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<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Israel-Approves-Nationality-Apartheid-Law-20180719-0004.html">https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Israel-Approves-Nationality-Apartheid-Law-20180719-0004.html</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Israel Approves Nationality 'Apartheid'
Law<br>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time">Published 19 July 2018 </div>
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<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Legislators Ahmad Tibi and Ayeda Touma-Souliman yelled
at Netanyahu: "You passed an apartheid law, a racist
law."</p>
<p>"I announce with shock and sorrow the death of
democracy," Ahmed Tibi told reporters.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>Jewish Israeli peace activists also protested the bill
by unfurling a large black flag in the Knesset.</p>
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<p dir="ltr" lang="en">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! <a
href="https://t.co/LM6FF7DPa3">https://t.co/LM6FF7DPa3</a></p>
— Peace Now (@peacenowisrael) <a
href="https://twitter.com/peacenowisrael/status/1019580786587160578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July
18, 2018</a></blockquote>
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<p>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."</p>
<p>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.”</p>
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