If Israel is an ethnostate, I frankly fail to see how it’s fundamentally different than almost every other state in the world, which have all favored their “ethnic” population through immigration standards, expulsions, massacres, and oppression.

How is every single other country in the Middle East not an ethnostate by the definition used for Israel, when they’ve expelled all Jews, violently enforce Arabization, and most of which ban religions other than Islam?

What about even countries like Germany, who allow for massive immigration, but still require learning German? They’re not ethnically homogenous, no — but neither is Israel.

Or Japan, which has a violently xenophobic population and extremely strict immigration laws?

Israel is neither ethnically nor culturally homogenous, it does not force conversion to Judaism, it includes Arabic as an official language, and a significant percent of the population is not Jewish, and are protected fully as equals under Israeli law. There are a hell of a lot of criticisms, but being an ethnostate is not one of them.

This is what I’m saying. If you don’t like ethnonationalism, you don’t like nationalism (lowercase n) in general. Frankly, I think it’s important to move towards an end to nationalism, but singling Israel out in that is always what’s odd to me. Of course I don’t like states, I hate all states! But if Bobby gets a cookie then so do I!

(Source.)