🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <26138@life.ai.mit.edu> gwydion@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Basalat Ali Raja) writes:
>One cannot help but ask...  Israel is the only democracy in the middle
>east?  How many of the Palestinians whose very lives and destiny are
>directly controlled by the Zionist government in Jerusalem have had a
>chance to vote against or in favour of this government?

Every one within Israel's borders is the answer (the WB and Gaza are not
annexed to Israel).  There are 8 Palestinians out of 120 in the new   
Knesset (by my count), and 2 Druze; Israel's population (not counting
the WB or Gaza) is roughly 16% Arab, so this is a slight under-
representation, but not by much.  A significant fraction of the Arab
population (I don't have exact figures) voted for Meretz and Labour, the
two leading parties in the new government; further, both of the Arab
parties voted against a no-confidence measure filed against the
government last week.

>Spare me the lawyer's answers, that these people are immigrants, or
>refugees or whatever.  They have been there for generations, in many
>cases much longer than their Jewish neighbours who CAN vote.  And yet
>you claim that Israel is a democracy?  Only if you accept as a
>corollary that the Palestinians are not human.  Will you do that?

Unfortunately, there is no evidence to back up your position.  Please
spare us your propaganda and falsehoods.

-- 
"How sad to see/A model of decorum and tranquillity/become like any other sport
A battleground for rival ideologies to slug it out with glee." -Tim Rice,"Chess"
     Eric S. Perlman 				 <perlman@qso.colorado.edu> 
  Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, University of Colorado, Boulder