flacaltenn
Diamond Member
Their government being interwined with the Jewish religious institution shows they are not a secular state. No other proof is required, that is conclusive.You have proven nothing about Israel being a religious State.
Since I had to read thru these posts in order to keep topics clean, I just had to comment on this misconception of Israel not being a "secular" state. There are basic facts that need to be on table. Secular has too many political implications to just be the OPPOSITE of a theocracy. And while Israel is deeply rooted in Jewish religious beliefs and tradition, it maintains little AUTHORITY to exclude other practices. A very UNIQUE situation for that corner of the world.
They do the "tolerance/inclusion" thingy FAR BETTER than we do in the USA...
First, the identification of Jews as a PEOPLE is much stronger throughout the entire world than as a religion. Even in the USA, Judaism is split into 3 factions that don't really honor each other with equal "religious validity".. Those splits HERE are between the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform movements and span the entire spectrum from total religious authority to relatively complete secularism..
This is similar to the ways the Kurds and Yazidis ATTEMPT to associate "as a people" in the neighboring Arab countries but with a higher degree of difficulty, bias and govt suppression..
Secondly the CITIZENS of Israel include an almost 18% Arab Muslim portion, many of whom serve in the IDF and at my last count, occupied about 8 to 11% of the seats in the Knesset... This does NOT COUNT the Palestinian population in the West Bank or Gaza..
Secularism in Israel - Wikipedia
The Jewish population of Israel can be divided into three groups: Orthodox, Traditional, and Secular. Secular Jews make up 41.4% of the Jewish population, followed by the Traditional Jews accounting for 38.5% of the population, with the remaining 20% populated by the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox. In Israel, the Reform and Conservative movements are estimated to make up 7.6% of the Jewish population,[10] a significantly lower rate compared to the Jewish diaspora.
Israel legally recognizes thirteen non-Jewish religious communities, each of which practice their own religious family law. The largest religious minority population is the Muslim community of Israel, and it amounts to 17.3% of the overall population.[22] The Muslim communities live mostly in the northern part of the country. The Orthodox Jewish and the Orthodox Muslim population have the highest population growth of all communities in Israel.[23]They are free under the law to vote, practice religion, be members of the Israeli parliament, and can use the same Israeli education system as the rest of the country, although the education system is de facto mostly bifurcated into Jewish and non-Jewish schools (see Education in Israel). Many Arabs are a part of the Israeli government and politics.[24] Almost one 10th of the parliament are Arab, and there is a mosque in the parliament building (Knesset) for those who are Muslim. A Supreme Court justice and a minister of the Israeli cabinet are also Arab Muslims. Muslims, as well as most other religious minorities, are not required to serve in the army.
The next-largest minority population is the Christian population (2%), some of whom live with Jewish communities.[6] Rather than have their own education and medical institutions, they have integrated into state institutions. The Christian population in Israel is the only Christian population in the Middle East that has grown in the last half century. Christians choose to live in Israel because they have freedom of speech and the freedom to practice religion.[25]
How Religious are Israeli Jews?
All this makes Israel the MOST secular nation in the Middle East and FAR from any threat of being a theocracy in the mold of MOST of it's Arab neighbors..
It's a place where gay people can live openly and celebrate in parades. FAR more "inclusive" in that regard than MOST places in the world including OUR COUNTRY...