Assuming a complaint was filed with the Israeli police, and the evidence is strong (both assumptions are far from trivial), most likely outcome is that they go to jail for a few years.
That's assuming there is no extradition request from another country.
USB flashdrive: developed by Israeli company SanDisk. Intel CPU: About half of them are designed in Intel's research center at Matam, Haifa, Israel. I have no idea which company the high-speed internet remark refers to.
I call Bullshit. Breaking the law does NOT require intent before you can be charged.
IANAL. Also, I'm answering based on where I am from (not America). Here, "criminal intent" (loosely, the local term translates as "intentional frame of mind") is not the same as what people understand when the word "intent" is used.
"Honestly, officer, I didn't MEAN to speed. I just wasn't paying attention."
"Not paying attention" is a frame of mind, which is which is sufficient to establish intent. Saying "The sign that limits the speed is hidden behind a bush", on the other hand, will get you acquitted.
"But I didn't MEAN to kill that other hunter. I just shot at the sound and didn't know what was in the bushes."
I am not familiar enough with hunting laws and practices. This is either negligent (which is enough to establish criminal intent), or you will get off the hook. I do know that people do actually die in hunting accidents, and that people don't always go to jail afterward. In fact, the whole trial will likely revolve around the fact finding question of whether it was reasonable of you to act like you did, i.e., whether you showed intent.
"I didn't MEAN to run that stop sign. I didn't see it because I was busy playing with my cell phone."
I think that is obvious. You intentionally were not paying attention to the road.
Having said that, not all law violations require intent. A non-working tail light might happen even though you were as careful as you could possibly be, and you'll still get a ticket. "But I checked it and it was working right before I started driving, and there was no way for me to know it stopped working mid-drive" will not get you off the hook.
Then again, for other cases, it's all about intent. If you set up a trap door over spiked pit to open when you lift a button, wait for someone to pass over the trap door, and press that button, you will be convicted of 1st degree murder. If you have a good reason why such a setup was constructed, and can prove you did not know someone was over the trap door at the specific time you pressed the button, you will be convicted of manslaughter. If you just leave the setup there, label the button "A/C on", and I am the one pressing the button and killing someone, I will be acquitted.
If intent was part of the prosecution then there wouldn't be a need for the saying "Ignorance of the law is no defense." You can still be charged and prosecuted for breaking a law even if you didn't KNOW it was illegal.
Again, speaking for my local case, if you show it was not feasible of you to know the law, that is a proper defense. If a law failed to be published, even if no one in their right mind reads those publications, that has lead to acquittals.
Disclosing classified material, which she should have known was classified, is breaking the law. If I did that when I was in charge of classified information it would have gotten me arrested, my security clearance revoked, and my job changed. I would never be allowed to handle classified material again.
Let me go on record that I believe that the FBI's refusal to indict Clinton was bullshit. Having said that, she was not disclosing classified material. She was "just" not careful enough with it, and for a reason that was self serving and dishonest. Still, a world of difference than intentionally disclosing classified material.
It's a pretty straight forward question. Is Israel and Zionism mentioned in the Fatwa? If so, it is completely reasonable for different sources to highlight different aspects of the Fatwa. If not, then the Times of Israel has made up facts, which is a serious problem.
Which is it? I don't know. I couldn't find the original Fatwa, and I doubt I'd be able to read it if I did.
The past couple (maybe even three) years saw a massive increase (percentage wise) in number of both aircraft crashes and fatalities. This gives rise to such posts as this one.
This is, of course, quite irrelevant. The increase in number of crashes is not due to a deterioration in aircraft reliability. It is due to the fact that airlines and countries that did not used to be target to terrorist and military actions suddenly became so. If memory serves me right, about 50% of commercial airline crashes were either terror attacks, Russian military shooting down aircrafts, or a pilot losing it and crashing the plane. This is without taking MH370, location and circumstances unknown, into account.
In other words, this is just your regular panic related ideas. Nothing to take too seriously.
I'm really sorry, it is late here, and I only skimmed what you wrote. Partly it was the length, but partly because I think you think we disagree where I think we don't.
Sorry about that last sentence. Like I said, it is late here.
Out of curiosity:
So apparently you can become a nation in 6 years if you are white... even if your assertion is correct, why couldn't Palestinians be one in 80 years ?
I am really curious what made you think I disagree with that statement. Part of the problem on/. is that people don't read through the thread they participate in. Here is what I wrote, right at the start of my:
My side (the pro-Israel side) has started pushing the "Palestinians are a made up nation" narrative. I hate that narrative. Not because it is factually false, but because it is irrelevant. Whether manufactured or organically grown, whether ancient or 60 years old, the Palestinians are a nation today, and as such, their quest (such that there is) for self determination is a legitimate one.
I trust you agree?
My point was that the religious/historical claim of Jews to the land of Israel is no stronger than that of the Palestinians since they clearly have equally ancient roots in the area. What they called themselves or whether they saw themselves as distinct for all that time really doesn't even come into the discussion - it just doesn't affect anything.
There is no one saying otherwise (well, obviously, there are fanatic nutheads that do, but they are very far from being mainstream in Israel). The right to the land is not, in my eyes, due to 2000 years old divine mandate. I won't go into the entire argument (did I mention it is late?), but suffice it to say that the "the Jews stole the land" narrative has about 2% truth, and the rest is just ugly, baseless propaganda. Most of the land, at least inside the green line, where Jews live was bought from its previous owners. As usual, when you go over the green line, things become much murkier, but even there they are not as clear cut as the Palestinians would have you believe.
The same goes for the actual occupation. Very few in Israel want this situation to continue. At the moment, sadly, shifting things in any direction beside "worse" is unlikely to happen. Some of it is because Jewish fundamentalists (and a government that sits idle while they act), but some of it is definitely because of Abu Mazen and the Palestinian society.
Here you go, now that I'm not at work and have time, it took me all of 5 seconds on google to find and article that references pretty much all the research on the topic and confirms my conclusion
I found no mention there of any Tel-Aviv university research. Did I miss something, or did you try to send me on a wild goose chase?
: Palestinians are descended from the same group as Jewish people.
More like "shared genes", but the distinction is not that important. Either way, that point I acknowledged three comments ago. It does not, however, get you anywhere you want to go. Your original point, however, contained an additional statement, crucial to proving your point:
They are not Arabs ethnically
Anything?
I'll also point out that, generally speaking, origin and birth (i.e. - what genealogy tests) are somewhat secondary to the question of nationality. Criteria more important is language, sense of belonging, and a common culture and goals. As such, had the Palestinians been a distinct nationality before the 20th century, you'd expect to find references to that point.
Instead, all signs point to the Palestinian nationality forming as a counter force to the Zionist movement.
I am assuming you meant Israel as well under that criticism, which, as I wrote in a comment to another story, I believe is unfounded. Without trying to open out that discussion, however:
Secularize the middle east?
I'm eagerly awaiting your insightful opinion as to how to do that.
Here's the thing. If you, who knows what you're looking for, cannot find it with a couple of seconds of Googling, then it is quite unfair of you to send me searching.
Like I said above, what I did find while searching was not supporting your core claim. It said some of what you claimed it said (thus my belief that I found the ones you were referring to), but not the important part to support your claim. As such, you will excuse me for not trusting your memory of research neither of us can currently find.
I am half that. We had a Mizrahi president, ministers (including quite senior ones), and quite a few others. Yes, there are complaints, but to claim that they are on the verge of being kicked out is completely off the wall.
I did. I found a few that claimed that the Jews in Europe share genetic markers, and share them with indigent residents of the middle east. I did not find anything that supports your claim that the Palestinians share genetic markers distinct from the Arabs. As such, all that proves is that the Jews do, in fact, have a historic connection to the land.
I also did not find the Tel Aviv University research you refer to.
In general, the person making the claim should also be the one providing the proof.
For a start - they are a different race. They are not Arabs ethnically. They are semmites. The exact same race as the Jews. Numerous genetic studies have proven over and over again: the Palestinians ARE Jews, they just changed religion. They are the jews that stayed behind when the diaspora was happening.
Trying to keep the discussion from going too much astray, let's focus on the nationality claim:
Nationality: a group of people who share the same history, traditions, and language, and who usually live together in a particular country
Care to cite any evidence for your claims? There are several nationality markers, the things that make a group of people a nation. Care to show that the Arabs who lived in pre-Israel Palestine had those distinctly from other Arabs, and in common with Jews?
The discussion so far: A couple of Israeli ministers spew complete nonsense. A bunch of Slashdot readers respond with complete and utter baseless bullshit. Pro-Israeli readers respond with rehashed lines. Everybody feel so much better for "sticking it" to the other side. Great...
My side (the pro-Israel side) has started pushing the "Palestinians are a made up nation" narrative. I hate that narrative. Not because it is factually false, but because it is irrelevant. Whether manufactured or organically grown, whether ancient or 60 years old, the Palestinians are a nation today, and as such, their quest (such that there is) for self determination is a legitimate one.
With that said, what you replied is factually false. Pre-WW2 there is was no Palestinian nation. The people you refer to who lived in mandatory Palestine did not call themselves Palestinian. They called themselves Arab. They had none of the markers that made them a distinct nation than the Arabs who lived in any other territories in the area.
The Palestinian nation developed as a result of the Israeli-Arab conflict. After Israel was founded, those specific Arabs were treated distinctly from the rest of the Arab population, both by Israel and by other surrounding countries. It should not surprise anyone that when a group of people is treated distinctly, it starts to think of itself as distinct.
As for the rest of your suggestion for the Jews, my family came from Iraq. The family left there after the Iraqi government pushed the Jews out by confiscating their property. What exactly is your helpful suggestion to me?
Regardless, there is no expectation, legal or otherwise, that anyone would honor a mistake of that magnitude.
There is no exception, because this is not an exception. It is the rule. I don't see any way Microsoft is int the legal right on this. Then again, IANAL.
You walk into a (virtual) store. You buy something for the price listed by the store owner. The store owner hands you the product. You leave. End of transaction.
Anything else is Microsoft trying to change a transaction's terms post completion.
The only argument for MS here is the claim that there was no money changing hands in this transaction. The way I see it, this shouldn't matter much, as such offers do, occasionally, come up. Then again, I am given to understand that, in some jurisdictions, a license given without any reward can be revoked without regard to the license's terms (it was a statement about why we should try to pay FOSS developers for their software).
Even if that is the case, and MS is in their right to revoke the license, that is the exception.
I'm pretty sure sizeof(long *) = sizeof(void *) is a requirement. C allows implicit conversion from any pointer to void *, and if that wasn't a requirement, nothing would work.
First of all, here is RMS's take on this question. I should point out that I do not agree with his analysis.
As a counter example, I like people to consider NDISwrapper. No one in their right mind would claim that just because the user linked a proprietary closed source network driver with a GPL implementation of NDIS, that somehow turns the driver written by Broadcom for Windows into a derivative of the Linux kernel.
When I consulted to clients about the issue, I suggested the following criteria, under the claim that it is not industry standard, but it is defendable in court:
How stable the API you are relying on?
How documented is it? In other words, how much do you need to see the source in order to understand how to use it?
How many different independent implementations are there of the same API? (even if all of them are also GPL)
I claim that these are good criteria to explaining how independent are the APIs from their implementation, and accordingly, how much copyright protection they deserve.
The short answer is that Israel is a Jewish state, in much the same way that Cyprus is a Greek state. Non Jewish citizens have equal rights. The two are not contradicting.
When the Zionist movement only started, some considered calling the nationality "Hebrew" (a term used in the Bible in that context). I don't remember reading about why the proposal was eventually rejected. I'm guessing that 2000 years of calling yourself by another name took precedence.
A few die hard leftists tried petitioning the supreme court to define their nationality is "Israeli". The supreme court rejected it, IMHO, correctly. It claimed they can point to no national identifiers that "Israelis" have that distinguish them from Jews.
By and large, complaining about the name of something is a waste of time. Yes, the fact that Jewish is both a national affiliation and a religion is confusing, but whether justified or not, it is what it is.
Politics aside, please note that the "Jewish" in "Jewish state" is not the religion. Israel is, by and large, a secular state. The Jewish term refers to the Jewish people. From the opening to Israel's declaration of independence:
ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) - the Land of Israel, Palestine] was the birthplace of the Jewish people.
(emphasis mine)
Later on, it lists the founding principles for the state:
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
So, first sentence ensures that any Jew can immigrate. Second sentence ensure equality to everyone. Third sentence tries to make sure that there is no "official state religion".
The Orthodox Jews in Israel do get a lot of power, but this is not a result of the definition of the state. It is simply a result of internal politics. By and large, in actual practice, Israel's every day life is secular for people who so choose to live their lives.
Self determination: free choice of one's own acts or states without external compulsion
The form of government you suggest is not the form of government the Jews chose. This has a bunch of historical reasons, but those are irrelevant. Saying "choose what you want, so long as it is this model that works for a completely different group of people" is, by definition, not self determination.
I'll also add that the current liberal fashion is to frown upon nation states. This has not been the case in 1948, when Israel was formed. Looking at the trends currently taking place in Europe, I doubt this fashion will still be around in ten years' time. In fact, quite a bit of Europe's current problems are due to the fact that this fashion took hold enough for Europe to change the definition for its member states, which were, almost all of them, nation states up until that change. That happened about ten years ago. You tell me how well that worked for them.
You will excuse me if I don't give my vote to parties suggesting Israel make the same change in any upcoming elections.
Slashdot Mirror
Citation needed, please.
If they do, it will be the first time I hear of such a case.
Shachar
Assuming a complaint was filed with the Israeli police, and the evidence is strong (both assumptions are far from trivial), most likely outcome is that they go to jail for a few years.
That's assuming there is no extradition request from another country.
Shachar
USB flashdrive: developed by Israeli company SanDisk.
Intel CPU: About half of them are designed in Intel's research center at Matam, Haifa, Israel.
I have no idea which company the high-speed internet remark refers to.
Shachar
I call Bullshit. Breaking the law does NOT require intent before you can be charged.
IANAL. Also, I'm answering based on where I am from (not America). Here, "criminal intent" (loosely, the local term translates as "intentional frame of mind") is not the same as what people understand when the word "intent" is used.
"Honestly, officer, I didn't MEAN to speed. I just wasn't paying attention."
"Not paying attention" is a frame of mind, which is which is sufficient to establish intent. Saying "The sign that limits the speed is hidden behind a bush", on the other hand, will get you acquitted.
"But I didn't MEAN to kill that other hunter. I just shot at the sound and didn't know what was in the bushes."
I am not familiar enough with hunting laws and practices. This is either negligent (which is enough to establish criminal intent), or you will get off the hook. I do know that people do actually die in hunting accidents, and that people don't always go to jail afterward. In fact, the whole trial will likely revolve around the fact finding question of whether it was reasonable of you to act like you did, i.e., whether you showed intent.
"I didn't MEAN to run that stop sign. I didn't see it because I was busy playing with my cell phone."
I think that is obvious. You intentionally were not paying attention to the road.
Having said that, not all law violations require intent. A non-working tail light might happen even though you were as careful as you could possibly be, and you'll still get a ticket. "But I checked it and it was working right before I started driving, and there was no way for me to know it stopped working mid-drive" will not get you off the hook.
Then again, for other cases, it's all about intent. If you set up a trap door over spiked pit to open when you lift a button, wait for someone to pass over the trap door, and press that button, you will be convicted of 1st degree murder. If you have a good reason why such a setup was constructed, and can prove you did not know someone was over the trap door at the specific time you pressed the button, you will be convicted of manslaughter. If you just leave the setup there, label the button "A/C on", and I am the one pressing the button and killing someone, I will be acquitted.
If intent was part of the prosecution then there wouldn't be a need for the saying "Ignorance of the law is no defense." You can still be charged and prosecuted for breaking a law even if you didn't KNOW it was illegal.
Again, speaking for my local case, if you show it was not feasible of you to know the law, that is a proper defense. If a law failed to be published, even if no one in their right mind reads those publications, that has lead to acquittals.
Disclosing classified material, which she should have known was classified, is breaking the law. If I did that when I was in charge of classified information it would have gotten me arrested, my security clearance revoked, and my job changed. I would never be allowed to handle classified material again.
Let me go on record that I believe that the FBI's refusal to indict Clinton was bullshit. Having said that, she was not disclosing classified material. She was "just" not careful enough with it, and for a reason that was self serving and dishonest. Still, a world of difference than intentionally disclosing classified material.
Shachar
It's a pretty straight forward question. Is Israel and Zionism mentioned in the Fatwa? If so, it is completely reasonable for different sources to highlight different aspects of the Fatwa. If not, then the Times of Israel has made up facts, which is a serious problem.
Which is it? I don't know. I couldn't find the original Fatwa, and I doubt I'd be able to read it if I did.
Shachar
The past couple (maybe even three) years saw a massive increase (percentage wise) in number of both aircraft crashes and fatalities. This gives rise to such posts as this one.
This is, of course, quite irrelevant. The increase in number of crashes is not due to a deterioration in aircraft reliability. It is due to the fact that airlines and countries that did not used to be target to terrorist and military actions suddenly became so. If memory serves me right, about 50% of commercial airline crashes were either terror attacks, Russian military shooting down aircrafts, or a pilot losing it and crashing the plane. This is without taking MH370, location and circumstances unknown, into account.
In other words, this is just your regular panic related ideas. Nothing to take too seriously.
Shachar
I'm really sorry, it is late here, and I only skimmed what you wrote. Partly it was the length, but partly because I think you think we disagree where I think we don't.
Sorry about that last sentence. Like I said, it is late here.
Out of curiosity:
So apparently you can become a nation in 6 years if you are white... even if your assertion is correct, why couldn't Palestinians be one in 80 years ?
I am really curious what made you think I disagree with that statement. Part of the problem on /. is that people don't read through the thread they participate in. Here is what I wrote, right at the start of my :
My side (the pro-Israel side) has started pushing the "Palestinians are a made up nation" narrative. I hate that narrative. Not because it is factually false, but because it is irrelevant. Whether manufactured or organically grown, whether ancient or 60 years old, the Palestinians are a nation today, and as such, their quest (such that there is) for self determination is a legitimate one.
I trust you agree?
My point was that the religious/historical claim of Jews to the land of Israel is no stronger than that of the Palestinians since they clearly have equally ancient roots in the area. What they called themselves or whether they saw themselves as distinct for all that time really doesn't even come into the discussion - it just doesn't affect anything.
There is no one saying otherwise (well, obviously, there are fanatic nutheads that do, but they are very far from being mainstream in Israel). The right to the land is not, in my eyes, due to 2000 years old divine mandate. I won't go into the entire argument (did I mention it is late?), but suffice it to say that the "the Jews stole the land" narrative has about 2% truth, and the rest is just ugly, baseless propaganda. Most of the land, at least inside the green line, where Jews live was bought from its previous owners. As usual, when you go over the green line, things become much murkier, but even there they are not as clear cut as the Palestinians would have you believe.
The same goes for the actual occupation. Very few in Israel want this situation to continue. At the moment, sadly, shifting things in any direction beside "worse" is unlikely to happen. Some of it is because Jewish fundamentalists (and a government that sits idle while they act), but some of it is definitely because of Abu Mazen and the Palestinian society.
Shachar
Here you go, now that I'm not at work and have time, it took me all of 5 seconds on google to find and article that references pretty much all the research on the topic and confirms my conclusion
I found no mention there of any Tel-Aviv university research. Did I miss something, or did you try to send me on a wild goose chase?
: Palestinians are descended from the same group as Jewish people.
More like "shared genes", but the distinction is not that important. Either way, that point I acknowledged three comments ago. It does not, however, get you anywhere you want to go. Your original point, however, contained an additional statement, crucial to proving your point:
Anything?
I'll also point out that, generally speaking, origin and birth (i.e. - what genealogy tests) are somewhat secondary to the question of nationality. Criteria more important is language, sense of belonging, and a common culture and goals. As such, had the Palestinians been a distinct nationality before the 20th century, you'd expect to find references to that point.
Instead, all signs point to the Palestinian nationality forming as a counter force to the Zionist movement.
I am assuming you meant Israel as well under that criticism, which, as I wrote in a comment to another story, I believe is unfounded. Without trying to open out that discussion, however:
Secularize the middle east?
I'm eagerly awaiting your insightful opinion as to how to do that.
Here's the thing. If you, who knows what you're looking for, cannot find it with a couple of seconds of Googling, then it is quite unfair of you to send me searching.
Like I said above, what I did find while searching was not supporting your core claim. It said some of what you claimed it said (thus my belief that I found the ones you were referring to), but not the important part to support your claim. As such, you will excuse me for not trusting your memory of research neither of us can currently find.
Shachar
I am half that. We had a Mizrahi president, ministers (including quite senior ones), and quite a few others. Yes, there are complaints, but to claim that they are on the verge of being kicked out is completely off the wall.
I did. I found a few that claimed that the Jews in Europe share genetic markers, and share them with indigent residents of the middle east. I did not find anything that supports your claim that the Palestinians share genetic markers distinct from the Arabs. As such, all that proves is that the Jews do, in fact, have a historic connection to the land.
I also did not find the Tel Aviv University research you refer to.
In general, the person making the claim should also be the one providing the proof.
For a start - they are a different race. They are not Arabs ethnically. They are semmites. The exact same race as the Jews. Numerous genetic studies have proven over and over again: the Palestinians ARE Jews, they just changed religion. They are the jews that stayed behind when the diaspora was happening.
Care to give reference to any such study?
WOW! 229 words and not a single true fact.
Trying to keep the discussion from going too much astray, let's focus on the nationality claim:
Care to cite any evidence for your claims? There are several nationality markers, the things that make a group of people a nation. Care to show that the Arabs who lived in pre-Israel Palestine had those distinctly from other Arabs, and in common with Jews?
Shachar
The discussion so far: A couple of Israeli ministers spew complete nonsense. A bunch of Slashdot readers respond with complete and utter baseless bullshit. Pro-Israeli readers respond with rehashed lines. Everybody feel so much better for "sticking it" to the other side. Great...
My side (the pro-Israel side) has started pushing the "Palestinians are a made up nation" narrative. I hate that narrative. Not because it is factually false, but because it is irrelevant. Whether manufactured or organically grown, whether ancient or 60 years old, the Palestinians are a nation today, and as such, their quest (such that there is) for self determination is a legitimate one.
With that said, what you replied is factually false. Pre-WW2 there is was no Palestinian nation. The people you refer to who lived in mandatory Palestine did not call themselves Palestinian. They called themselves Arab. They had none of the markers that made them a distinct nation than the Arabs who lived in any other territories in the area.
The Palestinian nation developed as a result of the Israeli-Arab conflict. After Israel was founded, those specific Arabs were treated distinctly from the rest of the Arab population, both by Israel and by other surrounding countries. It should not surprise anyone that when a group of people is treated distinctly, it starts to think of itself as distinct.
As for the rest of your suggestion for the Jews, my family came from Iraq. The family left there after the Iraqi government pushed the Jews out by confiscating their property. What exactly is your helpful suggestion to me?
Here is prior art from 2008.
Shachar
It's what happens when you don't know how to write "std::vector<bool>".
Regardless, there is no expectation, legal or otherwise, that anyone would honor a mistake of that magnitude.
There is no exception, because this is not an exception. It is the rule. I don't see any way Microsoft is int the legal right on this. Then again, IANAL.
You walk into a (virtual) store. You buy something for the price listed by the store owner. The store owner hands you the product. You leave. End of transaction.
Anything else is Microsoft trying to change a transaction's terms post completion.
The only argument for MS here is the claim that there was no money changing hands in this transaction. The way I see it, this shouldn't matter much, as such offers do, occasionally, come up. Then again, I am given to understand that, in some jurisdictions, a license given without any reward can be revoked without regard to the license's terms (it was a statement about why we should try to pay FOSS developers for their software).
Even if that is the case, and MS is in their right to revoke the license, that is the exception.
Shachar
I'm pretty sure sizeof(long *) = sizeof(void *) is a requirement. C allows implicit conversion from any pointer to void *, and if that wasn't a requirement, nothing would work.
Shachar
First of all, here is RMS's take on this question. I should point out that I do not agree with his analysis.
As a counter example, I like people to consider NDISwrapper. No one in their right mind would claim that just because the user linked a proprietary closed source network driver with a GPL implementation of NDIS, that somehow turns the driver written by Broadcom for Windows into a derivative of the Linux kernel.
When I consulted to clients about the issue, I suggested the following criteria, under the claim that it is not industry standard, but it is defendable in court:
I claim that these are good criteria to explaining how independent are the APIs from their implementation, and accordingly, how much copyright protection they deserve.
Shachar
More complete answer here.
The short answer is that Israel is a Jewish state, in much the same way that Cyprus is a Greek state. Non Jewish citizens have equal rights. The two are not contradicting.
When the Zionist movement only started, some considered calling the nationality "Hebrew" (a term used in the Bible in that context). I don't remember reading about why the proposal was eventually rejected. I'm guessing that 2000 years of calling yourself by another name took precedence.
A few die hard leftists tried petitioning the supreme court to define their nationality is "Israeli". The supreme court rejected it, IMHO, correctly. It claimed they can point to no national identifiers that "Israelis" have that distinguish them from Jews.
By and large, complaining about the name of something is a waste of time. Yes, the fact that Jewish is both a national affiliation and a religion is confusing, but whether justified or not, it is what it is.
Shachar
My answer to Locke2005 covers most of your question. Just one additional point, though. You do realize that Israel has two official languages, right?
Shachar
Politics aside, please note that the "Jewish" in "Jewish state" is not the religion. Israel is, by and large, a secular state. The Jewish term refers to the Jewish people. From the opening to Israel's declaration of independence:
ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) - the Land of Israel, Palestine] was the birthplace of the Jewish people.
(emphasis mine)
Later on, it lists the founding principles for the state:
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
So, first sentence ensures that any Jew can immigrate. Second sentence ensure equality to everyone. Third sentence tries to make sure that there is no "official state religion".
The Orthodox Jews in Israel do get a lot of power, but this is not a result of the definition of the state. It is simply a result of internal politics. By and large, in actual practice, Israel's every day life is secular for people who so choose to live their lives.
Shachar
Self determination: free choice of one's own acts or states without external compulsion
The form of government you suggest is not the form of government the Jews chose. This has a bunch of historical reasons, but those are irrelevant. Saying "choose what you want, so long as it is this model that works for a completely different group of people" is, by definition, not self determination.
I'll also add that the current liberal fashion is to frown upon nation states. This has not been the case in 1948, when Israel was formed. Looking at the trends currently taking place in Europe, I doubt this fashion will still be around in ten years' time. In fact, quite a bit of Europe's current problems are due to the fact that this fashion took hold enough for Europe to change the definition for its member states, which were, almost all of them, nation states up until that change. That happened about ten years ago. You tell me how well that worked for them.
You will excuse me if I don't give my vote to parties suggesting Israel make the same change in any upcoming elections.
Shachar