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Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey: Government. At least call it a government. Israel is a democracy with an elected government. By calling it a regime you are making a transparent value judgement. As a rule of thumb, the difference between a government and a regime is that a regime does not have the legitimacy of democratic government. Thus South Korea has a government, while North Korea has a regime. Of course, there are gray areas inbetween. I think it would have been fair to call South Africa a regime, and also Rhodesia in the Smith years, and Zimbabwe under Mugabe. That's because they have the trappings of democracy without the reality of a universal franchise. Israel, on the other hand, has both the trappings of democracy, and the reality. There are Arab Moslems with Israeli citizenship, Christians with Israeli citizenship, as well as Jews with Israeli citizenship. They all get to vote, and their votes are all counted. Therefore, it is proper to call the elected government of Israel a government, not a regime. |
Simey,
Another well-reasoned post. However, IMO I will consider Israel to be a fully "democratic" government when those 762,000 Palestinian refugees are allowed to return to their homes and land given the same rights as Israeli citizens.
Of course, the "government" of Israel has no intention of ever allowing this to happen because then the European Ashkenazi Jews that control the country would be a minority and could be outvoted in a democratic system. On top of that, a lot of them would have to give up the lands and homes that they stole ... or at a minimum pay compensation.
In my view, the Arab Israeli citizens are being used as tokens by the European Jewish "majority" to give the appearance of democracy ... when the reality is that the government is a lot more similar to the apartheid regime of S. Africa ...especially when considering its activities in the Occupied Territories and other policies with respect to the sale of land to non-Jews, etc. .... than most in the West would like to believe.
OAW