The West frequently praises Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East, it is essential

that we question the scope of this democracy.

Though a true democracy encourages participation from the members of the eligible
population, the Israeli Knesset, which is the only legally governing body in Israel, does not meet
this requirement. During the last national election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated
that the Arabs are voting in droves after being bussed in from left-wing NGOs. These tactics
sound eerily familiar, as they have the same goal as those employed in the Jim Crow south to
prevent minority and marginalized groups from voting in order to maintain the status quo.
Essentially, Netanyahu is not encouraging political participation but discouraging it,
working against Arab citizens, often of Palestinian descent, who are simply trying to exercise
their natural and democratic right to vote.
Unfortunately, Arab citizens have the better end of the stick when compared to other
Palestinians under the sovereignty of the Israeli Knesset. Although Arab citizens face
discrimination when exercising their right to vote, they are guaranteed a certain set of political
rights.
Other Palestinians that fall under Israeli control are not quite as lucky 1 in 3 people living
under Israeli rule, including Israel Proper, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza does not
have the right to vote, and that person is almost always Palestinian.
Though their Israeli neighbors have the right to vote, over 250,000 Palestinians in East
Jerusalem are not eligible to do so as they were only given residency status when Israel
annexed the area in 1967. A little over 3,000 have since applied for and received citizenship, but
it remains that the vast majority of Palestinians in the region were stripped of their political rights
after Israeli annexation.
Similarly, while the 325,500 Jewish settlers in the West Bank have the right to vote, the
nearly two million Palestinians living in the West Bank do not.
Though Palestinians are affected daily by the policies of Israeli occupation their land,
they have no representation or voice in the formation of these policies.
According to Gordon Levy, an Israeli journalist, Four million people, in the besieged
Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, can perhaps vote for their community council, the
Palestinian Authority, but they cant participate in the real game, the one that seals their fate. For
decades, their fate has been determined much more in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv than it has in
Ramallah or Gaza. Their freedom, livelihoods, health, education, lives and deaths are
determined in a place in which they have no status or rights.
Democracy is not designed to allow the privileged to implement policies convenient to
their end goals onto others without their consent. Democracy is meant to take input from those
affected by government decisions to make sure the state is putting in place policies that benefit
the majority of the people, not only the few.
While Israel claims it is the only democracy in the Middle East, it obviously has a long
way to go.