[News] Israeli Knesset passed the "Nationality Bill", which enshrines the State of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Knesset passes controversial 'Nationality Bill' into law

July 19, 2018 - http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=780444
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- The Israeli Knesset passed the "Nationality Bill" 
into law on predawn Thursday, which enshrines the status of the State of 
Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.

Knesset members went through a heated debate until the controversial 
bill <http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=780442> was approved into 
law in its second and third readings, with 62 MKs voting in favor, 55 
opposing, and two abstaining.

The approval caused outrage among critics and Arab MKs, but received a 
round of applause from right-wing government members.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his full support of 
the law. He stated that Israel is the only country in the Middle East 
that honors equal rights among its citizens, even though the law was 
labeled as “racist and discriminatory” by many critics from all over the 
world.

After the vote, Netanyahu said that "This is a defining moment in the 
annals of Zionism and the history of the state of Israel." He continued 
by saying that "122 years after Theodor Herzl, the father of modern 
political Zionism, published his vision, we've enshrined into the law 
the basic principle of our existence."

MKs Benny Begin, of the Likud party, and Orly Levy abstained in the 120 
member Knesset after months of political debates, while Arab MKs, who 
said the law is racist and creates apartheid, shouted in the plenum and 
ripped up papers after the vote, which prompted Knesset Speaker, Yuli 
Edelstein, to have the Arab MKs removed.

The law was enacted just after the largely symbolic 70th anniversary of 
the establishment of Israel. The law confirms that the State of Israel 
is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, who are the only ones in 
the nation to have an exclusive right to self-determination.

The number of Israeli Arabs makes up about 1.8 million citizens, which 
is approximately 20% of the total population of nine million.

The approved law strips the Arabic language of its designation as an 
official language alongside Hebrew language, receiving a “special 
status” as Israel's second official language, but the law would not 
require making state services accessible in Arabic.

Original drafts of the law took it further, which many critics saw as 
discrimination towards Israeli Arabs. The original drafts would have 
enshrined into law the establishment of Jewish-only communities, and 
instructed courts to rule according to Jewish ritual law when there were 
no relevant legal precedents available. Instead of the original, several 
“changes” were made and a more vague version of the law was approved, 
which states that "the state views the development of Jewish settlement 
as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its 
establishment."

Regarding the changes made, critics still insisted that the law will 
deepen a sense of apartheid within the Arab community, which has become 
a minority over the years. Following the vote, MK Avi Dichter of the 
Likud party, who initiated the bill, attempted to justify his reasons 
for passing it into law by saying, "You (Arabs) were not here before us 
and you will not be here after us."Dichter continued "The most you can 
do is to live among us as a national minority that enjoys equal 
individual rights, but not equality as a national minority."

Israeli Arabs, who remained in Israel after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, 
received full equal rights under the law but already face constant 
discrimination on a daily basis. The approved law will probably only 
increase the racism and discrimination across Israel, causing a 
modern-day apartheid to take place.

The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Adalah, called the 
"Nationality Bill" a bid to progress "ethnic superiority by promoting 
racist policies."
-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20180719/fe88e11d/attachment.htm>