[News] Israel Approves Nationality 'Apartheid' Law

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Israel-Approves-Nationality-Apartheid-Law-20180719-0004.html 



  Israel Approves Nationality 'Apartheid' Law

Published 19 July 2018
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Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, approved the controversial nationality 
bill Thursday declaring Israel a nation-state for the Jewish people and 
downgrading the status of Arabic from official language to “special 
status.” Arabs make up 21 percent of Israel’s population.

The basic law, approved with 62 votes in favor and 55 against, 
recognizes the Jewish people in Israel “have an exclusive right to 
national self-determination." It also includes the declaration of a 
“united Jerusalem” as the capital of Israel, despite the fact that East 
Jerusalem is internationally recognized as being under Israeli occupation.

Furthermore, the law affirms "the state sees the development of Jewish 
settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its 
establishment and consolidation."

"One-hundred-and-twenty-two years after Herzl (father of Zionism) 
published his vision, we've enshrined into the law the basic principle 
of our existence," prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, prising the law.

Legislator Avi Dichter of the ruling Likud party, who also sponsored the 
bill, explained “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."

Zionist Union leader Tzipi Livni argued the bill sought to strengthen 
Netanyahu. “Netanyahu wants the bill in order to fight. Otherwise how 
will people know he is more of a nationalist than you’” she said.

Arab lawmakers protested the bill’s approval arguing it is a 
codification of apartheid and ripping papers in a symbolic gesture, 
which prompted Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein to remove them from the 
plenum.

Legislators Ahmad Tibi and Ayeda Touma-Souliman yelled at Netanyahu: 
"You passed an apartheid law, a racist law."

"I announce with shock and sorrow the death of democracy," Ahmed Tibi 
told reporters.

Lawmaker Ayman Odeh, chairman of the Joint List, released a statement 
saying that Israel "passed a law of Jewish supremacy and told us that we 
will always be second-class citizens." Around 1.8 million Arabs live in 
Israel, they are the descendents of the Palestinians who remained in 
what is today Israel after the 1948 “War of Independence.”

Jewish Israeli peace activists also protested the bill by unfurling a 
large black flag in the Knesset.

    Moments ago Peace Now activists unfurled a large black flag at a
    Knesset hearing on the anti-democratic nation-state bill slated to
    pass today. We will continue to raise a black flag against such laws
    that are a stain on our country. Join us in the battle for Israel’s
    soul! https://t.co/LM6FF7DPa3

    — Peace Now (@peacenowisrael) July 18, 2018
    <https://twitter.com/peacenowisrael/status/1019580786587160578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

The Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, released a 
statement Thursday dubbing the bill a "colonial law with features of 
apartheid… It creates various avenues for segregation in land and 
housing and incentives based on the principle of 'advancing Jewish 
settlement' both in civil life and in obtaining citizenship based on the 
law of return and in language and in cultural rights in the name of 
self-definition."

Arab citizen of Israel and Haaretz journalist Janan Bsoul responded to 
the bill’s approval quoting a saying in Arabic “Water only turn clear 
after it’s been muddy. To be honest I’m happy this law passed. This… is 
exposing the dirty, it shows the degree to which Israel thinks it’s 
doing its Palestinian citizens a favor.”

-- 
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863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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