Jarrar could end up spending the rest of her life in prison; there is no legal impediment to this since all the pathetic arguments used to justify her continued detention could be deemed valid indefinitely. If she’s dangerous today, she’s dangerous forever. Political prisoners, detention without trial and unlimited imprisonment define tyranny.

In the Israeli democracy, we will continue to protect the rights of both the individual and the group, this is guaranteed. But the majority have rights too, and the s, the vast majority of people want to preserve the Jewish character of our country for generations to come, this combination of individual rights and group rights are the definition of a Jewish and democratic state.

It is not democracy when Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. That is racist. Over twenty percent of the population in this country is Arab, like me. I don't want to live in a Jewish state, I want to live in a democratic state. The majority might be Jewish or Muslim, that doesn't matter to me, as long as the state is democratic. And this Jewish state has a law called 'the Law of Return,' which guarantees the right of all Jews from all over the world to come and settle here. Whereas the Palestinians who were forced to flee in 1948, and whose houses are perhaps still standing today, are not allowed to come back. And another thing: I was born after 1948, so I have Israeli citizenship, but many of the Palestinians who live in this country and who were born before 1948 don't have that right. They are called present absentees. Is that democratic? How can Israel and Israeli authors talk about democracy? Israel should ask itself what sort of state it wants to be, one based on power or one based on justice. The Jews have the right to live here, but we Palestinians have the same right. They have created so many problems for the people here, problems that they have to solve. So no, I don't think there will ever be peace until the refugee issue is resolved.

Western democracy has to be ruled out. For me that’s cut and dried: there’s no question of setting up democracy in Israel, because democracy means equal rights for all, irrespective of racial or religious origins. Therefore democracy and Zionism cannot go together. And Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed this state to be a Jewish state, is a totally schizophrenic document. You just can’t, on the one hand, want a Jewish state and at the same time give non-Jews the right to become a majority.

This is at its worst. Beginning with , the Jewish value of human dignity and the principle of the equality of all people have formed the democratic foundation of the state. This law is completely incompatible with those values. It is a slap in the face to Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel and provides a legal basis to discriminate based on religion, race, and sex. Legislation that identifies first- and has no place in a democracy. should define the fundamental values of the state. If racism, sexism, and are to be protected in Israel’s basic laws, it should be no surprise when the country embodies those values. This bill and the government that supported it are a danger to Israel’s future.

On that wonderful and moving day, the State of Israel was announced as a democratic country that guarantees complete social and political equality of rights for all its citizens, regardless of religion, race, or gender. All this in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel - the declaration that is the founding document of the young country And of the people fighting for their freedom and sovereignty. (google translate)

The greatest threat facing Israel is the democratic threat. There is no greater danger to the regime in Israel than its turning into a democracy. There is no society that opposes democracy like Israeli society. There are plenty of regimes opposed to democracy, but not a free society. In Israel the people, the sovereign, is opposed to democracy. This is why the current struggle, which presumes to be about democracy, is a masquerade.

Israel is the Middle East’s only legitimate democracy, surrounded by cadres, warlords and villains that do not respect democracy or human rights. These bellicose nations jealously regard Israel, envying its success, stability, and might. Israel faces an impossible calculus between defending itself and facing angry outcries or risking its own destruction.

In Israel, military might is increasingly both the method and the goal of political existence. Her absurd generals, her military junk, are paraded on national holidays before the narcoticized public. The model is not the kingdom of peace, it is an Orwellian transplant, taken bodily from Big Brother’s bloody heart. In Israel, the democratic formula is twisted out of all recognition; the citizens exist for the well-being of the state; it follows, as the imperialist corollary, that that measure of terrorism and violence and murder is applied to dissidents, as shall guarantee the “well-being of the state,” as the ominous phrase is understood by those in power.

My prosecution has been unjust. My arrest was a political decision. I remain a political hostage.

The resistance should no longer be directed solely against the occupation. The resistance is to the regime in place in Israel. Her imprisonment is the regime and she opposes the regime under whose boots she lives.

All those who support her continued detention, anyone who is silent while she remains in jail, and all those who make her detention possible are saying: Forget democracy. That’s not what we are. Get used to it.

The decision to incarcerate a female politician, the leader of a legitimate political party, is utterly inexplicable—except for the possibility that those responsible hold an authoritarian view of political life and action. This cannot be a decision made by the entire military institution; that is simply impossible. To me, this choice is completely baffling. More importantly, it is unacceptable, scandalous, and intolerable.

But it is repulsive to observe that democracy, precisely because of its principles of human freedom, frequently finds itself in the position of jailing poor people who are not morally perverse, while letting go free the big corruptors, the big racketeers, the big criminals of the numbers racket. Democracy should assiduously search for a way to prevent this. Its great respect for human freedom must not be used as a tool to guarantee impunity to these racketeers and criminals.