> don't see how there is a meaningful difference "administers large chunks of territory undemocratically" and "is not a democracy" in practice
The Federalist Papers are the deep dive. The Wikipedia article is a good start [1].
If you’re excluding classic members of a set with your measure, your measure is inconsistent with the classic set. You may argue Athens wasn’t a true democracy, but that obviously puts your definition of a true democracy in a special bucket.
> South Africa has been a democracy since the end of apartheid in 1994.
People in the present day use the word "democracy" in a way that would exclude either ancient Athens or the Jim Crow-era US. You are the one who's insisting on an unusual definition from thousands of years ago; my definition is the mainstream one. Furthermore, your "classical" definition is irrelevant, since we're talking about Israel the modern state in 2024 which should be judged by present-day standards.
