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  • 6/20/2025
Is Israel still the secular democracy as touted by the world leaders?

World leaders have hailed Israel as the Middle East’s only secular democracy—
a beacon of freedom, equality, and pluralism,
rooted in its biblical claim as the “chosen people” of the Holy Land.

Its elections, judiciary, and press are praised as proof.

But beneath this sanctified narrative lies a darker reality:
a nation struggling with its own democratic ideals,
where systemic discrimination, ethnic cleansing,
and a supremacist ideology steadily unravels the façade all shielded by global silence.

When missiles strike, safety becomes a privilege.
In June 2025, viral videos on X showed Thai workers being barred from bomb shelters during Iranian missile attacks, as shouts rang out: “Shelters for Jews only.”

Watch the full video to know more.

Producer: Divya
Editor: Sudhanshu

#MiddleEastConflict #Israel #Democracy #SystemicDiscrimination #BombShelter #Apartheid #Ethnic #June2025 #ThaiWorkers #IranIsraelTensions

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Transcript
00:00Can Israel still call itself a secular democracy?
00:03World leaders have crowned Israel the Middle East's sole secular democracy,
00:08a beacon of freedom, equality, and pluralism,
00:11rooted in its biblical claim as the chosen people of the Holy Land.
00:15Its elections, courts, and press are lauded as proof.
00:18That remains, in my view, the best way to ensure the future of equal measure
00:22of freedom, prosperity, and democracy for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
00:27Standing up for the very values and ideals that our two countries share.
00:32Democracy, openness.
00:34I certainly cannot countenance a solution in which we drop our basic support
00:40for the only democracy in the region.
00:42Yet beneath this sanctified narrative lies a dark truth,
00:45a nation grappling with its own democratic ideals where systemic discrimination,
00:50ethnic cleansing, and a supremacist ideology untravel the facade,
00:54shielded by global silence.
00:56When missile strikes, safety is a privilege.
00:59In June 2025, X-Videos showed that workers from Thailand
01:03were barred from bomb shelters during Iranian missile attacks.
01:07Shelters for Jews only, they screamed.
01:10Palestinian towns like Tamra, home to around 35,000 Arab citizens,
01:15lack public shelters, while Jewish communities nearby have dozens.
01:19These disparities expose a hierarchy where non-Jews, Arabs,
01:22immigrant laborers, are left exposed, reflecting a supremacist prioritization of Jewish lives.
01:29Ultra-nationalist, emboldened by the supremacist narrative, fuel ethnic cleansing.
01:34In Louis Thoreau's documentary called The Settlers,
01:37Daniela Weiss, settler leader, denies Palestinian suffering,
01:40saying not at all this is normal when Thoreau calls her stance sociopathic for ignoring other children's pain.
01:47Ethiopian Jews fled persecution for a promised homeland,
01:51only to face systemic racism in Israel.
01:55In the 1990s and 2000s, many women were injected with depo provera without informed consent,
02:01slashing the birth rates.
02:02A policy activists called targeted erasure of black Jews within Israel's chosen hierarchy.
02:08Israel had cited medical oversight, but protests in 2015 revealed a deep distrust.
02:15Finance minister Bezael Smotrich in 2024 had declared that Gaza's population must be totally despairing,
02:22advocating their displacement for Jewish resettlement.
02:25Itamar Ben-Gavir in 2023 had said,
02:28A 2025 Haritz poll found 82% of Jewish Israelis support expelling of Gazans.
02:39Israel's war on Gaza intensified after Hamas' October 2023 attack is labelled ethnic cleansing by experts.
02:46Amnesty International and the UN report deliberate
02:48Starvation, Water Deprivation and Destruction of 90% of Gaza's infrastructure
02:53acts aimed at making Gaza unlivable.
02:57Force displacement of over 1.9 million Palestinians
03:01likened to the 1948 Nagba
03:03and Smotrich's call to destroy Gaza signals intent to erase Palestinian people.
03:10The world's reluctance to name this genocide, scholars argue,
03:13stems from supremacist bias.
03:15Western powers led by the US shield Israel
03:18viewing its chosen status as above reproach.
03:21This silence enables atrocities from mass graves to bombed school.
03:26Netanyahu has always touted Israel as a secular democracy,
03:30yet his government and coalition empowers extremists.
03:34The 2018 nation-state law demoting Arab status cements Jewish primacy,
03:41marginalizing 20% of Israel's non-Jewish citizens.
03:44Israel's democratic facade celebrated globally
03:48crumbles under the weight of exclusion,
03:50systemic racism and ultra-nationalist dreams of dominance.
03:54When safety is selective and rights are unequal
03:56and the land is claimed at others' expense,
04:00can Israel still call itself a democracy?

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