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Source: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=249668
Israel Is a Vibrant Democracy
(Jerusalem Post) Alan Dershowitz - The Israel you personally see and hear is so completely different from the Israel you read and hear about in the media. The Israel that I saw over the past several weeks was a vibrant democracy. The Israeli character - contentious, confrontational, opinionated, argumentative, direct and uncompromising - is what makes Israel quintessentially democratic. Recently, a "human rights" group gave Israel the lowest ranking - along with Afghanistan and other repressive theocracies - on its religious freedom index. This is because the complaints by secular Jews about the excessive influence of Orthodox rabbis on Israeli politics have been so loud. In reality of course there is almost total freedom of religion in Israel, in the sense that no one is forced to be religious. Israel can do better but it isn't comparable to Afghanistan - or for that matter Iran. In some respects, it is freer than the U.S.: In Israel an atheist can be elected to high office; not in the U.S. Now even Iceland has put in its two cents. It has decided to become the first European country to recognize Palestine as a state on the 1967 "borders." Thus according to the wise men and women of Iceland, every Jew who prays at the Western Wall is trespassing on Palestinian territory. Every Israeli student who makes his or her way to the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus is an unlawful occupier. And every Israeli who lives in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem must be moved out of his home, despite the reality that Jews have lived in the Jewish Quarter for more than 2,000 years. The writer is a Harvard law professor.