Israel’s leadership has believed that security is a function of alliances with the West and military force in the region. They have never sought any meaningful compromises with their neighbors. Their only “friends” in the region are dictators who cooperate with Israel because they fear it and because the Americans pay them to do so. This is not a good basis for long term security.
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Israel is a democracy in the same sense that, say, Alabama was a democracy prior to Civil Rights. Real democracy includes a realistic level of equity under the law for all citizens. That is completely lacking in Israel where 20 percent of the population (the Israeli Arabs) are systematically discriminated against.
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There are, of course, other democracies in the region. Turkey is a viable democracy, especially now that the Turkish military is no longer interfering in politics. Lebanon is, in fact, more democratic than it ever was before the outmoded sectarian system imposed by the French was destroyed by civil war. And even Palestine was a democratic place before the Israelis and Americans decided that having Hamas win a free and fair election was unacceptable. So the claim that Israel is the only real democracy in the region is incorrect.
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