The State of Israel is neither.

I define a friend as somebody whose door you can knock on any time and he's happy to see you and spend a little time with you. Somebody with whom you are friendly does the same when you meet him on the street. Beyond that are acquaintances and people with whom you are polite. I have in Israel two friends and seven people with whom I am friendly. Every one of them has been arrested!!

No, I don't hang with criminals. One guy was arrested for trying to put out a garbage can fire. The policeman tackled him and then choked him with such ferocity that his neck hurt for weeks. He spent two days in jail where he was denied food and bathroom usage, which is typical. Then just to mess with him they moved him into a cell with Arabs. This is the sweetest, nicest, most harmless guy. That was the first time he went to prison. He was arrested another time for being in the vicinity of a protest. That time the police beat him mercilessly nearly to unconsciousness. He was bathed in blood. That was followed by a week in prison. 

Another guy with whom I'm friendly was reported to the police by a physician who decided somehow that the man was committing child abuse, which he wasn't. He's another very friendly, nice guy. What happens here is that children get messed up from the insanity of the place, from the mean teachers, the screaming bus drivers, the poverty, the tiny apartments, the stressed out parents, the language barrier. And since reporting people to the police is the national pastime - it's happened to me too, twice! - this physician decided that there must be child abuse and called the police. (Israelis see everyone as guilty.) They came the door. Are you so and so? Yes. Boom, bang, bop. They smashed him to the floor, cuffed his arms and legs, and dragged him off to a Shabbos in prison, where he was denied food and usage of the bathroom. While he was there, he saw a woman who was dragged in with her arms and legs shackled. Such gentlemen these police. They interrogated him for hours and tried to make him sign a document on Shabbos. He refused so the Jewish policeman took his hand and forced a signature. 

Another one was arrested for suspicion of child abuse when his autistic son injured himself. Magen David called the police on him. He was shackled and imprisoned for two days. 

Another friend got off easy. Standing at a bus stop near a protest he was tackled, shackled, and brought into a police car, but not to prison. On a different occasion, his Israeli landlord called the police on him because he was one day late with his rent.

Another was arrested during COVID for davening in a parking lot, six feet from anybody, arrested during Shemoneh Esrei, on Shabbos, and hauled off to the police station. 

Another man with whom I am friendly, had his door smashed in by the police. 

Another man was reported to the police for marrying a 17  year old woman. They hog tied him and beat him in the hallway of his apartment.

Another man was arrested for being in a shul during COVID. He spent the night in prison, again without food or bathroom. 

Another was arrested for being at a protest. For two weeks he was in custody, interrogated, shackled, move from place to place.

Another was arrested when a false charge was made against him. He was shackled, moved from prison to prison. For over two years, the state prosecuted him and convicted him of attempted murder. He was sentenced to three months in prison. He is as harmless as the first guy I told you about. Wouldn't hurt a fly. But he is Haredi, and in the eyes of Israelis, that makes him guilty of anything they want him to be guilty of.

I have never in my life felt as unsafe as I do in Israel. Oh, you were operating under the assumption that Jews are always wonderful. Give us our own state and it will be paradise. You want to tell me that every one of these policemen is really an Arab or a Russian. I have heard that line many times along with all the other lies that are said to defend this disturbed society.

The only democracy in the Mideast? The Jewish state? The State of Israel is neither.