{"id":912,"date":"2009-06-09T10:29:34","date_gmt":"2009-06-09T10:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html"},"modified":"2009-06-09T10:29:34","modified_gmt":"2009-06-09T10:29:34","slug":"is-israel-really-the-only-demo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s Stop Calling Israel The Only Democracy In the Mideast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/imgs\/iranian%20election.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"iranian election.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/128\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/06\/iranian election-thumb-520x320-5651.jpg\" width=\"520\" height=\"320\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center;margin: 0 auto 20px\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/>\nI was on a TV show the other day with an Israeli diplomat, who declared that Israel is the only democracy in the Mideast. I&#8217;ve certainly heard that many times over the years &#8212; including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/stories\/0609\/23207.html\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.topnews.in\/top-german-hails-israel-mideasts-only-working-democracy-241712\">here<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.middle-east-info.org\/gateway.html\">here<\/a> &#8212; and have even repeated it myself.<br \/>\nIsn&#8217;t it time we retired that notion?  This week we <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB124448241097294823.html\">read about Hesbollah&#8217;s election defeat in Lebanon <\/a>and the tightly fought campaign in Iran, featuring ralliles, viral YouTube videos and televised debates. In the past few years ago we honored the purple fingers of the Iraqis who had gone to the polls,  and bemoaned the results of the elections in Gaza that gave authority to Hamas.<br \/>\nI recognize that these countries don&#8217;t have all the characteristics of democracy &#8212; sufficient religious freedom, for instance &#8212; but they have the most important one: elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was on a TV show the other day with an Israeli diplomat, who declared that Israel is the only democracy in the Mideast. I&#8217;ve certainly heard that many times over the years &#8212; including here, here, and here &#8212; and have even repeated it myself. Isn&#8217;t it time we retired that notion? This week&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Let&#039;s Stop Calling Israel The Only Democracy In the Mideast - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Let&#039;s Stop Calling Israel The Only Democracy In the Mideast - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was on a TV show the other day with an Israeli diplomat, who declared that Israel is the only democracy in the Mideast. I&#8217;ve certainly heard that many times over the years &#8212; including here, here, and here &#8212; and have even repeated it myself. Isn&#8217;t it time we retired that notion? This week&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-09T10:29:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Let's Stop Calling Israel The Only Democracy In the Mideast - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Let's Stop Calling Israel The Only Democracy In the Mideast - Steven Waldman","og_description":"I was on a TV show the other day with an Israeli diplomat, who declared that Israel is the only democracy in the Mideast. I&#8217;ve certainly heard that many times over the years &#8212; including here, here, and here &#8212; and have even repeated it myself. Isn&#8217;t it time we retired that notion? This week&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2009-06-09T10:29:34+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html","name":"Let's Stop Calling Israel The Only Democracy In the Mideast - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-06-09T10:29:34+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-09T10:29:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/is-israel-really-the-only-demo.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Let&#8217;s Stop Calling Israel The Only Democracy In the Mideast"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}