🚀 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?
>
>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?

One can only help but ask, why do you still believe that Arabs cannot
vote in Israel.  The outcome of the recent election was determined by
the Arab vote.  All citizens of Israel have the same rights, Arab,
Cristains, Bahia, Jew, ect...  When Israel annexed E. Jerusalim (67) after the
war it made ALL locals citizens with the same rights as all other Israeli's.
Which by the way is more freedom than they had under Arab rule.  Most Arabs
in Israel vote for mainstream parties.  Perhaps they are not to thrilled about
being governed by their Arab brothers either.

The population of the WB doesn't get to vote in Israeli elections.  The WB
is not part of Israel, they are
not Israeli citizens.  The Palastineans were offered autonomy (the rights to 
determine their own future) in the 70's, they turned it down.  They stated 
their goal was to destroy Israel.  The PLO charter still calls for the 
destruction of Israel,  The PLO still refuses to accept local elections and
automony.   If the populaion of the WB wanted to determine there own future
they could, instead they CHOOSE violence.  A MAJOR issue in the peace process
is that the Palastineans want a standing army, and still have in
their charter that their goal is to destroy Israel.



>
Ron Feigen
ronf@panther.mot.com