Agreed. But that doesn’t unmake Israel a democracy.
The Federalist Papers are the deep dive. The Wikipedia article is a good start [1].
If you’re excluding classic members of a set with your measure, your measure is inconsistent with the classic set. You may argue Athens wasn’t a true democracy, but that obviously puts your definition of a true democracy in a special bucket.
> South Africa has been a democracy since the end of apartheid in 1994.
People in the present day use the word "democracy" in a way that would exclude either ancient Athens or the Jim Crow-era US. You are the one who's insisting on an unusual definition from thousands of years ago; my definition is the mainstream one. Furthermore, your "classical" definition is irrelevant, since we're talking about Israel the modern state in 2024 which should be judged by present-day standards.
Not only undemocratic, but it is running an apartheid. Not to mention the complete denial of right to return for displaced Palestinians, not even acknowledging it.
It’s horrible that so many Palestinians had to leave during the Nakba, but since the ones who stayed were eventually granted citizenship and legal equality, I think it’s fair to say that Israel proper is administered democratically today — similar to the situation of Native Americans in the U.S.
But people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have no way to become Israeli citizens (unless they are Jewish), despite those territories being controlled by Israel, probably permanently. That is clearly undemocratic.