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Should Israel Remain Democratic Even If that Would Ultimately Lead to it No Longer Being a Jewish State?
Perspective
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Israel can be both Jewish and democratic at the same time.
Pros
Cons
According to the Israeli Democracy Index 2013, a sizeable majority of Jews (74.8%) believe that the State of Israel can be both Jewish and democratic (
pg.8
).
Israel has no official state religion and maintains a system of
religious courts
for the Jewish, Muslim, Druze, and Christian populations. These courts have jurisdiction over cases such as marital issues, conversion, and appointment to religious leadership positions.
Religious and Haredi Jews have the two highest
fertility rates
of any demographic grouping within Israel. As a result, the Jewish demographic makeup of the country is unlikely to be challenged despite relatively high fertility rates among Arab Christians and Arab Muslims.
It is possible for a state to maintain an emphasis on certain cultural and religious values even as it maintains an equality of democratic civil rights for all. Israel is no exception.
Israel can
only be both
Jewish and democratic if it agrees to a two-state solution with Palestine. This is something that Israel is vehemently opposed to. Without a two-state solution, Israel must annex the Palestinian Territories instead. By annexing the Palestinian territories, Israel could remain democratic, but split roughly evenly between Jews and Arabs, and therefore no longer remain Jewish; or Israel annexes the territories, suppresses the rights of Arabs, and ceases to be democratic.
A 2014-2015 survey by
Pew Research Center
shows that Israeli Arabs generally do not think Israel can be a Jewish state and a democracy at the same time. This view is expressed by majorities of Muslims (63%), Christians (72%) and Druze (58%). Overwhelmingly, all three of these groups say that if there is a conflict between Jewish law and democracy, democracy should take precedence.
Israel should become democratic and stop their racist politics against Arab population. That's impossible to achieve while becoming a religious or ethnical state, those kind of states are non-democratic by definition.
