That’s the trouble with people who do not regonise Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state: all too often they are simply hostile to the idea that Jews should enjoy the same bourgeois democratic national rights as every other distinct people in the world – and although the anti_srael brigade often utilise the rhetoric of socialist democracy (”democratic secular stae”), in practice they look to the Arab bourgeoisies, or Islamist anti-semites, or simple demographics and the passing of time, to achieve the destruction of the “Zionist entity”.

You’re right to sneer at the “o-so-clever” point about semites. Note I was careful to write “pedantic”, and then went on to say something I thought was a little more substantial.

I don’t think what I said equates with an anodyne “good vs evil”. Many people on both sides don’t want to see a multicultural Israel. Jewish and Arab/Muslim identities would blur in such a state. I think that would probably be a good thing, but many people disagree.

The thing is: part of the problem is indeed semantic trickery. A “Jewish state” with full rights for non-Jews may be one such confusion. What happens when the non-Jews outbreed the Jews? Do we have differential rights, or does the state lose its Jewish identity?

And another: Does advocating a one-state solution mean the destruction of Israel, or its expansion?

A “plural, multicultural Israel”: is course! I’ll vote for good against evil! I’m also in favour of a socialist united states of the Middle East and – come to that – a socialist federal world. In the meanwhile, Robert: do you support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state (with full democratic rights for non Jews within it, of course) behind pre-’67 borders as part of two state partial-solution? Unfortunately a lot of “anti Zionists” are actually in favour of he total destruction of the state of Israel.

Well, that is what Zionism is all about: the creation of a state populated overwhelmingly by Jews in an area that was already populated primarily by non-Jews. Israel is a foundationally racist state – this can be disguised, as it often is in Israel, with euphemisms about “demographics”, but the reality remains.

This explains why over 700,000 indigenous Palestinians were ethnically cleansed to create the State of Israel, why they’ve never been allowed to return and why Israeli policy is characterised (to quote the latest annual human rights report of that oh-so radical of source, the U.S. State Department) by “[i]nstitutional, legal, and societal discrimination against Israeli Arabs, non-Orthodox Jews, and other religious groups” within Israel and by systematic brutality in the Occupied Territories. In 2004 the respected Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem described the occupation regime as:

“a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa.”

The idea that Israel isn’t about maintaining a system of ethnic “purity” and dominance, given the nature of its ideological underpinnings and colonial realities, is simply absurd.

As for this:

“why there are anti-zionist parties represented in the Knesset”

Uh, last year Israel’s security service effectively declared organised anti-Zionism to be illegal, warning:

“[t]he Shin Bet security service will thwart the activity of any group or individual seeking to harm the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel, even if such activity is sanctioned by the law.”

Amendment of section 7A 1. In the Basic Law: The Knesset**, the following section shall be inserted after section 7:
“Prevention of participation of candidates’ list

7A. A candidates’ list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset if its objects or actions, expressly or by implication, include one of the following:

(1) negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people (as apposed to Israel being a state of the Israeli people;

(2) negation of the democratic character of the State Israels’ democratic nature is kept in check by keeping the Jewish people as a majority;

(3) incitement to racism from past experience, it is only racism against certain Jews that is not allowed .

The examples you cite demonstrate that such attempts are ultimately destined to fail. That makes it arguably all the more worrying that people continue to try.

That Arabs do enjoy rights in Israel does not mean that attempts are not being made to eradicate those rights; that those attempts are not institutionalized; and are not dangerous. They are very real and should be resisted.

2.
Nomad peoples suffer from discrimination and integration problems in many nations.

3.
“Instead, it demonstrates the state’s drive towards ethnic purity, ”

Ethnic purity eh?
That would explain why Salim Joubran is a Supreme Court Justice, why Brigadier General Imad Fares commands the 91st (Galilee ) Division of the IDF, why there are anti-zionist parties represented in the Knesset, why Arabic is an official language, why the state recognizes the jurisdiction of islamic courts etc etc