Last week was filled with international and local reactions—some expected, others not. It was entirely predictable that the USA would stand by its illegitimate offspring, Israel, no matter the scale of its crimes against humanity or its blatant defiance of international laws, which only seem to apply to the weak. And so it happened. Following the Israeli assault on the Freedom Flotilla in international waters, lives were lost, others were injured, and the United Nations remained the same complicit corpse, silent in the face of the world’s butchers.
There has been endless talk and even more analysis, and this time, global media could not entirely ignore the massacre, even if it did so reluctantly. It was unexpected to see Western outlets challenge Israel’s usual arrogance with such intensity that it severely embarrassed the state in front of its usual allies. Even Israeli newspapers turned on their own government, accusing it of poor planning and catastrophic crisis management.
Amid this human tragedy, however, a small but significant detail may be of interest to those fighting for democracy in the Arab world. On board one of the flotilla ships were two prominent Arab figures: Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and Haneen Zoabi, a Knesset member. Both are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, belonging to the Arab population inside the 1948 borders of present-day Israel.
Haneen Zoabi was released immediately, followed by Sheikh Raed Salah on Thursday, despite the fact that both are considered enemies of the Israeli regime, openly calling for the fall of the so-called Jewish state and the liberation of Palestine. Is this the justice and freedom of expression that Arabs dream of in their own countries? Should Israel—the self-proclaimed ‘democracy oasis’ of the Middle East—really be held up as an example?
Recently, a heated debate has erupted among intellectuals who seem more interested in philosophical rhetoric and flaunting their knowledge than in meaningful action within their own societies. The discussion revolves around Israel’s democratic practices and how they compare to the Arab world, where democracy is either in its infancy or, more accurately, in a state of forced abortion under absolute rule. Some even expressed admiration—or at least astonishment—at a democracy that allowed Zoabi and Salah to join the Freedom Flotilla and then swiftly released them, enabling them to return to political life in opposition to the regime.
But isn’t this a narrow and flawed understanding of democracy? True democracy is a universal principle that applies to all human beings, not just a selective practice within a privileged circle, while the rest are left to suffer under oppression.
The truth is that this so-called democracy, which some Arab intellectuals find preferable to the misery of our own region, is not democracy at all. It is nothing more than a carefully crafted political game, marketed with expert propaganda as an ‘oasis of democracy’, capitalising on the failure of Arab regimes even to define what democracy means.
The reality is that Israel’s ‘democracy and freedom’, which the world insists on promoting and legitimising, can only be described as ‘mafia democracy’. Yes! The structure of mafia families bears an uncanny resemblance to this rogue, lawless state. In mafia circles, there are always individuals who are rejected or despised within the family, yet they are never completely eliminated—they are merely tolerated, watched carefully, and allowed to persist, as long as they still belong to the clan.
Israel operates in much the same way. Some of its citizens oppose it from within and seek to dismantle it, yet their continued existence does not reflect any democratic values. Rather, it is a testament to the cunning, Machiavellian mindset that dominates every aspect of Israeli politics, from warfare to governance. This is a democracy that is nothing more than an extension of mafia practices—an organised crime syndicate masquerading as a democratic state.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.