The Arab and anti-Israel press has made a concerted effort to misrepresent the recent landmark Israeli Supreme court ruling barring Palestinians from marrying Israeli Arabs and being allowed to move into Israel. They liberally use such catch phrases as "racist, Nazi, apartheid, anti-democratic and anti-family" to describe the intent and motive of the Israeli Supreme Court. Not withstanding the natural bias of Muslims and Arabs against Israel, and their desperate attempt to score PR points - their argument condemning the quality of Israel's democracy demonstrates an inability to understand the complexity of the different variations of democracy that exist around the world.
The recently passed Israeli Supreme Court Law specifically bars Palestinians residing outside of Israel from living in Israel with Israeli spouses and children, and was based on security concerns, not an undemocratic attempt to disenfranchise resident Israeli Arabs. The landmark Israeli supreme court ruling said that "security concerns for the greater good outweighed harm to those affected by the decision'. More specifically, there have been numerous instances of sham marriages between Israeli Arabs and Palestinian terrorists who have been caught red-handed in numerous plots to commit large scale attacks against Israeli civilian targets. In a few instances, they succeeded in killing dozens - including American citizens.
Democracies have always placed various legal limitations on their citizens, specifically limits on anti-democratic speech, attempts to undermine human rights, and on the promotion or justification of terrorism. During the cold war, the United States had such restrictions on the Communists. Now they are more commonly applied to Islamist organizations perceived as promoting terrorism, as well as some racist groups.
The common justification for these limits is that they are necessary to guarantee the existence of democracy, or the existence of the freedoms themselves. For example, allowing free speech for those advocating mass murder undermines the right to life and security. Opinion is divided on how far democracy can extend, to include the enemies of democracy in the democratic process. If relatively small numbers of people are excluded from such freedoms for these reasons, a country may still be seen as a liberal democracy.
With that said, these very Muslim/Arab critics from outside Israel don't speak for Israeli Arabs, who have the highest standard of living in the Mideast – both economically and socially. Is life in Israel perfect? No. Is life anywhere perfect? No. If there is a shameful crime that exists in the Mideast today, it is in the fact that Palestinian refugees have been denied permanent resettlement in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the other Arab nations that have perpetuated this conflict by devious design.
At the end of the day, Muslim/Arab attempts to complain about the quality of Israel's democracy is nothing more than an attempt to "change the subject". The Palestinians have democratically elected a terrorist organization to lead them, and in doing so, they have endorsed terrorism. Now they have to live with the consequences of their actions, and "changing the subject" just doesn't work anymore.
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