Palestinian death toll in Gaza reaches 100

[OriZ 3,157]

The Israeli military said it had attacked at least 1,350 sites in Gaza since the start of the conflict last week.

Imagine that - more than a thousand attacks and only 100 casualties. SURGICAL precision!

Indeed, the Israeli military tries to keep civilians out of it, and is one of the most moral armies in the world. Take any other army - whether it be the US, England, France, Russia - anywhere else in the world - Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Chechnya - you name it, the death toll would have been much higher...let alone in a crowded place such as Gaza, where they hide weapons in mosques and hospitals.

[OriZ 3,157]

I am against Israels aggression on the Gaza strip...but I am also against Hamas's rockets being fired to Israel. There is no total way to avoid civilian death in Gaza...everything in the Gaza strip is Hamas. The government is ran by Hamas, the health departments and hospitals are ran by hamas, the media is ran by hamas, the schools are ran by hamas, everything in the Gaza strip is controlled by Hamas. In Israel there is the Iron Dome who protects the civilians.

You wanna end this conflict? One simple solution...

END THE BLOCKADE ON GAZA! I promise you there would be rare violence in the region if the blockade was lifted.

That is all...now bash me

YOU'RE THE MAN!

(or woman, I haven't checked).

I'm not going to bash you. You are entitled to your opinion, you were civil about it, these are just the kind of discussions I was mentioning in the other thread.

But on the matter, the blockade started due to attacks coming out of there...otherwise there would have been no blockade to begin with. It started after Gilad Shalit was abducted and all the other attacks that were going on at the time. So just one sidedly ending it would not end violence but increase it as Hamas would see it as surrendering. We tried doing the one sided thing with Gaza before - we withdrew completely and they had the chance to turn it into Las Vegas of the Middle East. Instead they went the route of Hamas. We tried it before that in Lebanon too, and got two abductions of 5 soldiers total and one war. So just doing that doesn't work with them. It needs to be in a long term, truce agreement, guaranteed by the world. I'd root for that. And this is what this operation is set to achieve. Whether it will or not is a different situation.

[OriZ 3,157]

The blockade is certainly working in parts such as humanitarian aid being blocked from Gaza hospitals and people in need of medical assitance...or food and trade being blocked by the blockade. Its certainly doing a great job in those aspects. Look you cant expect Palestinians or Hamas for that matter to be armed with some sort of weapons. Do you really think they will continue shooting rockets if the blockade is lifted? Of course not because there will be more freedom and better living in the Gaza Strip! All I'm saying is...this isnt because of some silly assassination nor is it because of the rockets fired at a IDF jeep...this is simply because of the blockade on Gaza.

Israel lets humanitarian aid in through safe passages all the time, EVEN IN THE LAST WEEK. Not many countries let humanitarian aid into enemy territory while a war is going on. On top of that I should mention that Israel provides electricity, Gas and water to Gaza, and oftentimes lets Palestinians go into Israel to get treated in Israeli hospitals(Hamas' Leader's Kin)

HAIFA, Israel – Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has no problem calling for the destruction of Israel and blaming it for attacks linked to his own party, but when his relative needs life-saving heart surgery, only Israeli doctors will do.

The stunning hypocrisy comes to light after five Hamas-backed terrorists allegedly killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula that borders Gaza. Although evidence points to a Hamas-backed terror operation, Haniyeh inexplicably blamed it on Israel. The suspects were later killed by Israeli Defense Forces when they tried to cross the Kerem Shalom border.

“A person from the inner circle of the Hamas leadership did receive treatment at Beilinson Hospital."

- Israeli government source

"Israel is responsible, one way or another, for this attack to embarrass Egypt's leadership and create new problems at the border, in order to ruin efforts to end the [israeli] siege of the Gaza Strip,” Haniyeh claimed during in an interviews with the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television.

Yet only a few months ago, the revelation that Ismail Haniyeh’s brother-in-law received a special permit from the Israeli government to travel into the Jewish State to receive life-saving heart surgery has come as something of a surprise.

Haniyeh’s sister Suhila’s husband suffered undisclosed heart problems four months ago that doctors in Gaza were unable to treat, according to Ynetnews.com. The stricken man and his wife were whisked to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva in central Israel, where he was treated, and some days later, the couple returned to Gaza.

“A person from the inner circle of the Hamas leadership did receive treatment at Beilinson Hospital," an Israeli government source confirmed to FoxNews.com. "Although there are no diplomatic relations between Israel and Hamas, there are many occasions when requests for help based on purely medical decisions taken in Gaza are granted by Israel for humanitarian reasons.”

No one from Hamas was available for comment on the case.

Guy Inbar, spokesman for Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories told FoxNews.com that Israel routinely renders such humanitarian aid to Palestinians - when it is requested. “Approximately 115,000 Palestinian patients from the West Bank were treated in Israeli hospitals during 2011. Additionally, some 9500 permits were issued for Palestinians from Gaza to receive treatment”, he said.

The Palestinian Authority, which has received an average of $600 million in annual aid from the U.S., foots the bill for all medical treatment of Palestinians in Israeli hospitals.

But Haniyeh's rhetoric against Israel may be coming at the expense of ailing Palestinians without ties to the leadership. In recent weeks there has been a notable decrease in the number of permits being requested by Gazans for medical treatment in Israel, prompting some regional observers to wonder if Haniyeh - who has repeatedly vowed not to rest until “Israel is wiped off the face of the map”- is now denying his own people the opportunity to benefit from Israeli medical help.

Ronen Bergman, an expert on Israeli intelligence affairs, told Fox News that he feels the permission granted to Haniyeh’s brother-in-law for treatment in Israel could however be part of a bigger picture.

"Hamas is well aware that Israel will give high quality treatment to Palestinians without taking into consideration their organizational membership," he said. "Furthermore, this case could be interpreted as a signal to Hamas ... that the channels of negotiation that brought about the release last year of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit ... might potentially be used to develop better relations between the two sides.”

Paul Alster is an Israel-based broadcast journalist and can be followed on Twitter at @paulalster

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/08/12/hamas-leader-kin-gets-israeli-medical-aid-even-as-terror-group-blasts-jewish/#ixzz2Ck3D34iE

Edited November 20, 2012 by OriZ

[OriZ 3,157]

The people of Gaza are refugees who were ran out of Palestine in the 1940s...are you saying Hezbollah is better than Hamas, since you know Hezbollah runs Lebanon but thats a different story I assume. Let me hit you with a little bit of an article I just read on CNN.

"Current Hamas president Khaled Meshaal has previously said the group would support a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders (prior to the Six-Day War, during which Israeli troops occupied Gaza) , with East Jerusalem as its capital."

So what was that again? The president and leader of Hamas said he will go back to pre-1967 orders and recognize Israel as a state...but Israel declines!!!! Yasser Arafat said the same thing....and Israel declines!!!!! Why?! Because a 2 state solution is impossible and wont be done ever. Israel wont recognize a Palestinian state and Palestine wont recognize a Israeli state. This is going to keep on until the day of judgement when it comes. Its just how life is and life will always be like this in the holy land. I was just making a point about civilians being killed. You think they had a choice to vote Hamas in? I think you forget Hamas going into Gaza and overthrowing the Fatah govt.

I like you, but I disagree with you there. Have you ever read the Hamas Manifesto? Rhetoric(which also just started in recent years) and what's written down which they have never bothered to change are two different things. Also, they say they would recognize that for a Hudna...not more than that. Not for a peace agreement but a Hudna. Just a way for them to get closer to their goal, build up more power over 10-20 years and go at it again. Israel cannot accept that. Now, as for Yasser Arafat...he was offered in 2000 I believe it was almost everything he wanted yet HE declined and that's when the second intifada started. Most Israelis have no problem with a two state solution. However, the devil is in the details and so far it seems like the leaderships haven't been able to bridge the differences. Whose fault that is we will never know because we can't be in the room with them.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Another reason why the world considers the UN a joke

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-accuses-u-blocking-u-n-action-israel-030420191.html

Russia accuses U.S. of blocking U.N. action on Israel-Gaza conflict

By Michelle Nichols | Reuters – 3 hrs ago

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia accused the United States on Monday of blocking a bid by the U.N. Security Council to condemn the escalating conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and said other council members were filibustering the issue.

The United States said, however, it was important that the 15-member council does not harm efforts under way in Cairo to broker a truce between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza.

The Security Council held heated closed-door negotiations on a possible statement, but diplomats said a sticking point was that the text did not mention Hamas missile attacks on Israel. Israel said it was these attacks that prompted its major offensive against the militants in Gaza.

Council members were consulting with their capitals on the draft statement, which needs to be approved by consensus, but several diplomats said it was unlikely an agreement would be reached by a Tuesday morning deadline.

Russia's U.N. envoy Vitaly Churkin said that if the council could not agree, he would put a resolution - a stronger move by the council than a statement - to a vote on Tuesday to call for an end to the violence and show support for regional and international efforts to broker peace.

"One member of the Security Council, I'm sure you can guess which, indicated ... they will not be prepared to go along with any reaction of the Security Council," Churkin said earlier in a thinly veiled reference to the United States.

"Somehow, allegedly, that could hurt the current efforts carried out by Egypt and the region," he said.

A resolution is passed when it receives nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the five permanent council members - Russia, China, Britain, the United States and France. Some diplomats said a vote on the Russian resolution would likely be tight and could force a veto by the United States.

'SHOULDER RESPONSIBILITY'

The Security Council is generally deadlocked on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which U.N. diplomats say is due to the United States' determination to protect its close ally Israel. The council held an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the Israeli strikes on Gaza but took no action.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said the United States would support a council statement if it "advances the goal of supporting an agreed cessation (of violence)."

"We think it's vitally important that this council by its action or non-action is reinforcing the prospects of an agreed cessation (of violence) and not doing anything that could undermine that prospect or run counter to it," Rice said, referring to the truce negotiations in Cairo.

"That is our principal objective in these discussions," she told reporters.

Palestinian U.N. observer, Riyad Mansour, said the council cannot "remain on the margin."

"We emphasized the urgency of the Security Council to shoulder its responsibility and to stop this aggression against our people," Mansour told reporters after Monday's negotiations.

Council diplomats, who did not want to be identified, said the United States' U.N. delegation had been instructed by Washington not to engage in consultations on a statement by the Security Council.

France, Germany and Britain submitted amendments to the draft Security Council statement earlier, diplomats said, but Churkin said too many changes had been proposed.

"Unfortunately it looked like a little bit of a filibustering attempt. Maybe I am mistaken, maybe it's just a laid-back attitude in a situation where we cannot afford procrastination," Churkin told reporters after consultations.

One council diplomat described the filibustering accusation as "utter nonsense."

[Sofiyya 1,687]

You do realize one state with both Israelis and Palestinians is just not viable? For one, the demographics...there's already 2 million Arabs in Israel, if you add another 3 million Palestinians soon enough there is no Jewish majority, which means the Jewish population will find itself exactly where the Arabs have been trying to push it into for the last hundred years....the sea. There is absolutely no way that would work. I do believe in a two state solution, but Hamastan can not be a state. I wouldn't have a problem reaching an agreement with the Palestinians in the West Bank. They can have the Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, the holy sites will be internationally managed, and no right of return.

Maintaining a Jewish majority justifies 64 years of misery?

[OriZ 3,157]

I know what happened in 1967..Israel took over more land from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Whats your point?

Well thats where opinions differ I suppose. I just think the blockade on Gaza is really detrimental on the Gazan civilians and completely unacceptable. Regardless if Hamas runs the strip or not.

Did Israel not give back the Sinai Peninsula - a territory bigger than itself - to Egypt in return for peace? That shows that when Israel believes it will actually get peace, it is willing to give back land for it. BTW you'd be hard pressed to find many cases in the world where that's happened. Normally when you occupy land in a war(especially one that was forced upon you) you get to keep it. The US didn't give back any land to the indians or mexicans in return for peace, neither did many other countries in similar situations. Israel is willing - but only for true peace.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

To preach that there would have to be one now which there is not. Arabs in Israel enjoy more rights than in any Arab or Muslim country. The Palestinians can get their state, like I said. Show me where the Apartheid is.

I'm an Israeli Arab. I know where the apartheid is.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

It is quite an improvement over the Patriot's we gave the Israelis.

Did they ever pay to fix that big hole in the USS Liberty or for the funerals of our military dead?

[Sofiyya 1,687]

[quote name=' timestamp='1353355516' post='5831861]

Yup. And the US helped bankroll it to a huge extent... that technology will be coming our way too. Always good to see government money create something that works! 90% accuracy is no joke.

You must have missed this post:

Is U.S. going above and beyond for Israel?

By Walter Pincus, Published: May 16, 2012

Should the United States put solving Israel’s budget problems ahead of its own?

When it comes to defense spending, it appears that the United States already is.

Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, will meet Thursday in Washington with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to finalize a deal in which the United States will provide an additional $680 million to Israel over three years. The money is meant to help pay for procuring three or four new batteries and interceptors for Israel’s Iron Dome short-range rocket defense program. The funds may also be used for the systems after their deployment, according to the report of the House Armed Services Committee on the fiscal 2013 Defense Authorization bill.

The Iron Dome funds, already in legislation before Congress, will be on top of the $3.1 billion in military aid grants being provided to Israel in 2013 and every year thereafter through 2017. That deal is part of a 10-year memorandum of understanding agreed to in 2007 during the George W. Bush presidency.

“Those funds are already committed to existing large-ticket purchases, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, C-130J transport planes and other items,” according to George Little, spokesman for Panetta. He also said the Israelis had increased their own spending on Iron Dome this year and the U.S. funds are to “augment” their funding.

And there’s more money involved. The House committee version of the defense authorization bill, up for debate on the House floor this week, includes another $168 million “requested by [the] Government of Israel to meet its security requirements,” according to the panel’s report. This money is to be added to three other missile defense systems that have been under joint development by the United States and Israel. The $168 million is in addition to another $99.9 million requested by the Obama administration for those programs.

Israel has had its own debate over what its defense budget should fund. Given its economic problems, the country has cut its defense budget for this year by roughly 5 percent, with another 5 percent cut planned for next year. Its defense experts have debated whether it was more important to put scarce funds into offensive weapons that could destroy enemy missiles or into missile defense systems to protect civilian and military targets. In contrast to the United States, it has also raised taxes on wealthier citizens and upped its corporate tax rate.

The Israeli military has long-term plans to deploy 13 to 14 Iron Dome batteries to defend military and civilian targets against rockets launched from Gaza and Lebanon. If there is any doubt that the U.S. Congress will continue to support the program, one only has to look at the Iron Dome Support Act. The bill was introduced in the House in March by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), the ranking minority member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, along with the panel’s chairman, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). A companion measure is in the Senate.

The first four batteries of Iron Dome, deployed last year in towns near the Gaza Strip, have proved successful in protecting against Hamas’s rocket attacks. Israeli military sources have said the system had more than a 70 percent success rate last month against incoming rockets.

In early 2007, then-Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz chose Iron Dome to meet the short-range rocket threat. Testing began in 2008, and by January 2010 the system showed it could be effective.

In May 2010, President Obama announced he would ask Congress to add $205 million to the fiscal Pentagon budget for the production phase of Iron Dome. The funds were approved, and in March 2011 the Israel Defense Forces declared the first batteries operational.

Iron Dome was developed and built by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., an Israeli government-owned, profit-making company that, since 2004, has been headed by retired Vice Adm. Yedidia Yaari, the former commander in chief of the Israel Navy. Rafael’s board chairman is retired Maj. Gen. Ilan Biran, former general director of the Ministry of Defense. In August, Rafael joined Raytheon Co. to market the Iron Dome system worldwide. The two are already partners in one of the other anti-missile systems that is being jointly run by Israel and the Pentagon.

The House committee report noted that the United States will have put $900 million into the Iron Dome system if the full $680 million is used on the program “yet the United States has no rights to the technology involved.”

It added that Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O’Reilly should explore opportunities to enter into a joint production arrangement with Israel for future Iron Dome batteries “in light of the significant investment in this system.”

So here is the United States, having added to its own deficit by spending funds that it must borrow, helping to procure a missile defense system for Israel, which faces the threat but supposedly can’t pay for it alone.

To add insult to injury, Pentagon officials must ask the Israeli government-owned company that is profiting from the weapons sales — including Iron Dome — if the United States can have a piece of the action.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I lived in the Middle East for 5 years, and if anyone REALLY thinks this, they are living in a la-la land with rainbows and unicorns.

From my perspective and observations - the Palestinians have built their entire society and present mentality around the injustice that exists because Israel exists (I am not commenting on the right or wrongness of the existence of Israel, just commenting on the Palestinian reaction). Many of them vehemently feel that Israel should not even exist, and will never accept the reality of a Jewish state in the area. This mentality has spread to other Arab states, and this ‘support’ has only reinforced the Palestinian struggle against Israel. To some, this injustice warrants violence in order to ensure that Israel ceases to exist.

Anyone seriously suggesting Israel and the Palestinians could live together as one state under the current vitriol and bitterness is delusional. I think even two separate states is very optimistic at this point.

Palestinians are already 20% of Israel's population. I'm one of them. Israel is it's own worst enemy. It was born in terrorism, turned its terrorists into national heroes, yet cries and whines about terrorism being used against it like a hypocrite's b!tch. It needs to get past its colonialist roots and join the 21st century. If it wanted to be majority Jewish, it should have founded a nation in NYC or Florida. Two-thirds of the Jews in the world won't even live there full time. They prefer the US and Europe to "the homeland".

Edited November 20, 2012 by Sofiyya

[OriZ 3,157]

I guess you dont know how it feels to be living in peace and harmony with Jews in the land of Palestine where there was rarely any conflict...and then 1948 European Jews come over and take over land with there Zionist ways and mass murdering of Palestinians. But youre absolutely correct about one thing...The arabs did sell away the Palestinians. And still till this day the arabs will never help Palestine or the arabs. But I guess you can also say the same for the Syrains who have been suffering a civil war for a year and a half now. And for the record ANYONE WHO THINKS HAMAS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH IRAN IS COMPLETELY DUMB! Why would Sunni Muslims wanna deal with Shia Muslims? Hezbollah is the one who deals with Iran and befriends them...not Hamas. I just wanted to put that out there.

Dude, my gram was born in 1923. She is still alive. She lived in Israel then. Trust me, it was not always peaceful. The arabs would stab the Jews in the back the first chance they got. You could have had a neighbor that you thought for your whole life was your friend and it turned out not to be so. What about the events of 1920(6 Jews murdered in Jerusalem and the Galilee), 1921(43 Jews in Jaffa), 1929(113 Jews killed, 339 injured) mostly due to the elimination of the Jewish settlement in Hebron, the events from 1936 to 1939 which killed 400 Jews and 200 Brits, the cooperation with the Nazis in the 40's, I guess that was all just due to them being able to predict the future and the "Zionist ways".

How did Jews come over with mass murdering? Explain that please. The Jews came over to live. Nothing more, nothing less. It was the Arabs who wanted and still want to throw the Jews into the sea. It was the Arabs that attacked a newborn state and tried to eliminate it - unfortunately the Jews won. And even though Hamas is Sunni and Iran is Shia, yes, they do help each other out, ALOT. Where do you think they got some of the rockets they have from?

Now let me tell you when there will be peace. There will be peace when your leaders stop lying to you, when your media stops lying to you, and when they stop brainwashing little children. I've met over the years many Arabs who are very nice people, just very misinformed. And I find that to be very unfortunate.

[OriZ 3,157]

Palestinians are already 20% of Israel's population. I'm one of them. Israel is it's own worst enemy. It was born in terrorism, turned its terrorists into national heroes, yet cries and whines about terrorism being used against it like a hypocrite's b!tch. It needs to get past its colonialist roots and join the 21st century. If it wanted to be majority Jewish, it should have founded a nation in NYC or Florida. Two-thirds of the Jews in the world won't even live there full time. They prefer the US and Europe to "the homeland".

The fact that people like you have equal rights in Israel in the name of democracy is one of our biggest problems. It's kind of like 'Sleeping with the enemy'.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Dude, my gram was born in 1923. She is still alive. She lived in Israel then. Trust me, it was not always peaceful. The arabs would stab the Jews in the back the first chance they got. You could have had a neighbor that you thought for your whole life was your friend and it turned out not to be so. What about the events of 1920(6 Jews murdered in Jerusalem and the Galilee), 1921(43 Jews in Jaffa), 1929(113 Jews killed, 339 injured) mostly due to the elimination of the Jewish settlement in Hebron, the events from 1936 to 1939 which killed 400 Jews and 200 Brits, the cooperation with the Nazis in the 40's, I guess that was all just due to them being able to predict the future and the "Zionist ways".

How did Jews come over with mass murdering? Explain that please. The Jews came over to live. Nothing more, nothing less. It was the Arabs who wanted and still want to throw the Jews into the sea. It was the Arabs that attacked a newborn state and tried to eliminate it - unfortunately the Jews won. And even though Hamas is Sunni and Iran is Shia, yes, they do help each other out, ALOT. Where do you think they got some of the rockets they have from?

Now let me tell you when there will be peace. There will be peace when your leaders stop lying to you, when your media stops lying to you, and when they stop brainwashing little children. I've met over the years many Arabs who are very nice people, just very misinformed. And I find that to be very unfortunate.

Let me tell you what happened to my family. My great-grandparents and grandparents lived in Haifa and had for more than a half century. My dad grew up there. The Jews wanted our neighborhood so they could control the port to bring in ships full of foreign Jews. They also wanted our homes and businesses for the benefit of the foreign Jews. In April 1948, the Haganah and some other forces showed up and routed the remaining Arabs out of their homes at gun point, forced them into trucks and took them away. This is much like what was done to them in Europe, so they learned from the Nazis well.

All of our property was confiscated, never to be returned. In fact, despite having proof of ownership, the government refuses restitution. Our property is part of a mass parcel holding by the Israeli government, which controls 93% of all the land. They made a deal with a Jewish group that buys land for Jews only and planned to turn this parcel holding over to this group to sell to Jews only, even though it is in dispute. Fortunately, an Arab rights group took the deal to court and had it stopped, but the land is still being held by the government.

Land is a hot commodity in Israel. It's considered to be property of the Jews, and is much harder for Arabs to get. I belong to a family trust that buys and sells land in Israel for investment purposes. Part of the reason why we do this is because we want to have standing in cases involving anti-Arab discriminatory practices and laws, such as the situation above.

Our managing officer often has to use Jewish beards to front for the company heads to obtain property from Jews who refuse to lease or sell to Arabs because prominent rabbis ruled that Jews should not sell to Arabs or patronize Arab businesses.

Israel is teaching its population to hate.

The fact that people like you have equal rights in Israel in the name of democracy is one of our biggest problems. It's kind of like 'Sleeping with the enemy'.

I don't have equal rights. You have top tier Jewish rights, and I have third tier Arab rights.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Sofiyya

[Sofiyya 1,687]

OriZ, are you smart enough to realize that the Europeans who were so eager to give you a nation did so coz they didn't want Jews living among them, and they used the Arabs to take the blame for what they, not us, did to you so you needed to leave Europe. They got away with murder.

They're still doing it today.

Israel’s Fading Democracy

By AVRAHAM BURG

Published: August 4, 2012

WHEN an American presidential candidate visits Israel and his key message is to encourage us to pursue a misguided war with Iran, declaring it “a solemn duty and a moral imperative” for America to stand with our warmongering prime minister, we know that something profound and basic has changed in the relationship between Israel and the United States.

My generation, born in the ’50s, grew up with the deep, almost religious belief that the two countries shared basic values and principles. Back then, Americans and Israelis talked about democracy, human rights, respect for other nations and human solidarity. It was an age of dreamers and builders who sought to create a new world, one without prejudice, racism or discrimination.

Listening to today’s political discourse, one can’t help but notice the radical change in tone. My children have watched their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, kowtow to a fundamentalist coalition in Israel. They are convinced that what ties Israel and America today is not a covenant of humanistic values but rather a new set of mutual interests: war, bombs, threats, fear and trauma. How did this happen? Where is that righteous America? Whatever happened to the good old Israel?

Mr. Netanyahu’s great political “achievement” has been to make Israel a partisan issue and push American Jews into a corner. He has forced them to make political decisions based on calculations that go against what they perceive to be American interests. The emotional extortion compels Jews to pressure the Obama administration, a government with which they actually share values and worldviews, when those who love Israel should be doing the opposite: helping the American government to intervene and save Israel from itself.

Israel arose as a secular, social democratic country inspired by Western European democracies. With time, however, its core values have become entirely different. Israel today is a religious, capitalist state. Its religiosity is defined by the most extreme Orthodox interpretations. Its capitalism has erased much of the social solidarity of the past, with the exception of a few remaining vestiges of a welfare state. Israel defines itself as a “Jewish and democratic state.” However, because Israel has never created a system of checks and balances between these two sources of authority, they are closer than ever to a terrible clash.

In the early years of statehood, the meaning of the term “Jewish” was national and secular. In the eyes of Israel’s founding fathers, to be a Jew was exactly like being an Italian, Frenchman or American. Over the years, this elusive concept has changed; today, the meaning of “Jewish” in Israel is mainly ethnic and religious. With the elevation of religious solidarity over and above democratic authority, Israel has become more fundamentalist and less modern, more separatist and less open to the outside world. I see the transformation in my own family. My father, one of the founders of the state of Israel and of the National Religious Party, was an enlightened rabbi and philosopher. Many of the younger generation are far less open, however; some are ultra-Orthodox or ultranationalist settlers.

This extremism was not the purpose of creating a Jewish state. Immigrants from all over the world dreamed of a government that would be humane and safe for Jews. The founders believed that democracy was the only way to regulate the interests of many contradictory voices. Jewish culture, consolidated through Halakha, the religious Jewish legal tradition, created a civilization that has devoted itself to an unending conversation among different viewpoints and the coexistence of contradictory attitudes toward the fulfillment of the good.

The modern combination between democracy and Judaism was supposed to give birth to a spectacular, pluralistic kaleidoscope. The state would be a great, robust democracy that would protect Jews against persecution and victimhood. Jewish culture, on the other hand, with its uncompromising moral standards, would guard against our becoming persecutors and victimizers of others.

BUT something went wrong in the operating system of Jewish democracy. We never gave much thought to the Palestinian Israeli citizens within the Jewish-democratic equation. We also never tried to separate the synagogue and the state. If anything, we did the opposite. Moreover, we never predicted the evil effects of brutally controlling another people against their will. Today, all the things that we neglected have returned and are chasing us like evil spirits.

The winds of isolation and narrowness are blowing through Israel. Rude and arrogant power brokers, some of whom hold senior positions in government, exclude non-Jews from Israeli public spaces. Graffiti in the streets demonstrates their hidden dreams: a pure Israel with “no Arabs” and “no gentiles.” They do not notice what their exclusionary ideas are doing to Israel, to Judaism and to Jews in the diaspora. In the absence of a binding constitution, Israel has no real protection for its minorities or for their freedom of worship and expression.

If this trend continues, all vestiges of democracy will one day disappear, and Israel will become just another Middle Eastern theocracy. It will not be possible to define Israel as a democracy when a Jewish minority rules over a Palestinian majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — controlling millions of people without political rights or basic legal standing.

This Israel would be much more Jewish in the narrowest sense of the word, but such a nondemocratic Israel, hostile to its neighbors and isolated from the free world, wouldn’t be able to survive for long.

But there is another option: an iconic conflict could also present an iconic solution. As in Northern Ireland or South Africa, where citizens no longer spill one another’s blood, it will eventually become clear that many Israelis are not willing to live in an ethnic democracy, not willing to give up on the chance to live in peace, not willing to be passive patriots of a country that expels or purifies itself of its minorities, who are the original inhabitants of the land.

Only on that day, after much anguish, boycotts and perhaps even bloodshed, will we understand that the only way for us to agree when we disagree is a true, vigorous democracy. A democracy based on a progressive, civil constitution; a democracy that enforces the distinction between ethnicity and citizenship, between synagogue and state; a democracy that upholds the values of freedom and equality, on the basis of which every single person living under Israel’s legitimate and internationally recognized sovereignty will receive the same rights and protections.

A long-overdue constitution could create a state that belongs to all her citizens and in which the government behaves with fairness and equality toward all persons without prejudice based on religion, race or gender. Those are the principles on which Israel was founded and the values that bound Israel and America together in the past. I believe that creating two neighboring states for two peoples that respect one another would be the best solution. However, if our shortsighted leaders miss this opportunity, the same fair and equal principles should be applied to one state for both peoples.

When a true Israeli democracy is established, our prime minister will go to Capitol Hill and win applause from both sides of the aisle. Every time the prime minister says “peace” the world will actually believe him, and when he talks about justice and equality people will feel that these are synonyms for Judaism and Israelis.

And for all the cynics who are smiling sarcastically as they read these lines, I can only say to Americans, “Yes, we still can,” and to Israelis, “If you will it, it is no dream.”

Avraham Burg, a former speaker of the Knesset, is the author of “The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise From Its Ashes” and the chairman of Molad, the Center for Renewal of Democracy.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Sofiyya