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FILE - In this Monday, March 16, 2015 file photo, passengers sit in a bus driving past a billboard with the photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and late rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a long time spiritual leader of the Shas party, a day ahead of legislative elections, in Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv, Israel. The displeasure felt in some quarters over Netanyahu's win last week has placed front and center the world community's unwritten obligation to accept the results of a truly democratic vote. It is a basic tenet of the modern world order which has survived the occasional awkward result _ as well as recent decades' emergence of some less-than-pristine democracies around the globe. The Hebrew sign at left reads, " Father is looking from above.'' At right Hebrew reads, "Likud, Netanyahu." (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)(The Associated Press)

JERUSALEM Is Israel a democracy? The answer is not so straightforward, and it increasingly matters given the diplomatic fallout over hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu's reelection last week.

The displeasure felt in some quarters over his win has placed front and center the world community's unwritten obligation to accept the results of a truly democratic vote. It is a basic tenet of the modern order which has survived the occasional awkward election result as well as recent decades' emergence of some less-than-pristine democracies around the globe.

For Israel, the argument is especially piquant, because its claim to be the only true democracy in the Middle East has been key to its branding and its vitally important claim on U.S. military, diplomatic and financial support. Israel's elections, from campaign rules to vote counts, are indeed not suspect.

But with the occupation of the West Bank grinding on toward the half-century mark, and with Netanyahu's election-day suggestion that no change is imminent, hard questions arise.

Republican Sen. John McCain reflected the traditional appreciation of Israel when he advised President Barack Obama to "get over it" a reference to reports that the United States was reassessing relations with Israel in the wake of the result. McCain told CNN that "there was a free and fair democratic election" in Israel "the only nation in the region that will have such a thing."

But among Israelis themselves, there is increasing angst over the fact that their country of 8 million people also controls some 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians who have no voting rights for its parliament.

If the 2 million Palestinians of Gaza a territory dominated indirectly by Israel were added to the equation, then together with the 2 million Arab citizens of "Israel proper" the Holy Land would be home to a population of some 12 million, equally divided between Arabs and Jews.

Of the Arabs, only a third have voting rights. These are the "Israeli Arabs" who live in the areas that became Israel in the 1948-49 war, which established the country's borders.

Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 but Israel never annexed them, both for fear of world reaction and due to concerns about millions more Palestinians gaining the vote.

Read more from the original source:
AP Analysis: Occupation of West Bank raises questions about Israel's claim to be a democracy