Israel is no longer a democracy

The Knesset just passed a bill with constitutional weight that revokes Israel's status as a democratic republic.

Many nations, including our own American, affirm the basic principles of a democratic republic, yet life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are aspirational at most.  But yet they are aspirational at least. One of those principles, according to Jefferson and the other founders, is freedom of and from religion. All men are created equal despite their belief systems and should be afforded the full rights of humanity. The republic is not founded on culture, religion, ethnicity, race, but on the free right to assemble, speak, and act to govern themselves in a way that affords all persons that right. A citizen is a resident who affirms and exercises that right.

The US negated itself as a democratic republic by the Naturalization Act that restricted the vote to white men and then most dramatically by the Dred Scott decision.  These acts denied not only the reality, but also the aspiration for being a democratic republic. The aspiration of government of, by, and for the people was restored by Lincoln's Republican government and then slowly began to be realized by the Abolition, the Women's, the Labor, and the Civil Rights Movements.

The Knesset just passed the Nationality Act making Israel a Jewish State--defined by ethnicity, culture, and religion. This is similar to Ferdinand and Isabella declaring Spain a Roman Catholic State and enforcing it through the Inquisition. Muslims and Jews, no matter their contribution to the nation, must either leave or become Catholic Christians. All in contrast to the Protestant enlightened Nordic nations which were taking then first steps to becoming democratic republics and to which fled the Jewish people who could.

I know so many Jews and Jewish organizations who oppose this horrible Israeli Act. I commiserate with them. Like the Dred Scott decision in the US, it violates the very principles on which the State of Israel was created by their idealistic socialist founders. The Nationality Act, besides adopting the menorah as the state symbol, Hebrew as the official language, and the right of Jews from the Diaspora to settle there, proclaims that Israel will govern itself as a democracy. However, it negates itself as a democracy in the very act.

Some white supremacists linked to Christian evangelicals are now urging that the US declare itself a Christian country. The Trump administration besides restricting new immigrants are deporting naturalized immigrants. Americans, Jews and Gentiles, should condemn these acts in the US and in Israel.