Anti-Israel activists often criticize Israel as an ethnostate because their founding charter calls it the Jewish state. Whatever your position on ethnostatism, almost every country in the world is a type of ethnostate. In fact, Palestine’s proposed constitution declares its identity as an ethnically Palestinian Sharia country. The main difference between the many ethnostates in the world and Israel is not the fact that Israel’s charter goes onto clarify all citizens have equal rights regardless of religion, ethnicity, and gender identity or that several ethnostates specifically outlaw equal rights for minorities in their founding documents. The most glaring difference between Israel and other ethnostates is that the ethnic group under scrutiny are the Jews and their right to self-determination in their indigenous homeland.

*ethnostate: “A country populated by, or dominated by the interests of a single racial, religious, or ethnic group.” Under this definition, every Muslim-majority country is an ethnostate. So is Japan, Germany, and all of the Nordic countries.

**Palestine’s proposed constitution: https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/487

***Israel’s founding charter: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-declaration-of-the-establishment-of-the-state-of-israel

A reminder: Deligitimizing Jewish or Palestinian connections to the homeland is a bad look. Peace is the right look. Let’s focus on that.