Saying that your country has the best human rights record in the Middle East is like saying your country is the richest in Africa. Just because it is true doesn't mean it is good.

Israel ranks higher than many EU countries including Greece. Out of 173 countries Israel ranks 33rd. Think about that, only 32 countries in the world are more free than Israel. It ranks higher than the US.

https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/human_rights_rule_...

Where do you live? I just wonder real hard how the Danes/Canadians/Americans would have fared if they were in Israel's shoes. Considering history I'd say no that great. It's much easier to virtue signal from your comfy neighborhood in Western country X though, where your biggest enemies are Republicans.

Jamaican in Jamaica - and proud of it.

And I'm sorry - who is threatening Israel again?

- Iran so much as tests a proper implosion-type, they get nuked.

- Syria is a mess, and was never capable of touching Israel (see Bekaa Valley). Same with Iraq.

- Egypt has been Camp Davided

- The Gulf Monarchies are Israel allies and customers, Jordan included.

Yeah. Tough neighbourhood. No wonder they have to be extra sadistic to the Palestinians.

Iran circled Israel with around 100K + missiles and rockets, some are precision guided. They are in Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Shiite armies in Syria, Yemen, Iraq etc and Gaza. It's true that things are good with Egypt and Jordan, it doesn't mean things are good in general. I'd say Israel is more threatened than Jamaica but lets not get too personal.. anyway the nature of the threats are different than conventional armies invading like it used to be. Its now about guerillas firing massive amounts of precise missiles and drones to destroy Israeli infrastructure and civilians. I am not sure its better now; it used to be Israeli soldiers who died at wars. For the foreseeable future its gonna be mostly Israeli civilians who are hurt.

You need to differentiate. There is a lot of criticism against Israel as a state which is anti-semitism in my opinion because people plainly suggest different rules just for jews.

Then there is criticism against the settlements which in my opinion steals land that doesn't belong to those that want to settle there. The criticism is valid. There is a cultural component here though as many settlers were formerly expelled from Arab lands. That influences in what they see as just.

In reality this criticism gets horribly mixed and objective debate is difficult. Many in Israel are sick of the conflict and wary about criticism because they always have to check the motivation behind it.

Those that propose to defend the side of Palestinians often aren't the best in my opinion, even if they have been fully socialized in western nations they still demand the destruction of Israel. That is stupid beyond measure and certainly not conductive to solve the conflict. Some probably have a worse effect than terrorist groups.

At this point Israel is part of shitty American partisan politics. No one thinks on their own. Original thinking is also prohibited by both parties, but mostly by the one that I voted for. I regret voting for them but the other option is worse.

Maybe to Americans it is. To everyone else, including Israelis themselves, it's a completely separate entity.

Mate, we're talking about Google.

Edit: Google employees are largely based in US and I am talking about the zeigeist of what Israel means to most of these employees. They know zilch about Israel but have made up their partisan minds.

Umm what

Completely separate? Israel is an American project. It receives billions in aid from the US every year and has massive influence in congress through AIPAC.

Yeah israel has a great human rights record if you ignore their treatment of palestinians and other minorities.

I was looking for an objective measure. Obviously Israel is not perfect, but is there any metric on which a country in the middle east beats Israel? Like surely there's some microstate that at least has a functioning democracy, gay rights, religious freedom, etc? Perhaps Iraq post-invasion?

It used to be Lebanon in the 70s. But yeah thats long over. I think Baharain is the closest to being a democracy in the ME after Israel

Israel has palestinians and arabs as part of its government, and they can get citizenship and full rights. Is the reverse true anywhere else in the middle east? Can Jews get citizenship and participate in government in any middle eastern country?

Except the ones that live in Gaza and the West Bank, right?

And just because they have some representation in government, doesn't mean they don't get treated as second-class citizens.

Those are now different countries. Most countries require you to be a citizen to be elected to its government.

Jewish people, or anyone in fact, can't just pitch up, enclose some land and build a settlement, and then claim citizenship over it in other countries in the region, no.

If you think that is what happened, I have some books to recommend to you.

Rights and freedoms for whom?