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Today's
Stories
February
3, 2004
Jordan
Green
Democratic Patronage in Northern New
Mexico
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
January
27, 2004
Steve
Philion
Ritter Was Right: My Exchange with
CNN's Aaron Brown
Daniel
Ellsberg
Leak Against This War: Expose the
Lies from the Inside
C.G.
Estabrook
Can George Ever Really be Elected
President?
Josh
Frank
Hot Coals in Vermont: Dean's Smoke
Screens
Greg
Moses
Racism 101 All Over Again
Gilad
Atzmon
Blood, Soil and Art
Mike
Ferner
"We're All Lied To": an
Interview with Bruce Cockburn in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
General Disorders of the Day
January
26, 2004
Sean
Donahue
The Toxic Career of Rand Beers: Kerry's
Drug War Zealot
Gary
Leupp
David Kay's Admission
January
24/5, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Shia: "Our Day Has
Come"
Laura
Flanders
State of the Conservative Union
Simon Helweg-Larsen
Enter Berger: Signs of Hope in
Guatemala
Dave
Lindorff
Ground Control to Maj. George
Susan Davis
The Birdwatcher Menace
Alexander
Cockburn
The Fog of Cop Out: McNamara 10,
Morris 0
January
23, 2004
Yonathan
Shapira
An Israeli Pilot Speaks Out
Standard
Schaefer
Italian Philosopher Giorgio Agamben
Protests US Travel Policy
Josh
Frank
In Defense of Polluters: Howard Dean's
Vermont
William
A. Cook
Rule by the Corrupt and the Capricious
January
22, 2004
Sam
Smith
Howards End?
Patricia
Koyce Wanniski
Lost in Space
Alexander
Lukin
Putin and the Clans
Katherine
van Wormer
Dry Drunk Confirmed: O'Neill's
Revelations and Bush's Mind
Forrest
Hylton
The Prisoner, the President and the
Mafia
January 19, 2004
Justin E. H. Smith
Inside
America's Prisons: From Corrections to Retribution
Richard W. Behan
The GOP, Inc.
Ray McGovern
Bush's
State of the Union: Humility or More Hyperbole?
Werther
SOTUS:
the Stalin Moment of America's Nomenklatura
Phillip Cryan
Media Collusion in Colombia's War
Lee Sustar
A New Strategy to Reverse Labor's Decline?
Arthur Versluis
Great Lakes as Commodity: Privatizing Water
Uri Avnery
Anti-Semitism:
a Practical Manual
Steve Perry
Fresh Crack from Hawkeye State
January 17 / 18, 2004
Fadi Kiblawi and Will
Youmans
The
Use and Abuse of MLK Jr by Israel's Apologists
Joshua Muldavin
and Joseph Nevins
Blaming the Symptoms
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bad Days at Indian Point: Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear
Plant
Brian Cloughley
Iron Hammers in Iraq
Saul Landau
Fog of War: Vietnam and Iraq
M. Shahid Alam
Lerner, Said and the Palestinians
Richard Manning
Food Poisoning as Background Noise
Marjorie Cohn
The Guantanamo Concentration Camp
Mike Whitney
Scalia and Opus Dei: Radicals on the Court
Sadik Kassim
Meet Our New Saddam: Islam Karimov
Carol Norris
Arnold
and Bush's Numbers Don't Add Up
Joe Quandt
Suicide
Bombers: The Clash of Absurdities
David Krieger
Imagining MLK Jr at 75
Bruce Jackson
Making War, Making Movies
Ron Jacobs
Revolution in the Air: a review
Richard Edmondson
Rupert Murdoch and My Sister
Richard Forno
Apologizing for Preemption: Evil, Perle and Frum
Poets' Basement
Holt, Mickey Z, Albert & Guthrie
January 16, 2004
Kathy Kelly
A Visit
to Umm Qasr Prison
William S. Lind
More
Thoughts on 4th Generation Warfare
Gillian Russom
So.
Cal Grocery Strikers Speak Out: "We Need Action!"
Ari Shavit
Survival
of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris
Adi Ophir
Genocide Hides Behind Expulsion: a Response to Benny Morris
Dave Lindorff
The General's Henchman: Michael Moore Smears Kucinich
Steve Perry
Iowa Death Trip 2
January 15, 2004
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo
to the President: Your State of the Union Address
John Chuckman
Dry
Hole in the Oval Office: President from Podunk Drilling, Inc
Chris Floyd
Mind Over Matter
Gil-Scott Heron
Whitey on the Moon
Gary Leupp
The
Silk Road: Random Thoughts on the Bam Earthquake and Satan
January 14, 2004
Greg Moses
Happy
Birthday, Dr. King: To Write Off the South is to Surrender to
Bigots
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Supremes: Amputating the Bill of Rights
Dave Lindorff
Preview of Iowa? Pennsylvania Straw Poll Spells Trouble for Traditional
Dems (and Dean)
Jason Leopold
O'Neill Claims Backed by Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz War Letters to
Clinton
Alexander Cockburn
Bush,
Oil and Iraq: Some Truth at Last
January 13, 2004
William S. Lind
How 2004
Looks from Potsdam
M. Junaid Alam
Do Iraqis Have a Right to Resist?
Mickey Z
Snipers:
No Nuts in Iraq
Adolfo Gilly
Chonchocoro:
The Prisoner and the Presidents
Steve Perry
You Love God, Right?
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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February
3, 2004
Most Israelis Don't
Believe It (or Support It)
The
Only Democracy in the Middle East?
By NEVE GORDON
JERUSALEM.
Anyone who follows the news has no doubt come
across the claim that "Israel is the only democracy in
the Middle East." Usually, this claim is followed by its
logical inference: "As an island of freedom located in
a region controlled by military dictators, feudal kings and
religious leaders, Israel should receive unreserved support
from western liberal states interested in strengthening democratic
values around the globe."
Over the years, some of the fallacies
informing this line of argument have been exposed. Whereas many
commentators have emphasized that foreign policy is determined
by selfish interests rather than by moral dictates, few analysts
have challenged the prevailing view that Israel is the only
democracy in the Middle East.
In order to examine this issue, one must
first determine Israel's international borders. Insofar as Israel's
borders extend from the Jordan Valley to the Mediterranean Sea
-- the de-facto situation for over 36 years -- then the state
of Israel currently consists of a population of over 9 million
people, 3.5 million of whom cannot vote.
De-facto, then, Israel is not a democracy.
One-third of the demos does not enjoy a series of basic rights
which make up the pillars of liberal democracies. The state
of Israel has existed for 55 years and has controlled the Palestinian
population in the occupied territories without giving them
political rights for two-thirds of this period. Accordingly,
the notion that the occupation is provisional or temporary
should, by now, be considered an illusion concealing the reality
on the ground.
If, however, one chooses to explore the
issue exclusively from a de-jure perspective, that is, from
inside the internationally recognized pre-1967 territories,
it is still unclear to what extent Israel is a democracy.
There is the question of 400,000 Jewish
Settlers -- seven percent of the citizenry -- all of whom enjoy
full citizenship rights but do not live in Israel proper. This
leads to a series of contradictions, not least the fact that
Israel is the only country in the world where government ministers
and parliament members live permanently outside its borders.
Even if one were to disregard this reality
as well and were only to take into account the six million people
living inside Israel proper, one would find an extremely tenuous
democracy. The contradictions that have characterized Israel's
policies in the occupied territories are now catching up to
the state, and their detrimental effects have become apparent
for all to see.
Consider a report just published by the
Israeli Democracy Institute (IDI), which like most other think
tanks (in Israel and abroad), conceives of Israel in the de-jure
sense, ignoring the de-facto situation. IDI examined several
aspects of Israel's democracy, and its findings suggest that
"over the last few years there has been a significant
decline in the Jewish population's support of democratic norms
on all levels: general support of the democratic system, support
of specific democratic values, and support for equal rights
for the Arab minority."
IDI found that only 77 percent of the
Jewish population supports the statement that "democracy
is the best form of government," the lowest percentage
(alongside Poland) among the 32 countries for which there is
available data. Over half the population (56%) is of the opinion
that "strong leaders can be more useful to the state than
all the deliberations and laws." Fifty percent concur that
if there is a conflict between security interests and the preservation
of the rule of law, the former should take precedence. And only
57 percent agree with the statement that violence should never
be used to attain political objectives.
More than half of the Jews in Israel
(53%) state that they are against full equality for the Arabs;
77 percent say there should be a Jewish majority on crucial
political decisions; less than a third (31%) support having
Arab political parties in the government; and the majority (57%)
think that the Arabs should be encouraged to emigrate. Not
only is the majority of the Jewish population against the provision
of equal rights for Arab citizens, half of the Jews are even
unwilling to face up to the fact that Palestinian citizens of
Israel are discriminated against.
Public trust in institutions has also
declined in recent years due to widespread corruption and a
lack of social cohesion. Yet, tellingly, the Israeli military
-- and not the legislature, courts or government ministries
-- is the most trusted institution.
Even if one were to stubbornly hold on
to the illusion that Israel exists only within the pre-1967
borders, one would still have to acquiesce that while democracy
may exist, it now stands on very shaky grounds. The great political
theorist Montesquieu taught us as much. In addition to his
well known claim that freedom can be secured only through the
separation of the legislative, judicial, and executive powers,
he asserted that if a regime is to maintain its form, the norms
and values held by a people must correspond with the regime's
basic principles.
The IDI report clearly reveals that even
within Israel proper the majority of the population no longer
believes in the basic principles of democracy -- equality and
freedom -- thus suggesting that democracy is in demise. If,
however, one faces up to the fact that Israel's borders reach
the Jordan Valley, then democracy simply does not exist.
Neve Gordon
teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University Israel, and can be
reached at neve_gordon@yahoo.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
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