Israel isn’t a democracy but it’s an ethnocracy

In yet another attempt to deny the existence of apartheid in Israel, Kevin McCarthy ( Letters, 27 October) begins by making a false comparison between Palestinian citizens of Israel and the traveller community in Ireland.

A law does not exist in Ireland that excludes any traveller from buying land or a home on roughly 93% of the territory as it does in Israel for non-Jews. Mr McCarthy again supplies examples of those few Israeli ‘citizens’ who have succeeded in Israel, but similar examples existed in apartheid South Africa concerning non-whites, and, like Israel, it was still an apartheid state.

More conspicuous, however, is Mr McCarthy’s reference to Israel as a democracy, and not a ‘Jewish democracy’ — perhaps because to do so would confirm that it is precisely that — a democracy for Jews only. It is therefore, in fact, an ethnocracy and fits perfectly the definition of such a state provided by the Israeli geography Professor Oren Yiftachel: ‘ethnocracies, despite exhibiting several democratic features, lack a democratic structure… as such, they tend to breach key democratic tenets, such as equal citizenship…’

As stated previously, Israeli law distinguishes between ‘citizenship’ and ‘nationality’ and does not grant full rights to those Israeli citizens who do not have ‘Jewish nationality’. It is correct that what was described as ‘petty apartheid’ in South Africa does not exist in Israel. ‘Citizens’ and ‘Jewish nationals’ do share much common space and utilities. However, this is merely the ‘democratic façade’ which disguises the more than 30 apartheid laws that exist in Israel.

Jack O’Neill

Carrigtwohill

Co Cork