Apparently, Israel has just banned Arab parties from running in the upcoming election. The fact that Operation Cast Lead is occurring in the shadow of an election has been one of the more disturbing elements of the offensive, but this marks a new low.
If wants to claim that it’s a democracy and not an ethnocracy, it should reverse course on this decision immediately.
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While in our view the action is an unnecessary step (since the Arab population is small and pro-Israel for the most part), it isn’t unusual. Israel has banned parties from elections in their past. Fortunately the action is only to ban the political parties, and not Arabs as a demographic. That would be a significant step backwards for the nation. I’m trying to remember if the US ever banned the communist/socialist parties back in the mid-20th century, or the prohibition party before that. I’ll have to do some research and see if I can find anything.
To my knowledge, we never did. Our government may have done a large amount of investigation, but I do not think that we at any time actually banned political parties.
I realize that Israel has done this in the past, but that doesn’t make a valid excuse for anti-democratic behavior.
I did a little research last night, and I did not find any instances where we have banned parties from participating in elections, but I did find how state laws were changed to make it harder for some of these parties to gain ballot access (the same laws that make it difficult for the Libertarian, Green, and Constitution parties to compete equally with the Democratic and Republican parties).
Going back to your last sentence, you and I are in agreement. It isn’t a good sign for a Democracy to ban political activity in this manner. We complain when Iran bans their pro-Democracy/West parties from participating in elections, so it is only fair if we do so towards Israel in this case. Hopefully they will change their mind before election day.
[...] “A disgusting development” Originally published: 12 January 2009 Submitted by: U.S. Common Sense Summary: Discussing the ramifications of Israel banning Arab political parties from the upcoming general elections. [...]