The first thing to say about Tuesday's election in Israel is the one that tends to be mentioned the least: The country had one. Competitive, lawful, on schedule, and with a plausible expectation of unseating the powerful incumbent.

That's more than can be said of the Palestinian Authority under the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected to a four-year term of office in 2005 but has bypassed elections ever since. It's more than can be said for Hamas, which won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, went to war against its domestic political opponents, and has ruled through fiat and fear ever since.

It's also more than can be said for Egypt, whose president came to power in a 2013 coup and won an "election" the next year with nearly 97 percent of the vote; for Turkey, whose president stays in power by jailing popular political rivals and nettlesome independent journalists; for Jordan, a repressive dynastic monarchy; for Lebanon, whose parliamentary government cannot enforce its writ against Hezbollah and its masters in Iran.

Israel is a flawed country that's not above reproach. But it's difficult to take Israel's inveterate critics seriously when they demand a "Free Palestine" without registering the slightest audible objection to the tyrannies in Ramallah and the Gaza Strip; or when, in the name of freedom and equality, they seek to abolish the Middle East's only functioning liberal democracy.

The second point........

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