. C'mon show it.

> Palestinians in the West Bank do not have the option of becoming Israeli citizens

Because they're a different country, remember?

[7sigma]

> List them. - Citizenship and Entry into Israel lay (2003), denies the right to acquire Israeli citizenship to Palestinians from occupied territories even if married to citizens of Israel - Absentee's property law, which expropriates the ethnically cleansed palestinians in 1948 - Land Acquisition for Public Ordinance, which allows state to confiscate Palestinian land - Jewish Nation state law that stipulates that Jews only have the right to self determination

There's actually 65 apparently https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/7/19/five-ways-israeli-l...

> Because they're a different country, remember?

They are being occupied illegaly for decades, remember? by a supremacist ethno state, remember?

[reliabilityguy]

> which allows state to confiscate Palestinian land - Jewish Nation state law that stipulates that Jews only have the right to self determination

Similar law exists in Palestinian Authority -- no land can be owned by Jews. Selling land to jews is punishable offense.

> They are being occupied illegaly for decades, remember?

Who? You have to be specific.

> by a supremacist ethno state, remember?

Israel is not supremacist ethno state. Multiple ethnicities live in Israel and have the same rights. Find me another state in the Middle East that offers at least the same rights as Israel to its own minorities.

[kgwgk]

> Israel is a democracy only if you belong to one ethnicity.

There are over two million Arab citizens of Israel. What ethnicity do they belong to?

[SiempreViernes]

The one that mysteriously don't fit in the bomb shelters https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20250624-arab-israel...

[Y_Y]

I've lived in several "top-tier" democracies and had limited or no voting rights because I wasn't a citizen. I don't think this is unreasonable (or unusual) from a definitional perspective.

A country who government was chosen by its inhabitants could be quite different. I know many states allow voting from abroad, but my home country doesn't and nobody ever questions its democratic credentials.

(I make no comment on the justice or long-term stability of the system in general or specifically in Israel, that has been done at length elsewhere.)

[DiogenesKynikos]

Your comparison is absurd. We're not talking about small numbers of recent immigrants without citizenship. We're talking about 5 million people (out of only about 14 million living under Israeli sovereignty) whose families have largely been living in the same place for hundreds of years.

They live their entire lives in a country that refuses them citizenship, and they have no other country. They have no rights. They're treated with contempt by the state, which at best just wants them to emigrate. They're subjected to pogroms by Jewish settlers, who are allowed to run wild by the state.

This isn't like you not having French citizenship during your gap year in France. This is the majority of the native population of the country being denied even basic rights. Meanwhile, I could move to Israel and get citizenship almost immediately, simply because of my ethnicity.

[Y_Y]

Pardon me, but I think you may have mistaken my point.

I agree entirely with your first two paragraphs, except that I don't feel I'm making any comparison or absurdity.

I'm not talking about extended holidays. I don't like giving much detail about my own life here, but I didn't get automatic citizenship in the country of my birth due to being from a mixed immigrant family. I have lived, worked, and studied for multiple years around Europe and North America. I've felt at times genuinely disenfranchised, despite paying taxes, having roots, and being a bona fide member of those societies.

All that said, I never had to live in a warzone, and even the areas of political violence and disputed sovereignty have been Disneyland compared to Gaza. This isn't about me though!

I am merely arguing that Israel can reasonably be called a democracy by sensible and customary definition which is applied broadly throughout the world. I don't mean I approve, or that I wouldn't change anything, I'm just trying to be precise about the meaning of words.

(I think your efforts to advocate for the oppressed may be better spent arguing with someone who doesn't fundamentally share your position, even if we don't agree on semantics.)

[thrance]

No, Palestinians are citizens, simply second class ones with less rights and more duties. It would be like if you were born in a "democracy" but weren't given some rights because of who you were born to. It's obviously very different from being a tourist in another country.

[Y_Y]

Citizens of Israel, under Israeli law? Some are, but most are not. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel )

They're certainly humans worthy of rights and dignity, citizens of the world, and most are citizens of the (partially recognised, limited authority) Palestinian state. But I think it's clear what we are talking about, that the Israeli state is "democratic" in the sense that it has a conventional (if unfair) idea of who its population/demos is, and those are the people eligible to vote for the representatives at the State level.

The situation you describe actually did happen to me, and many others in states without jus soli which are nonetheless widely considered democratic. This is typical in Western Europe, for example.

[reliabilityguy]

> No, Palestinians are citizens,

They are not though. They are citizens of PA, where they vote and pay taxes.

Israeli Arabs get full citizenship like any other ethnic/religious minority in Israel.

[thrance]

Israel does not recognize the Palestinian state, ergo all Palestinians are considered permanent residents of Israel, but not given any right, which is the issue.

[reliabilityguy]

> Israel does not recognize the Palestinian state

Israel does recognize Palestinian Authority.

> ergo all Palestinians are considered permanent residents of Israel

Palestinians are not permanent citizens of Israel. And they are not considered ones.

Why do you invent things that are easily verifiable online?

> but not given any right, which is the issue.

They have all their rights within Palestinian Authority!

The issue is that Oslo accord were not finalized and military occupation never ended.

[tim333]

In Gaza the Israelis have tried to give them independence - the Palestinian Authority in the 1990. In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza but the locals elected Hamas in 2006 which is dedicated in it's charter to the destruction of Israel which makes it hard to live peacefully as neighbours. You can't really have it both ways unless you have a lot of military power. Either independence and live peacefully as neighbours or attack the neighbours and be at a state of war.

[wrasee]

If you have no idea why this is the top comment then that explains so much. You say you live in Israel, I wonder how much of the international perspective cuts through to your general lived experience, outside of checking a foreign newspaper once in a while? I doubt many even do that.

Almost everything you said is technically true, but with a degree of selective reasoning that is remarkably disingenuous. Conversely, the top comment is far less accurate but captures a feeling that resonates much more widely. Netanyahu is one of the most disliked politicians in the world, and for some very good and obvious reasons (as well as some unfortunately much less so, which in fact he consistently exploits to muddy the water to his advantage)

From a broad reading on the subject it’s obvious to me why this is the top comment.

[Asafp]

You think I live under a rock? I probably know more than you. I wrote facts, while you talk about "capturing a feeling". This is a top comment for the same reason people think AIPAC controls the USA or why the expulsion of Jews from Spain happened [1]. The fact that Netanyahu is disliked around the world (and even by me and many of my friends) does not change the nature of Israel being a democracy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Jews_from_Spain