But is it good for democracy? Israels dilemma

Scholars Amnon Rubinstein and Alexander Jacobson have shown that Israel's immigration policies are not essentially different from those of many other nation-states that favor incomers who are ethnically or culturally associated with a majority group. Embryonic stem cells are successfully studied in Israel, and evolution is not a political issue. There are occasional skirmishes, to be sure, both political ones in the Knesset and physical ones on the streets of Jerusalem. The broad spectrum of opinion between the liberal and ultra-Orthodox extremes, in fact, would allow for a fascinating intellectual debate without casting a shadow on Israeli democracy. Democracy, western liberal democracy, is the outcome of a uniquely modern compound of Greek, Roman, and Hebraic ideas. John Locke and the American founders, avid readers of the Hebrew Bible, created the core of modern civic freedom, and laid down the basics for the future unfolding of civil equality.