A broader variation on this question was the subject of a recent debate in Ottawa, Canada between American journalist Max Blumenthal and Mira Sucharov, a political science professor at Carleton University and frequent contributor to Haaretz and many other Jewish publications. Their debate focused on the question 'Can Israel be a Jewish and Democratic State?". It may be of some interest. The debate can be viewed here:

http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/public-record/episodes/33222491/

It is a curious democracy that maintains its existence by oppressing others. It is understandable that Israel, a country that many have vowed to exterminate would adopt an aggressive defence policy but a cruel irony that a state, born out of oppression and genocide would seek, not simply to defend itself but to savagely oppress others who seek autonomy.

In the 21st century the world cannot afford states built on ideas of exclusivity and oppression. There is nothing positive in a Jewish state or an Islamic caliphate, or for that matter a globalised corporate state.

While the world is divided into 'us and them' it will be world of violence and sorrow.

Israel will not survive if it does not moderate its stance regarding the allegedly indigenous peoples within its boundaries. Society is evolving as it must, and the recognition of the Palestinian authority on the world stage will elevate the status of the oppressed. The argument that Israel would not survive if it legitimizes the human and property rights of the Palestinian people, is not supported by history. The contention that the Palestinian people were not historically indigenous to the land is culturally prejudicial. The European concept of society was not the exclusive definition of civilization. If concessions aren't made soon, violence and sanctions will be disastrous for the nation.

I suppose that the current political leadership of Israel knows well that democracy and the occupation are not compatible. Still they cannot decide to withdraw from the whole West Bank and Gaza Strip, mainly because they don't know what will happen after that, for example, full realisation of the Palestinian right of return, backlash from the extreme rightwinger supported by the settlers, and so on. 

Dear Raphael,

My apologies to put this point bluntly across: what is the relationship between democracy and oppression? Do we really believe that a democratic country should not take up arms in offense?

The best we can level against Israel is not that it is undemocratic to pound innocent civilians in Gaza. The best that we should level against it is the impunity with which it undertakes disproportionately punitive campaigns against unarmed civilians. The IHL places utmost restrictions on bombing civilian areas recklessly, where the military advantage is miniscule. It even proclaims this as a war crime, even in cases of Non-International Armed Conflicts (NIAC), covered by the Ist and IInd Protocols.

There is just one catch. Someone has to move the UNSC to pass a resolution for international intervention to stop this excessive bombing, unilateral economic and humanitarian blockade, etc. In the current international order that all of us quite familiar with, who is going to bell this proverbial cat?

Let us also not forget the "barrel bombs" that Syria continues to use on its own citizens; the bleeding of innocents in Iraq under relentless attacks by ISIS; the erstwhile Taliban actions in Afghanistan; the killing fields of Nicaragua...the story is always the same.

We must feel happy that some semblance of awakening of international conscience has taken place in the form of ICTY, ICTR, Sierra Leone, Kampuchea, etc. But we are still far, far away from setting aside our political preferences and protecting innocent lives everywhere.

Have a great day! 

I found the subject very intersting and debate rich. The definition below posted by a certain Mr Miroslav Kolar, August 17, 2005  at http://www.whatisdemocracy.net/ gives a good snapshot of the subject debated here.

My point of view about the conflict taking place in the Middle East is that defense and/or protection against "ennemies" cannot justify (talking about human rights as defined in the UN) blind oppression of civil people, babies, childs and old people, etc.

A country who claims democracy, international laws, justice and rights can not use blind violence against civil people that not have any protection and take over territories without any impunity. I think the world today is very far from democracy as concieved by the greeks.

I invite you to read the article and have your own point of view about democracy - not the best one but it covers the main concepts i think:

Democracy by definition means the government by people. That means that all the people should be able to have their say in one way another in everything that affects their lives. Dictionaries usually say that this right can either be exercised directly (by every member of a community having the possibility to enter personally, without mediators, his position on a particular issue into the decision making process - modern technology is able to provide this possibility for increasingly larger and larger communities), or through representatives (members of legislative bodies). This second arrangement is then called Representative Democracy.

Representative democracy would be fine if the representatives would really make all their decisions only after consulting their constituencies. In the least, after having a clear idea about the views of their constituents on a particular issue, and trying to accommodate these views as best as possible (or postpone the decisions until an overwhelming majority of the constituents would be happy with them).

Unfortunately, a vast majority of countries that call themselves Representative Democracies are not true democracies according to the above definition. Most of them are actually just Elected Dictatorships. People can vote usually only once every four or five years. They do not vote on any issues. They just elect their so called representatives who then until the next elections have no obligations by law and little incentives to base their decisions on individual issues on the wishes on their electorate. They hardly ever bother to consult them on their stands on various issues. Therefore, legislative bodies composed of such "representatives" act in a very dictatorial manner between the elections. The only country that is quite close to the definition of Democracy is Switzerland (more or less since 1291).

Any governmental system is fine if the people subject to this system are happy with it. Perhaps, in most of the above described "Elected Dictatorships," such a system of government is still the best one under the current circumstances.

What do you think? Are you happy with is? Isn't it time to do better? It all should depend on you, the citizens - which system you prefer. Are you willing to give some of your free time to be interested in public matters, and to participate in decision making?

We would like to hear from the politicians of the so called "Representative Democracies" how in their view their activities satisfy the definition of Democracy.

We would like to discuss the interesting question of the Leadership. What is the role of leaders in a true Democracy?

We would like to contribute to the clarification of the meaning of the word Democracy.

You are invited to participate.

Miroslav Kolar, August 17, 2005

Politicians should be your humble servants, not your all-powerful masters.

There is a large and growing element of the population of Israel that do not have any tradition of democracy and while the country maintains a facade of elections and multi-party politics its government prefers the hardline stance of the dictatorship and pandering to powerful minority groups that make peace in the region impossible.

While the government does nothing to stop the building of illegal settlements on occupied territory the equally hardline so-called islamist parties will continue to call for the destruction of Israel in total.  

The rhetoric of the current war between Israel and its multiple opponents is not conducive to any settlement or a thriving democracy.  Israel claims a right to defend its citizens and no one would deny it that right but,  it cannot be a right to defend its citizens in taking actions that deny the rights of others.  Hamas claims a right to defend Palestinians but has hideously failed to do this by launching rockets at a regional superpower that it has no hope of defeating in war.  When both sides care so little about the lives of children it is hard to imagine that they care about abstract political philosophies such as democracy.

Many people in Israel want peace and democracy but the current government prefers to pander to the hardline, super-hawkish militants, many of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union who continue to occupy land seized in war and never conceded as being part of the Israeli state.  

What is disgraceful about this is the stance of the US and EU.  While castigating the Russian leader as a demagogue and enemy of democracy it offers support to an Israeli leader who behaves in exactly the same way.  

If one thing has been graphically demonstrated since the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq by the self-styled propagators of democracy it is that there is nothing so effective as a war to take the democratic rights from your own people, never mind those on the receiving end of the invasion.  The people of the US and the EU, especially the UK have seen constant war justify an ever deepening erosion of democratic rights that took centuries to establish.  Ironically this was all in the name of 'exporting' democracy to the Middle East.  

I think Democratic groups from each country (as you mentioned people who want peace - i would say even from countries that are currently in war over the world-),  who aim justice shall join their forces (whatever their cultures, religions, history are) to build something useful that changes the face of the world today. We cannot count on our govrnements to act for peace today. The economic, geopolitical and financial challenges/constraints have reached a level that none can control. I heard someone saying one day: I will never stop acting for justice because nasty people never get tired !

Weird that one could call Israel a "democracy" when it keeps on justifying its occupation of Palestine and its corollary effects of settlement expansion despite it being against all international laws.

Israeli policies are not decided by the Jewish democrats but the extremist Zionists in its midst. How on earth could one accept the incendiary remarks of some of its Parliamentarians who have time and again labelled Palestinians as not fit to live and should all be killed? There are also the peace-loving ones among the Jews who can see through this extremist agenda of the Israeli state and rightly have been involved in campaigns of awareness to mobilize world opinion to reject the genocidal mindset of successive Israeli regimes.

Another thing. is it proper of a democracy to reject UN resolutions every time it call upon it to act as in 242?

There are very few democracies in the world and many faux democracies.

Democracy requires that the people have a say over running the country. In most countries that call themselves democracies the people only get to chose which members of a political elite get to rule them. The political elite then decides what happens until another political elite is elected.

This is government by the minority or an elected dictatorship. The only hope for the people is that it is a benign dictatorship.

A significant part of of the population of Israel come from the former Soviet Union where democracy was a total sham. In spite of wishing to leave a militaristic dictatorship to go to Israel many of them took the mindset of the old regime with them and look to the 'strongman' as a leader. Netanyahu likes to accommodate them.

Sadly that mindset is common in the majority of states in the region where individual dictators or violent and oppressive ideologies prevent any move towards true democracy. It is impossible for Israel to be a proper democracy while it remains threatened.

Governments use the threats of real or perceived enemies to suspend normal democratic process and this has even happened in the US and Europe. It is quite ironic that the states with the ambitions to 'export democracy' to the Middle East have not only failed to do so at massive human cost but have actually reduced democratic rights in their own countries.

A democracy must be a pluralistic state in which different ideologies can flourish.  It is not possible for a state to be a democracy and have a single ideology or religion.  A state cannot be a democracy where certain groups within the society have privileges denied to others.

That Israel permits the building of 'Jewish' settlements on occupied territory and displaces Palestinians to do so means it can never be a true democracy.  Such a democracy would not permit what is effectively Apartheid.  

It is not possible for any state to be a democracy while it asserts an ideology as its basis.  Socialist states, those that called themselves 'socialist' permitted no other kind of government and in spite of sham elections (in which the ruling party always won) were not democracies. Islamic States cannot be democracies and neither can Jewish states or Christian states.  Such ideas belong to history and cannot be part of the modern world.

Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, a man of superb vision knew that the only way to modernise Turkey and to progress into the modern world was to introduce secularisation.  When all states abandon political or religious ideologies as the basis of their existence they can approach democracy.   

Hi dear. we know Between democracy and  the compliance of international law is a straight relation.The democratic governments   inherently obey  international rules and at least do not clearly  commit  international gross crimes such as aggression or occupation .In other words this two thing are not compromisable even..E.g Russia and Israel are the same

Yes, of course.

The four pillars of democracy are justice, equality, freedom and representation. If we are recognising Israel as a state, and if these pillars exist within the state, it can very well be a democracy. This definition doesn't take into account compliance with international law, or the state's position in international politics. If we recognise Israel as a legitimate state, it might be a democracy that violates human rights, or occupies another state. If we consider the occupied territories under this "recognised state"s rule, it wouldn't be fair to say there is justice or equality. Additionally, there isn't even freedom of movement or fair representation. Israel should first be a democracy in order to "remain" one. I recognise Israel as a state -which doesn't matter- but let's not forget that it is also an occupying force.

Thank you, Yusuf. Per your reasoning, would you then say that the USA was not a democracy when it occupied Iraq?

Before we enter the dangerous territory of tit for tat denunciations of individual democracies it might be worth considering that the least democratic political ideology of all time gained power through the ballot box. When putsches failed Wählt Nationalsozialismus succeeded!

That a country might be a democracy is no guarantee of its benign treatment of its neighbours or for that matter of its minority citizens.

There is not one democracy on the planet that has not been correctly sanctioned for human rights abuses. The UK and the US frequently violate human rights while maintaining a democratic system of government.  

It is perhaps not quite so simple to define democracy by reference to adherence to international law or human rights.

Can Israel maintain the occupation and remain a democracy? A number of aspects of this question are problematic. The question provides no legal definition of "the occupation". It states that Israel cannot  "remain" a democracy if it maintains the occupation. The only way to interpret this statement is that Israel is currently a democracy. I agree with Barry that whether a country is a democracy and whether it complies with international law are two separate issues. Democracy determines the leadershop of a country by every qualified individual having a vote. This should not mean majority rule. It is important in democracies that the rights of the minority are respected and quaranteed. Constitutional democracies guarantee the rights of minorities. In short, the question reminds me of the old prosecutors question " when did you stop beating your spouse?"

Another issue that has to be considered is that every state is entitled to defend itself from threats to its existence. Can Israel desist taking national security measures its democratically elected government feels are essential to ensure its national survival? It is my wish that a two state solution can be found. It is natural for Palestians to yearn for a country of their own - it is the same yearning that led to the creation of Israel. But the surrounding Arab states did not want to provide the Palestinian State with what it wanted - e.g. Jordon - and do not appear prepared to acknowlege the right of Israel to exist.

Contrary to the question's suggestion, there is no zero-sum answer to this complex and tragic issue.   

Question is, how can you occupy your own land?

Of course

Henrik, the idea of Israel's territories as belonging to the Jews is debatable. Much of it is based on the fabricated history in the OT. By the 7th century Jews there were in a minority.

“Fifty Years of Israeli Occupation”, E-International Relations (14October 2017), http://www.e-ir.info/2017/10/14/fifty-years-of-israeli-occupation/