Tl:dr Israel is not an "ethnic state". The fact that citizenship is available to and in fact currently held by all reaces and creeds demonstrates this unequivocally. It is just fact.
Giving the minority in your country rights does not mean that you arent an ethnic or religious state. Iran gives full rights to its Jewish minority. That does not mean that it is not a Persian or Islamic state. Israel is a self proclaimed Jewish state. That does not mean that I am not claiming that Arab Israelis are not allowed to vote or dont have rights.
Israel was established as a Jewish colony. It claimed a territory predominantly populated by Jews and then displaced most of the Arabs within that territory. From the start it was always a Jewish state focused on Jewish interests and Jewish nationalism. No Israeli would deny this.
That doesn't address my factual point. If Arabs (Muslim and other faiths as well and of course many other races neither Arab or Jewish) are fully participating citizens in the Israeli state then claiming that it is a Jewish states is just factually incorrect. You realize there are Arabs in it's legislature, right? Also it should be pointed out that "native" Jews are no more or less Arab than Palestinians. Both are Semitic.
Israeli Arabs being in the legislature is irrelevant, just like Jews in the Iranian parliament are irrelevant. And the fact that they are both semites is irrelevant. Ethnicity is a social construct. Populations can be 100% racially identical and have different ethnic identities. Ethnicity is an identity constructed from religion, language, culture, race, history, etc. So long as people identify as having fundamentally different cultural identities then they are different ethnicities.
A territorial dispute. Such disputes exist independent of racial issues.
If it were merely a territorial dispute then it would not help the Israeli argument at all since this land is universally considered Palestinian. The fact that Israel does not recognize the state of Palestine or recognize the rights of the Palestinian people does not mean that their conquest is legitimate at all. It just so happens that it is also an ethnic dispute. Jewish claims to Judea and Samaria as well as Arab east jerusalem are based on historical jewish settlements in those areas as well as Jewish cultural/religious attachments to sites in east jerusalem. This is fully admitted by all Israeli leaders ever.
WHAT?!? What find of shit is that? We don't need to have ethnic states and we kind of don't. The only ethnic states around are the messes in former Yugoslavia and such and they only serve to demonstrate how stupid and destructive the concept is. Albanian Serbia becomes Kosovo, an impossible state being run and financed by international bodies with no exit strategy... that's the kind of shit you get when you pretend ethnic territories exist.
I dont like ethnic states either, but that is what Israel has been calling for every single year since 1948. They have been calling for two states for two peoples. Thats what Israel demands. The Palestinians have no choice in the matter. They called for a one state solution many times and were rejected every time. Their only option is to push for a Palestinian state and to defend the rights of the Palestinians. Israel continues to push in and take the land owned by Palestinians and incorporate it into their territory by settling it with ultra-orthodox jewish immigrants who see that land as being their birthright. I know all this because I am Jewish and have been to Israel several times and talked with these people. I, an American Jew, am entitled to Palestinian land if I want it. I also read extensively about the subject.
It is impossible to make distinctions in the ethnicity of land. Any attempt to do so creates conflict and the conflict NEVER ends as long as ethnicity is made an issue. Mature functioning nations make no ethnic claims whatsoever and we should in no way accept any state that does.
Agreed, but if one state, Israel, decides to forbid any person from the Palestinian territories from having Israeli citizenship, refuses to recognize a Palestinian state, indefinitely occupies the palestinian territories, and continues to take palestinian land, then there is no choice but to call for a state for palestinians in order to protect their rights against an expansionist Jewish state.