"Netanyahu’s judicial coup is certainly alarming, but it is not a radical departure from Israel’s foundational principles which always privileged the rights of one group over another."
March 30, 2023
Re: “Martin Regg Cohn: Israel's elected leader is a threat to its democracy”
Cohn significantly overstates the extent to which Israel can be considered a democracy. Of the 6.8 million Palestinians under Israel’s control, only a small minority of Palestinians (1.6m) hold Israeli citizenship (with a second-class status), while the remaining 5.2m live under military occupation in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza with no right to vote for the government that rules them. This is why Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UN experts, and Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups like B’Tselem, have argued that Israel is not a democracy, but should properly be defined as a regime of apartheid. Netanyahu’s judicial coup is certainly alarming, but it is not a radical departure from Israel’s foundational principles which always privileged the rights of one group over another.
Michael Bueckert, PhD
Vice President, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME)