we often here the claim that israel is the only true democracy in the middle east well, lets forget cyprus right off shore if usrael still i think the place to start is what comprises israel in their own view here is a map from the israeli tourist org http://www.goisrael.com/Tourism_Eng/Tourist Information/Discover Israel/Documents/MapOfIsrael1.pdf so it is pretty clear that the so called west bank and likely also golan are now part of israel not according to me according to israel so then the question becomes are the inhabitants of greater israel are entitled to vote as would be the case in a democracy? if not, why not?
For obvious strategic reasons, Israel and its uncritical supporters in the United States have long focused on presenting Israel as the sole bastion of democracy in the Middle East in order to attract continued political, military, and economic support from Western democracies by evoking a “people like us” sense of common identity and values.
there is no democracy in this world, only interests. how much Israel is democratic about voting, you can see on the example of Hamas when they won elections, Palestinians were isolated, blocked, so, they stayed without food, etc.
The middle east is an imprecise term and I think most Americans wouldn't include Cyprus if you asked them to list off countries that they considered to be part of the middle east. In any case America has been busy delivering freedom all over the region so one can no longer claim that Israel is the only democracy there. Perhaps they could make some claims regarding being the only government that doesn't have any form of Sharia law?
Cyprus is in the European Union. It is not in the 'Middle East'. The West Bank is not part of Israel. Golan is. The people who live in the Golan region have the right to vote. Hamas are in Gaza. NOT part of Israel.
