STATE OF ISRAEL IS THE NATIONAL HOME OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE'
Final text of Jewish nation-state law, approved by the Knesset early on July 19
The 'Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People,' passed by 62-55, with two abstentions
By RAOUL WOOTLIFF
18 July 2018, 2:45 pmUpdated: 19 July 2018, 3:27 am 11
3,759
shares
Illustrative: The Knesset, Israel's parliament building in Jerusalem. (Orel Cohen/Flash90)
Illustrative: The Knesset, Israel's parliament building in Jerusalem. (Orel Cohen/Flash90)
Knesset members approved overnight Wednesday-Thursday a controversial and long-debated law that officially defines Israel as the Jewish nation-state, voting the bill through in its second and third plenary readings by 62-55, with two abstentions.
The law for the first time enshrines Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people.” The law becomes one of the so-called Basic Laws, which, like a constitution, guide Israel’s legal system and are usually more difficult to repeal than regular laws.
What follows is a full translation of the final version of the bill approved by the Knesset plenary:
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People
1 — Basic principles
A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.
B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.
C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.
2 — The symbols of the state
A. The name of the state is “Israel.”
B. The state flag is white with two blue stripes near the edges and a blue Star of David in the center.
C. The state emblem is a seven-branched menorah with olive leaves on both sides and the word “Israel” beneath it.
D. The state anthem is “Hatikvah.”
E. Details regarding state symbols will be determined by the law.
3 — The capital of the state
Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.
4 — Language
A. The state’s language is Hebrew.
B. The Arabic language has a special status in the state; Regulating the use of Arabic in state institutions or by them will be set in law.
C. This clause does not harm the status given to the Arabic language before this law came into effect.
5 — Ingathering of the exiles
The state will be open for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of exiles
6 — Connection to the Jewish people
A. The state will strive to ensure the safety of the members of the Jewish people in trouble or in captivity due to the fact of their Jewishness or their citizenship.
B. The state shall act within the Diaspora to strengthen the affinity between the state and members of the Jewish people.
C. The state shall act to preserve the cultural, historical and religious heritage of the Jewish people among Jews in the Diaspora.
7 — Jewish settlement
A. The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.
8 — Official calendar
The Hebrew calendar is the official calendar of the state and alongside it the Gregorian calendar will be used as an official calendar. Use of the Hebrew calendar and the Gregorian calendar will be determined by law.
9 — Independence Day and memorial days
A. Independence Day is the official national holiday of the state.
B. Memorial Day for the Fallen in Israel’s Wars and Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day are official memorial days of the State.
10 — Days of rest and sabbath
The Sabbath and the festivals of Israel are the established days of rest in the state; Non-Jews have a right to maintain days of rest on their Sabbaths and festivals; Details of this issue will be determined by law.
11 — Immutability
This Basic Law shall not be amended, unless by another Basic Law passed by a majority of Knesset members.
THINK ABOUT IT: ISRAEL – THE NATIONAL STATE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
As long as Israel remains a democracy, the possibility exists that someday in the future there will be a majority in the Knesset that will seek to amend, replace or abolish this awful law.
BY SUSAN HATTIS ROLEF JULY 22, 2018 21:39
Share on facebook Share on twitter
Think About It: Israel – the national state of the Jewish people
The Knesset votes on the nation-state bill, July 19, 2018. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
In the wee hours of Thursday morning, Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People (the Nation-State Law or Nationality Law) was approved in its third reading, with 62 MKs voting in favor and 55 against.
The proclaimed intention of the law, as explained during the prevote debate on the bill by Amir Ohana (Likud) – chairman of the committee established to prepare it for second and third readings – was more or less to fortify “the Zionist principles that make up the state and the value of Jewish settlement... After 2,000 years in the Diaspora, we have... a national home. It is ours and we may say proudly, and not in a whisper, that it is ours. It is not a binational, bilingual or bicapital state – it is the one and only national state of the Jewish people, whose language is Hebrew, and whose capital is Jerusalem.”
Be the first to know - Join our Facebook page.
What many of the speakers from the opposition pointed out was that the law hardly says a word about the fact that there is also a 20% minority in the State of Israel made up of Palestinian Arabs, whose rights – especially the right to equality – are totally ignored by the law.
It should be said at the outset that if the Nation-State Law was part of the chapter on basic principles of an Israeli constitution-to-be (or not-to-be...) and was balanced by other principles – such as equality among all parts of the population and minority rights – then the main criticism of it in parts of Israeli society and abroad would probably have vanished.
In fact, when the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee – chaired by Michael Eitan (Likud) – worked on a proposal for a Constitution by Broad Consent in the course of the 16th Knesset, two versions of this option were deliberated and reported, as well as the option of leaving out mention of the nature of the state altogether. The option of stating in the constitution that the State of Israel is the national state of the Jewish people, without balancing this with a statement on the status and rights of the minority, was not even considered.
BUT THERE are other problems. For example, the law states that “the Land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established” (article 1) and then that “the State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people” (article 2), implying that no other nation-state can exist in the borderless “Land of Israel.”
Leaving the connection between the Land of Israel and the State of Israel vague also seems to suggest that the statement that “the State considers the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation” (article 7) applies to the whole of the Land of Israel, even if the legal status of parts of this land is not yet agreed upon. The same, incidentally, applies to “the complete and united Jerusalem” as the capital of Israel (article 3).
The law also ignores the great rift that is occurring between the State of Israel and large sections of world Jewry against the background of the illiberal policies of Israel’s current government, and its continued discrimination of the non-Orthodox Jewish streams, and continues to speak of the ties between Israel and the Jews in the Diaspora in the old patriarchal terms of caring for their security, and preserving “the cultural, historical and religious heritage of the Jewish people among Diaspora Jews” (article 6).
I am not saying that many of the aspirations mentioned in the law are not worthy aspirations. It is just that the way to realize these aspirations is not by means of a vaguely worded Basic Law that got through by a narrow majority, but rather by means of policies that will increase the chance of their being supported by the world community and world Jewry, including an honest effort to reach a comprehensive or partial solution to the various components of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and sincere efforts to turn the State of Israel, within recognized borders, into a state in which its Arab citizens, and every Jew around the world, feel welcome and at home.
Beyond the fundamental problems of this law, there are also some specific problems which Ohana’s committee was either unable or unwilling to resolve satisfactorily. For example, the original bill submitted by Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avi Dichter on the Nation-State Law in the 18th Knesset (when he was an MK for Kadima), included an article saying “the State of Israel has a democratic regime.”
In the bill that he submitted during the current Knesset (as a member of the Likud), another article was included, stating that: “The goal of this Basic Law is to defend the status of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, in order to ground the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, in the spirit of the principles that appear in the proclamation on the establishment of the State of Israel, in a basic law.”
IN THE FINAL version of the law the word “democracy” is gone. True, the word democracy does not appear in the Proclamation of Independence, but it includes quite a few of the fundamental principles of democracy in the sentence that states that “the State of Israel... will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex,” which are totally absent from the newly-passed law.
The new law also downgrades the status of the Arab language from an official language to a language with special status, even though it includes a clause that states that “nothing said in this article can harm the status that was given to Arabic before this Basic Law enters into force” (article 4) – an oxymoron.
Nevertheless, the Ohana Committee should be given credit for the fact that it managed to soften or delete from the bill some of its more objectionable articles, such as the one that mentions the “Jewish (Hebrew) Law” as one of the sources on which courts of law should base their judgments (thank heavens for the fact that Ohana is gay, and rejects what the said law has to say about gays). The committee also did away with a clause that would have implicitly permitted Jewish settlements to exclude Arabs from joining them without breaking the law.
Only several months ago, the assumption was that the bill would be put on hold in Ohana’s committee until the 20th Knesset ended its term, because it would be difficult to sort out various unresolved issues beforehand. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently changed his mind, deciding to add this Basic Law as a feather in his cap towards the approaching elections.
Nevertheless, though the new Basic Law is now part and parcel of the Israeli law book, this is not necessarily the end of the story.
Article 11 states that the Law can be changed by means of an alternative Basic Law, adopted by a majority of MKs. As long as Israel remains a democracy, the possibility exists that someday in the future there will be a majority in the Knesset that will seek to amend, replace or abolish this awful law. Sooner or later that day will come.
Israel
The Guardian view on Israel’s new law: popular will is being weaponised
Editorial
The ‘nation state’ bill pays lip service to minority protections. Palestinian citizens have every right to be angry
Sun 22 Jul 2018 18.43 BST Last modified on Sun 22 Jul 2018 18.45 BST
Shares
116
Comments
2
Demonstrators attend a rally in Tel Aviv to protest against the “nation-state” basic law.
Demonstrators attend a rally in Tel Aviv to protest against the “nation-state” basic law. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
Last week Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a controversial bill declaring that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country. Pushed by the most rightwing government in Israeli history, the bill is unashamedly majoritarian and illiberal. In promoting the law, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reveals that he pays lip service to minority protections. Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up around a fifth of the population, have every right to be angry. The law implicitly subordinates the country’s democratic nature to its Jewish nature rather than balancing the two. The “nation state” basic law will promote communities with a clearly Jewish character and reduce the status of Arabic. Israeli Arabs say this will make them officially second-class citizens. It’s hard to disagree.
It is significant that the bill has been condemned from outside the country and underlined the rift between the Israeli government and a liberal Jewish diaspora. Yet Mr Netanyahu and his Likud party have persisted with hardline, rightwing policies in coalition with some of Israel’s most hawkish factions. This combination has seen him win four elections. Mr Netanyahu has also engaged in very low politics: his 2015 victory was credited to what his opponent described as “lies, incitement and racism”. The new law highlights the rise of Israel’s ultranationalists, which Mr Netanyahu sees as part of a global revival of populism. The “nation state” basic law was passed just before Mr Netanyahu welcomed to Israel Hungary’s far-right leader, Viktor Orbán, who has praised Nazi-era antisemitic collaborators. If the claim is Mr Netanyahu is soft on antisemitism when it suits him, then honouring Mr Orbán is good evidence.
In Israel, basic law has a constitutional status. The new law represents an anti-democratic act by endorsing a toxic thought: that discrimination could be justified as being in line with the national interest. In giving a special status in law to the Jewish people, Israel’s majority population will be able to argue for greater privileges, subsidies and rights. The new basic law can be reviewed by the country’s supreme court, if petitioned, but there are real concerns that the bench has been cowed by Mr Netanyahu’s barely disguised war on the judiciary.
The moral case, advanced by Israel’s friends, is the country was founded to “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender”. Unfortunately these fine words, drawn from Israel’s declaration of independence, have no legal status. Israel ought to turn away from where it is headed. Mr Netanyahu risks the ruin of deliberative representation by weaponising popular will. Israel needs to reclaim the idea that as a nation it works through an amalgam of values and institutions which diffuse power and seek equality. The new law won’t help – it amplifies rather than counteracts Israeli democracy’s worst tendencies.
Since you’re here…
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too.
The Guardian is editorially independent, meaning we set our own agenda. Our journalism is free from commercial bias and not influenced by billionaire owners, politicians or shareholders. No one edits our Editor. No one steers our opinion. This is important because it enables us to give a voice to the voiceless, challenge the powerful and hold them to account. It’s what makes us different to so many others in the media, at a time when factual, honest reporting is critical.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as £1, you can support the Guardian – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
Support The Guardian
Israel’s new nation-state law restates the obvious
July 23, 2018 8.23pm AEST
Iraeli Arab Knesset member Jamal Zahalka is removed after protesting the bill’s passage. AP/Olivier Fitoussi
Author
Dov Waxman
Professor of Political Science, International Affairs and Israel Studies, Northeastern University
Disclosure statement
Dov Waxman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Partners
View all partners
Republish this article
Republish Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence.
Email
Twitter8
Facebook37
LinkedIn
Print
Early last Thursday, July 19, while most Israelis were sleeping, Israel’s right-wing coalition government narrowly passed a highly controversial law that had been years in the making.
The so-called “nation-state law” legally enshrines Israel’s Jewish character and makes it one of the state’s guiding judicial principles, akin to a constitutional amendment in the United States.
The new law declares that Israel is “the national home of the Jewish people,” that only Jews have a right to national self-determination in Israel, that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and that Hebrew is the only official language – downgrading the official status of Arabic.
Among its other provisions, the most contentious one says that “the state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.” Critics fear this deliberately vague language could be used to legitimize Jewish-only communities and even exclusive towns.
The one thing that proponents and opponents of the nation-state law agree on is that its passage is of profound and historic importance – representing a milestone in Israel’s 70-year history.
Knesset officials celebrate the bill’s passage with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. AP/Olivier Fitoussi
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proudly hailed it as “a pivotal moment in the annals of Zionism and the State of Israel.”
On the other side of the political spectrum, Ahmad Tibi, an Arab Knesset member who belongs to the Joint List party – a coalition of primarily Arab parties – bitterly denounced the law as “the end of democracy,” and “the official beginning of fascism and apartheid.”
As a scholar of Israeli society and politics, I think that both sides have overdramatized the new law’s significance, for their own political purposes. It is largely a declarative and symbolic measure, with no immediate, practical application.
Nevertheless, the law could eventually have far-reaching implications for Jewish-Arab relations within Israel and for Israeli-Palestinian relations.
From the beginning
Most of the new law’s provisions will have no impact because they are already contained in other laws.
There are, for example, numerous laws that codify and express Israel’s Jewish identity. The most famous is the Law of Return, passed in 1950, which automatically grants citizenship to any Jew emigrating to Israel.
David Ben-Gurion proclaiming Israel’s Independence on May 14, 1948. Wikimedia
Since its founding in 1948, Israel has declared itself a Jewish nation-state. Whereas most states see themselves as serving only the interests of their citizens, Israel’s Jewish identity means that its primary mission is to serve the Jewish people, wherever they live.
Consequently, Israel’s non-Jewish citizens – one in four Israelis – are of lesser importance. This has been most consistently apparent in the treatment by Israel’s governments of the country’s Arab minority, which comprises 21 percent of Israel’s population.
The Arab minority has long been discriminated against and neglected by the state. That fact was officially acknowledged in a groundbreaking report issued in 2003 by the Orr Commission, an Israeli government-appointed body headed by a former Supreme Court justice.
Although Arab citizens of Israel – most of whom also identify as Palestinian – have the same democratic rights as Israeli Jews, they have generally been treated as second-class citizens.
Despite the fact that Arabs have become more successful, more visible and more outspoken in recent years, they remain marginalized in Israeli society and politics, and there are still large inequalities between Arabs and Jews in many areas of life such as education, housing and employment. Worse, Arabs must contend with land confiscations, home demolitions, municipal underfunding, and both formal and informal discrimination. They are still treated and widely perceived as a demographic and security threat, a potential “fifth column” in Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians.
Enshrining inequality
Israel, therefore, has never been a truly liberal democracy that treats all its citizens equally regardless of their ethnicity or religion.
Instead, from the outset it has been an “ethnic democracy” or “ethnocracy” as scholars have labeled it, serving Jews first and foremost.
While Arab living standards have certainly risen over the years, Israel has never fully lived up to the promise contained in its Declaration of Independence to “foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants,” and “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.”
Demonstrators protest jailing without trial or charges of a Palestinian journalist. AP/Ariel Schalit
Most Arab citizens of Israel have come to believe that they will never attain full equality with Israeli Jews as long as Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. Hence, they have increasingly advocated for Israel to redefine itself as a “state for all its citizens.”
The new nation-state law was primarily intended to counter such demands.
Avi Dichter, the Likud Knesset member who first proposed the bill and was one of its main sponsors, made that clear during the stormy Knesset debate over it.
Dichter said, “We are enshrining this important bill into a law today to prevent even the slightest thought, let alone attempt, to transform Israel to a country of all its citizens.”
In other words, the new law is aimed at preserving the status quo, not radically changing it. Rather than transform Israel into an undemocratic “apartheid state,” as some of its critics charge, the nation-state law is more likely to ensure that Israel cannot be easily transformed into a liberal democracy or a bi-national state.
The fact that the words “democracy and "equality” do not appear at all in the law is telling. Nor is there any recognition of the presence of a Palestinian-Arab minority in Israel. On the contrary, the new law implicitly denies their very existence as an indigenous national minority that also has a legitimate claim to national self-determination, or at least collective rights.
In doing so, the nation-state law will only anger, and further alienate, Israel’s Arab citizens. The message the law sends to them is unequivocal: This state is not yours and this land does not belong to you.
The law also delivers a clear message to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, who are now considering giving up their demand for a separate Palestinian state in favor of seeking equal citizenship within an expanded Israel – a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
By legally entrenching Israel’s Jewish character, and potentially legitimizing Jewish privileges when they are challenged in court, the law could be used to ensure that Israel remains a Jewish state and continues to give preference to Jews even if – or perhaps when – Israel officially annexes much of the West Bank and Jews become a minority within its borders.
Ultimately, the nation-state law’s long-term impact will depend upon how Israeli policymakers apply it, how judges interpret it, and how Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories respond to it.
Final text of Jewish nation-state law, approved by the Knesset early on July 19
The 'Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People,' passed by 62-55, with two abstentions
By RAOUL WOOTLIFF
18 July 2018, 2:45 pmUpdated: 19 July 2018, 3:27 am 11
3,759
shares
Illustrative: The Knesset, Israel's parliament building in Jerusalem. (Orel Cohen/Flash90)
Illustrative: The Knesset, Israel's parliament building in Jerusalem. (Orel Cohen/Flash90)
Knesset members approved overnight Wednesday-Thursday a controversial and long-debated law that officially defines Israel as the Jewish nation-state, voting the bill through in its second and third plenary readings by 62-55, with two abstentions.
The law for the first time enshrines Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people.” The law becomes one of the so-called Basic Laws, which, like a constitution, guide Israel’s legal system and are usually more difficult to repeal than regular laws.
What follows is a full translation of the final version of the bill approved by the Knesset plenary:
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People
1 — Basic principles
A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.
B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.
C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.
2 — The symbols of the state
A. The name of the state is “Israel.”
B. The state flag is white with two blue stripes near the edges and a blue Star of David in the center.
C. The state emblem is a seven-branched menorah with olive leaves on both sides and the word “Israel” beneath it.
D. The state anthem is “Hatikvah.”
E. Details regarding state symbols will be determined by the law.
3 — The capital of the state
Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.
4 — Language
A. The state’s language is Hebrew.
B. The Arabic language has a special status in the state; Regulating the use of Arabic in state institutions or by them will be set in law.
C. This clause does not harm the status given to the Arabic language before this law came into effect.
5 — Ingathering of the exiles
The state will be open for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of exiles
6 — Connection to the Jewish people
A. The state will strive to ensure the safety of the members of the Jewish people in trouble or in captivity due to the fact of their Jewishness or their citizenship.
B. The state shall act within the Diaspora to strengthen the affinity between the state and members of the Jewish people.
C. The state shall act to preserve the cultural, historical and religious heritage of the Jewish people among Jews in the Diaspora.
7 — Jewish settlement
A. The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.
8 — Official calendar
The Hebrew calendar is the official calendar of the state and alongside it the Gregorian calendar will be used as an official calendar. Use of the Hebrew calendar and the Gregorian calendar will be determined by law.
9 — Independence Day and memorial days
A. Independence Day is the official national holiday of the state.
B. Memorial Day for the Fallen in Israel’s Wars and Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day are official memorial days of the State.
10 — Days of rest and sabbath
The Sabbath and the festivals of Israel are the established days of rest in the state; Non-Jews have a right to maintain days of rest on their Sabbaths and festivals; Details of this issue will be determined by law.
11 — Immutability
This Basic Law shall not be amended, unless by another Basic Law passed by a majority of Knesset members.
THINK ABOUT IT: ISRAEL – THE NATIONAL STATE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
As long as Israel remains a democracy, the possibility exists that someday in the future there will be a majority in the Knesset that will seek to amend, replace or abolish this awful law.
BY SUSAN HATTIS ROLEF JULY 22, 2018 21:39
Share on facebook Share on twitter
Think About It: Israel – the national state of the Jewish people
The Knesset votes on the nation-state bill, July 19, 2018. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
In the wee hours of Thursday morning, Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People (the Nation-State Law or Nationality Law) was approved in its third reading, with 62 MKs voting in favor and 55 against.
The proclaimed intention of the law, as explained during the prevote debate on the bill by Amir Ohana (Likud) – chairman of the committee established to prepare it for second and third readings – was more or less to fortify “the Zionist principles that make up the state and the value of Jewish settlement... After 2,000 years in the Diaspora, we have... a national home. It is ours and we may say proudly, and not in a whisper, that it is ours. It is not a binational, bilingual or bicapital state – it is the one and only national state of the Jewish people, whose language is Hebrew, and whose capital is Jerusalem.”
Be the first to know - Join our Facebook page.
What many of the speakers from the opposition pointed out was that the law hardly says a word about the fact that there is also a 20% minority in the State of Israel made up of Palestinian Arabs, whose rights – especially the right to equality – are totally ignored by the law.
It should be said at the outset that if the Nation-State Law was part of the chapter on basic principles of an Israeli constitution-to-be (or not-to-be...) and was balanced by other principles – such as equality among all parts of the population and minority rights – then the main criticism of it in parts of Israeli society and abroad would probably have vanished.
In fact, when the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee – chaired by Michael Eitan (Likud) – worked on a proposal for a Constitution by Broad Consent in the course of the 16th Knesset, two versions of this option were deliberated and reported, as well as the option of leaving out mention of the nature of the state altogether. The option of stating in the constitution that the State of Israel is the national state of the Jewish people, without balancing this with a statement on the status and rights of the minority, was not even considered.
BUT THERE are other problems. For example, the law states that “the Land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established” (article 1) and then that “the State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people” (article 2), implying that no other nation-state can exist in the borderless “Land of Israel.”
Leaving the connection between the Land of Israel and the State of Israel vague also seems to suggest that the statement that “the State considers the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation” (article 7) applies to the whole of the Land of Israel, even if the legal status of parts of this land is not yet agreed upon. The same, incidentally, applies to “the complete and united Jerusalem” as the capital of Israel (article 3).
The law also ignores the great rift that is occurring between the State of Israel and large sections of world Jewry against the background of the illiberal policies of Israel’s current government, and its continued discrimination of the non-Orthodox Jewish streams, and continues to speak of the ties between Israel and the Jews in the Diaspora in the old patriarchal terms of caring for their security, and preserving “the cultural, historical and religious heritage of the Jewish people among Diaspora Jews” (article 6).
I am not saying that many of the aspirations mentioned in the law are not worthy aspirations. It is just that the way to realize these aspirations is not by means of a vaguely worded Basic Law that got through by a narrow majority, but rather by means of policies that will increase the chance of their being supported by the world community and world Jewry, including an honest effort to reach a comprehensive or partial solution to the various components of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and sincere efforts to turn the State of Israel, within recognized borders, into a state in which its Arab citizens, and every Jew around the world, feel welcome and at home.
Beyond the fundamental problems of this law, there are also some specific problems which Ohana’s committee was either unable or unwilling to resolve satisfactorily. For example, the original bill submitted by Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avi Dichter on the Nation-State Law in the 18th Knesset (when he was an MK for Kadima), included an article saying “the State of Israel has a democratic regime.”
In the bill that he submitted during the current Knesset (as a member of the Likud), another article was included, stating that: “The goal of this Basic Law is to defend the status of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, in order to ground the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, in the spirit of the principles that appear in the proclamation on the establishment of the State of Israel, in a basic law.”
IN THE FINAL version of the law the word “democracy” is gone. True, the word democracy does not appear in the Proclamation of Independence, but it includes quite a few of the fundamental principles of democracy in the sentence that states that “the State of Israel... will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex,” which are totally absent from the newly-passed law.
The new law also downgrades the status of the Arab language from an official language to a language with special status, even though it includes a clause that states that “nothing said in this article can harm the status that was given to Arabic before this Basic Law enters into force” (article 4) – an oxymoron.
Nevertheless, the Ohana Committee should be given credit for the fact that it managed to soften or delete from the bill some of its more objectionable articles, such as the one that mentions the “Jewish (Hebrew) Law” as one of the sources on which courts of law should base their judgments (thank heavens for the fact that Ohana is gay, and rejects what the said law has to say about gays). The committee also did away with a clause that would have implicitly permitted Jewish settlements to exclude Arabs from joining them without breaking the law.
Only several months ago, the assumption was that the bill would be put on hold in Ohana’s committee until the 20th Knesset ended its term, because it would be difficult to sort out various unresolved issues beforehand. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently changed his mind, deciding to add this Basic Law as a feather in his cap towards the approaching elections.
Nevertheless, though the new Basic Law is now part and parcel of the Israeli law book, this is not necessarily the end of the story.
Article 11 states that the Law can be changed by means of an alternative Basic Law, adopted by a majority of MKs. As long as Israel remains a democracy, the possibility exists that someday in the future there will be a majority in the Knesset that will seek to amend, replace or abolish this awful law. Sooner or later that day will come.
Israel
The Guardian view on Israel’s new law: popular will is being weaponised
Editorial
The ‘nation state’ bill pays lip service to minority protections. Palestinian citizens have every right to be angry
Sun 22 Jul 2018 18.43 BST Last modified on Sun 22 Jul 2018 18.45 BST
Shares
116
Comments
2
Demonstrators attend a rally in Tel Aviv to protest against the “nation-state” basic law.
Demonstrators attend a rally in Tel Aviv to protest against the “nation-state” basic law. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
Last week Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a controversial bill declaring that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country. Pushed by the most rightwing government in Israeli history, the bill is unashamedly majoritarian and illiberal. In promoting the law, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reveals that he pays lip service to minority protections. Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up around a fifth of the population, have every right to be angry. The law implicitly subordinates the country’s democratic nature to its Jewish nature rather than balancing the two. The “nation state” basic law will promote communities with a clearly Jewish character and reduce the status of Arabic. Israeli Arabs say this will make them officially second-class citizens. It’s hard to disagree.
It is significant that the bill has been condemned from outside the country and underlined the rift between the Israeli government and a liberal Jewish diaspora. Yet Mr Netanyahu and his Likud party have persisted with hardline, rightwing policies in coalition with some of Israel’s most hawkish factions. This combination has seen him win four elections. Mr Netanyahu has also engaged in very low politics: his 2015 victory was credited to what his opponent described as “lies, incitement and racism”. The new law highlights the rise of Israel’s ultranationalists, which Mr Netanyahu sees as part of a global revival of populism. The “nation state” basic law was passed just before Mr Netanyahu welcomed to Israel Hungary’s far-right leader, Viktor Orbán, who has praised Nazi-era antisemitic collaborators. If the claim is Mr Netanyahu is soft on antisemitism when it suits him, then honouring Mr Orbán is good evidence.
In Israel, basic law has a constitutional status. The new law represents an anti-democratic act by endorsing a toxic thought: that discrimination could be justified as being in line with the national interest. In giving a special status in law to the Jewish people, Israel’s majority population will be able to argue for greater privileges, subsidies and rights. The new basic law can be reviewed by the country’s supreme court, if petitioned, but there are real concerns that the bench has been cowed by Mr Netanyahu’s barely disguised war on the judiciary.
The moral case, advanced by Israel’s friends, is the country was founded to “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender”. Unfortunately these fine words, drawn from Israel’s declaration of independence, have no legal status. Israel ought to turn away from where it is headed. Mr Netanyahu risks the ruin of deliberative representation by weaponising popular will. Israel needs to reclaim the idea that as a nation it works through an amalgam of values and institutions which diffuse power and seek equality. The new law won’t help – it amplifies rather than counteracts Israeli democracy’s worst tendencies.
Since you’re here…
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too.
The Guardian is editorially independent, meaning we set our own agenda. Our journalism is free from commercial bias and not influenced by billionaire owners, politicians or shareholders. No one edits our Editor. No one steers our opinion. This is important because it enables us to give a voice to the voiceless, challenge the powerful and hold them to account. It’s what makes us different to so many others in the media, at a time when factual, honest reporting is critical.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as £1, you can support the Guardian – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
Support The Guardian
Israel’s new nation-state law restates the obvious
July 23, 2018 8.23pm AEST
Iraeli Arab Knesset member Jamal Zahalka is removed after protesting the bill’s passage. AP/Olivier Fitoussi
Author
Dov Waxman
Professor of Political Science, International Affairs and Israel Studies, Northeastern University
Disclosure statement
Dov Waxman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Partners
View all partners
Republish this article
Republish Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence.
Twitter8
Facebook37
Early last Thursday, July 19, while most Israelis were sleeping, Israel’s right-wing coalition government narrowly passed a highly controversial law that had been years in the making.
The so-called “nation-state law” legally enshrines Israel’s Jewish character and makes it one of the state’s guiding judicial principles, akin to a constitutional amendment in the United States.
The new law declares that Israel is “the national home of the Jewish people,” that only Jews have a right to national self-determination in Israel, that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and that Hebrew is the only official language – downgrading the official status of Arabic.
Among its other provisions, the most contentious one says that “the state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.” Critics fear this deliberately vague language could be used to legitimize Jewish-only communities and even exclusive towns.
The one thing that proponents and opponents of the nation-state law agree on is that its passage is of profound and historic importance – representing a milestone in Israel’s 70-year history.
Knesset officials celebrate the bill’s passage with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. AP/Olivier Fitoussi
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proudly hailed it as “a pivotal moment in the annals of Zionism and the State of Israel.”
On the other side of the political spectrum, Ahmad Tibi, an Arab Knesset member who belongs to the Joint List party – a coalition of primarily Arab parties – bitterly denounced the law as “the end of democracy,” and “the official beginning of fascism and apartheid.”
As a scholar of Israeli society and politics, I think that both sides have overdramatized the new law’s significance, for their own political purposes. It is largely a declarative and symbolic measure, with no immediate, practical application.
Nevertheless, the law could eventually have far-reaching implications for Jewish-Arab relations within Israel and for Israeli-Palestinian relations.
From the beginning
Most of the new law’s provisions will have no impact because they are already contained in other laws.
There are, for example, numerous laws that codify and express Israel’s Jewish identity. The most famous is the Law of Return, passed in 1950, which automatically grants citizenship to any Jew emigrating to Israel.
David Ben-Gurion proclaiming Israel’s Independence on May 14, 1948. Wikimedia
Since its founding in 1948, Israel has declared itself a Jewish nation-state. Whereas most states see themselves as serving only the interests of their citizens, Israel’s Jewish identity means that its primary mission is to serve the Jewish people, wherever they live.
Consequently, Israel’s non-Jewish citizens – one in four Israelis – are of lesser importance. This has been most consistently apparent in the treatment by Israel’s governments of the country’s Arab minority, which comprises 21 percent of Israel’s population.
The Arab minority has long been discriminated against and neglected by the state. That fact was officially acknowledged in a groundbreaking report issued in 2003 by the Orr Commission, an Israeli government-appointed body headed by a former Supreme Court justice.
Although Arab citizens of Israel – most of whom also identify as Palestinian – have the same democratic rights as Israeli Jews, they have generally been treated as second-class citizens.
Despite the fact that Arabs have become more successful, more visible and more outspoken in recent years, they remain marginalized in Israeli society and politics, and there are still large inequalities between Arabs and Jews in many areas of life such as education, housing and employment. Worse, Arabs must contend with land confiscations, home demolitions, municipal underfunding, and both formal and informal discrimination. They are still treated and widely perceived as a demographic and security threat, a potential “fifth column” in Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians.
Enshrining inequality
Israel, therefore, has never been a truly liberal democracy that treats all its citizens equally regardless of their ethnicity or religion.
Instead, from the outset it has been an “ethnic democracy” or “ethnocracy” as scholars have labeled it, serving Jews first and foremost.
While Arab living standards have certainly risen over the years, Israel has never fully lived up to the promise contained in its Declaration of Independence to “foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants,” and “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.”
Demonstrators protest jailing without trial or charges of a Palestinian journalist. AP/Ariel Schalit
Most Arab citizens of Israel have come to believe that they will never attain full equality with Israeli Jews as long as Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. Hence, they have increasingly advocated for Israel to redefine itself as a “state for all its citizens.”
The new nation-state law was primarily intended to counter such demands.
Avi Dichter, the Likud Knesset member who first proposed the bill and was one of its main sponsors, made that clear during the stormy Knesset debate over it.
Dichter said, “We are enshrining this important bill into a law today to prevent even the slightest thought, let alone attempt, to transform Israel to a country of all its citizens.”
In other words, the new law is aimed at preserving the status quo, not radically changing it. Rather than transform Israel into an undemocratic “apartheid state,” as some of its critics charge, the nation-state law is more likely to ensure that Israel cannot be easily transformed into a liberal democracy or a bi-national state.
The fact that the words “democracy and "equality” do not appear at all in the law is telling. Nor is there any recognition of the presence of a Palestinian-Arab minority in Israel. On the contrary, the new law implicitly denies their very existence as an indigenous national minority that also has a legitimate claim to national self-determination, or at least collective rights.
In doing so, the nation-state law will only anger, and further alienate, Israel’s Arab citizens. The message the law sends to them is unequivocal: This state is not yours and this land does not belong to you.
The law also delivers a clear message to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, who are now considering giving up their demand for a separate Palestinian state in favor of seeking equal citizenship within an expanded Israel – a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
By legally entrenching Israel’s Jewish character, and potentially legitimizing Jewish privileges when they are challenged in court, the law could be used to ensure that Israel remains a Jewish state and continues to give preference to Jews even if – or perhaps when – Israel officially annexes much of the West Bank and Jews become a minority within its borders.
Ultimately, the nation-state law’s long-term impact will depend upon how Israeli policymakers apply it, how judges interpret it, and how Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories respond to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment