Is Israel a Democracy?

Osamu Ichiyoshi

Tuesday, January 02, 2024

Religion and Politics

I once saw the Israeli ambassador to UN hoisted Old Testament to claim the land of Palestine for Israel.

The other day I saw a Jewish interviewee on Hard Talk in BBC World (satellite television) refuse the word

“ occupation” claiming the whole land of Palestine for Israel.

Do such ignorance and stupidity really represent the intelligence standard of Israeli government?

About a month ago, at midst of the atrocities inflicted by Israeli bombardment on Gaza, the secretary general

of UN commented “ People of Palestine have suffered under occupation by Israel for 75 years.” Then Israel

openly demanded resignation of the secretary general.

Do Israelis consider the Palestinians have enjoyed the occupation by Israel?

Palestine is the whole area between Egypt and Lebanon & Syria since ancient times. People living in Palestine

are Palestinians who are rightful owners of the land. The Israelis are now and were thousands of years ago new

comers to the land from some other world, originally from Sinai desert. This is a fact to be respected by Israeli

people.

Israeli fanatics claim the whole of Palestine (From River to River) belongs to Israel because the whole land was

given to the Jews by “God”. They claim the Jews is the sole nation “chosen” by the almighty God. The fact is quite

contrary. It is the Israelis that chose their God.

Whatever the old Testament says, it was a fabrication of, written by and for the sake of the Jewish people, hence

has no universal value. If the Jewish claims were allowed, then Japan could claim the whole world because our

ancient mythology tells we Japanese are descendants of heavenly gods.

Separation of Politics and Religion

Religion is a powerful means to rule the people to create political powers. Because of the above fallacies of state religion,

“separation of religion and politics” is established as the basic principle in modern states.

How established is the principle in Israel?

Religion and Science

Anything written by human beings is nothing but a fabrication that can be erroneous. The scientific method has been

developed based on this simple fact. In the following the religious and scientific methods are compared;

Religion; Do not doubt the authority, just believe the teaching, that is the law

Science; Doubt the authority, establish a hypothesis, make experiments, only proven is the law

The science and technology today is based on the scientific methods. Any religious fanatics eat food raised, are cured

by medicine, travel by vehicles developed by science and technology today.

Democracy

Modern democracy is based on modern science and technology. The anthropology in the Old Testament is groundless

except for the claim that all human beings share common ancestors. A simple calculation can prove this. Everyone has

2^n ancestors in n generations back. For n = 50, 2^50 gives about 10^15 ancestors! The real number a thousand years

ago must have been just 10^6 or so. Thus the correct statement should be “ All human beings are brothers and sisters.”

Israeli and Palestinians are much closer relatives compared with us Japanese.

The United States of America (USA) is the first major state without a King and government represented by the people

in modern age. It is not a coincident that great scientific and technical developments have been achieved in USA since

18^th century until today.

Democracy is based on the following principles;

(1) All human beings are born free and equal

(2) All human beings are guaranteed the fundamental human rights including;

Freedom of speech, thought, religion, meeting and uniting, activities for finding truths, etc.

Equality in election of government, protection by law, reception of social benefits and duties, etc.

(3) The state exists to protect the fundamental human rights of the people by rule of law.

How democratic is Israel?

How is the news media in Israel protected or self-educated for conveying truths to the people?

Every day and nights we see the atrocities in Gaza and West Bank inflicted by Israeli bombardments and military activities

by soldiers and violent settlers.

Do Israeli people view the same news and scenes; children, women and men being killed, maimed, evacuated from their homes

destroyed by the terrible bombardments? If they do, are they really human beings not to stand up to have their government stop

the acts of devils?

If they are not supplied with the truths, then the Israeli news media must be either defunct or the freedom of speech is

limited in Israel. Either way, I seriously doubt, Is Israel a democracy?

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