Israel really is unique among Western nations. Can you point to a Western nation where there is a constitutional distinction between "citizens" and "the nation for whom the state exists", such that you can belong to the former without belonging to the later?
And it isn't "essentially limited to Western Europe". The same is true of the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand – naturalisation as a citizen automatically makes you an official member of the "nation for whom the state exists". I believe it is true for most or all Latin American nations as well.
Now, Israel is not unique globally speaking – I think Malaysia's bumiputera status is a rather close parallel. But I doubt that's a comparison most Zionists are keen to draw attention to.
> "civic" nation-states) and non-nation-states
If you are going to argue that "Germany is a civic nation state, the US is a non-nation-state", that is a false and arbitrary distinction. Because American nationalism is an entirely real thing – but in its mainstream contemporary manifestation it is civic nationalist, not ethnic nationalist, just like how mainstream contemporary German nationalism is civic nationalist not ethnic nationalist. Now, historically America was arguably racial nationalist – America was a nation, not necessarily for any particular White ethnicity, but for White people [0] – but it has evolved from racial nationalism into civic nationalism
[0] The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited US citizenship by naturalization to "free white persons". The Naturalization Act of 1870 made people of African descent eligible for citizenship by naturalization, but people who were categorised as neither "white" nor "African" remained ineligible for citizenship by naturalisation until the The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (the McCarran-Walter Act) removed all racial restrictions on naturalisation. So US nationality law arguably was explicitly racially nationalist from 1790 to 1870, and remained so in a somewhat watered down sense from 1870 to 1952.
Yes, I hold the "America is not a nation-state" perspective. I generally like the analysis by Bret Devereaux on this topic (https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-...), but if that's not convincing I don't have anything to argue this point on beyond my own experiences that "American" is a "civic group" but not a "national group". So, we'll just have to agree to disagree there.
It doesn't really take away from my main point. Yes, Western Europe and pretty much all New World countries are "civic" oriented. No Western state, Israel included I am pretty sure, has in their constitution or equivalent that a subset of citizens has legal rights other citizens do not. The closest I can think of to what you asked for is actually the Baltics - not a citizen-subgroup distinction, but where there is a complex situation due to not having granted most non-ethnic residents at the time of independence automatic citizenship. Otherwise, we are primarily talking about symbolism in the legal documents and cultural norms in the population. Japan is pretty clearly an ethnic nation-state. Eastern European states were generally ethnic nation-states at the time of independence, but some are moving closer to civic nation-states now.
> Yes, I hold the "America is not a nation-state" perspective. I generally like the analysis by Bret Devereaux on this topic (https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-...), but if that's not convincing I don't have anything to argue this point on beyond my own experiences that "American" is a "civic group" but not a "national group". So, we'll just have to agree to disagree there.
But that's defining the word "nation" in a sense which deliberately skews it towards "ethnic nationalism" and away from "civic nationalism". If you are going to insist on defining it in that narrow way, then arguably France and Germany aren't "nation states" any more either, even though they used to be.
And while contemporary mainstream American self-definition is predominantly civic, 19th century Americans commonly viewed their nation in racial terms, as a state for the white race – so, if France and Germany have become "non-nation states" by transforming ethnic nationalism into civic nationalism, then in fundamentally the same way, America has become a "non-nation state" by transforming racial nationalism into civic nationalism
> No Western state, Israel included I am pretty sure, has in their constitution or equivalent that a subset of citizens has legal rights other citizens do not
Israel's constitution insists that all citizens are formally equal in the rights of citizenship, but at the same time officially relegates non-Jewish citizens to the symbolic status of "second class citizens" – what Western state has a constitution that does that? And, the reality on the ground is – there are complaints of real discrimination in practice against non-Jewish citizens of Israel, and unless you are going to argue that none of those complaints are valid, the idea that official symbolic discrimination in the constitution has no causal role to play in sustaining practical discrimination on the ground is rather implausible
> The closest I can think of to what you asked for is actually the Baltics - not a citizen-subgroup distinction, but where there is a complex situation due to not having granted most non-ethnic residents at the time of independence automatic citizenship
The Baltics do not have any legally recognised category of "citizens of the state but not members of the nation for whom it exists"; Israel does. The complex issue of long-term residents who lack citizenship you point to is real, but it isn't the same thing as what Israel does
> Japan is pretty clearly an ethnic nation-state
De jure, it isn't. Japanese law and court decisions are very clear: naturalised Japanese citizens are officially just as Japanese as anyone else. Membership in Japan's historical ethnic supermajority (the Yamato people) has no formal constitutional significance
Now, no denying the social reality that there is a lot of informal discrimination against non-Yamato Japanese citizens. But that social reality has no constitutional basis.
So you are comparing a state which officially declares in its constitution that some of its citizens are "not members of the nation for whom it exists", to a state whose constitution and laws never officially say that, even though it arguably remains a widespread informal belief/attitude amongst its population. Both de jure and de facto "second class citizenship" are bad, but there is an important sense in which the former is a lot worse
And it isn't "essentially limited to Western Europe". The same is true of the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand – naturalisation as a citizen automatically makes you an official member of the "nation for whom the state exists". I believe it is true for most or all Latin American nations as well.
Now, Israel is not unique globally speaking – I think Malaysia's bumiputera status is a rather close parallel. But I doubt that's a comparison most Zionists are keen to draw attention to.
> "civic" nation-states) and non-nation-states
If you are going to argue that "Germany is a civic nation state, the US is a non-nation-state", that is a false and arbitrary distinction. Because American nationalism is an entirely real thing – but in its mainstream contemporary manifestation it is civic nationalist, not ethnic nationalist, just like how mainstream contemporary German nationalism is civic nationalist not ethnic nationalist. Now, historically America was arguably racial nationalist – America was a nation, not necessarily for any particular White ethnicity, but for White people [0] – but it has evolved from racial nationalism into civic nationalism
[0] The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited US citizenship by naturalization to "free white persons". The Naturalization Act of 1870 made people of African descent eligible for citizenship by naturalization, but people who were categorised as neither "white" nor "African" remained ineligible for citizenship by naturalisation until the The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (the McCarran-Walter Act) removed all racial restrictions on naturalisation. So US nationality law arguably was explicitly racially nationalist from 1790 to 1870, and remained so in a somewhat watered down sense from 1870 to 1952.