There is progress: people now laugh at the notion that Israel is a "democracy"

No, really there is progress.  When I first came to the US, people would casually refer to Israel as the "only democracy in the Middle East".  Outside of the US Congress, people laugh at the notion.  In academic circles, no one dares say that anymore.  "A Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) is under threat of having her Israeli citizenship revoked after she testified against that country's “racist political and legal regime” before the Russel Tribunal on Palestine in Cape Town on Sunday."