MIDEAST-ISRAEL/IDENTITY Arabs in Israel worried about new Jewish nation-state bill

Record ID: 398815

  • Title: MIDEAST-ISRAEL/IDENTITY Arabs in Israel worried about new Jewish nation-state bill
  • Date: 25th November 2014
  • Summary: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (NOVEMBER 24, 2014) (REUTERS) INTERIOR OF ISRAEL'S INDEPENDENCE HALL WHERE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE TOOK PLACE CLOSE OF HISTORIC MICROPHONES WITH BEN GURION'S NAME TAG ON A TABLE IN THE MIDDLE
  • Embargoed: 10th December 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4L0ASQLY9ZNA23MGHRPKFOS6G
  • Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS VIDEO WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Israel is poised to pass one of the most divisive laws in its 66-year history, a bill that would declare it the nation-state of the Jewish people - and further alienate its Arab minority who constitute a fifth of the population.
    Political fighting over the measure is already threatening to tear apart Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition. The legislation, if passed into law, also could have long-term ramifications for Israeli democracy and jurisprudence.
    Netanyahu, along with other right-wing politicians pushing the law, say it is essential to protecting Israel's identity against those questioning its right to exist.
    But centrists in his government argue such legislation is unnecessary, noting the 1948 Declaration of Independence already proclaimed a Jewish state. They accuse him of pandering to hardliners in his Likud party
    In the Arab town of Kafr Qassem, whose Arabic- and Hebrew-signed shops and garages are frequented by Israeli Jews, residents were united against the bill.
    "We live with each other in one state, we have to live with each other. I am scared that one day they will tell me you don't have a house here and they throw us out of here," said Rasmi Amr, a 54-year-old security guard.
    Sitting outside a mosque, as the call for prayer sounded over loudspeakers, 73-year-old Ali Amr, a pensioner who was born in the village before the foundation of Israel added: "This should be a state for all of its citizens, not just for Jews. (A state) for Jews, Arabs, Druze and Christians, this is the state, and that's how it should be, not just for one party but for the entire people - Muslims, Druze, Christian and Jewish. We were born here, we live here since before 1948."
    Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday (November 23) many were challenging Israel's character as the national state of the Jewish people, including Palestinians who refuse to recognise a Jewish state as well as opponents from within.
    Palestinians, who rejected the recognition demand in collapsed peace talks, say that accepting Netanyahu's call could deny Palestinian refugees of past wars any right of return. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said the discussion on the nation-state bill put obstacles in the way of peace, and that it met fierce opposition inside the Israeli government, Knesset and among the Israeli people.
    The bill was approved by Netanyahu's cabinet on Sunday, but political bickering has pushed back by a week, to next Wednesday (December 3), a preliminary ratification vote in parliament.
    His draft of the bill - two other versions are being considered and no final wording has been agreed - pledges to "uphold the individual rights of all of Israel's citizens".
    But it also says only the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in Israel and to a flag, an anthem and free immigration. One draft proposed by a Likud legislator would remove Arabic as an official state language.
    "This law is anti-democratic and could be used for legitimising racism and discrimination against Palestinians citizens of Israel," said Arab legislator Jamal Zahalka.
    Israeli Arabs make up 20 percent of the population of 8.2 million and have long complained of being treated a second-class citizens.
    Lawmaker Ayelet Shaked of the far-right Jewish home party said the proposed law would not hurt minorities' rights. It was needed, she said, to ensure rulings of the Supreme Court - often criticised by the right-wing as being left-leaning - are balanced.
    Shaked, who authored one of the drafts, said that once Israel's status as a Jewish nation-state was anchored in law, the court would be able to take into account Jewish values and national considerations in passing judgment.
    "It will not harm in any way the rights of the minorities but it's another tool in the hands of the Supreme Court's judges," Shaked said.
    But Doctor Amir Fuchs of the of The Israel Democracy Institute warned that the bill could hurt minorities' right to equality in Israel.
    "We in Israel Democracy Institution see this bill as a real problematic (matter) and the fact that it changes the balance between Israel as a democracy and Israel as a Jewish state - yes it will have implications on the issue of equality for minorities. It's not merely a symbolic bill," Fuchs told Reuters.
    The controversy comes at a time of high tensions in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, where a dispute over access to a religious site sacred to Jews and Muslims has ignited Palestinian streets protests and lethal attacks on Jews.
    Violence has risen in Jerusalem since June, when Hamas militants abducted and killed three Israeli youths in the West Bank, triggering the murder by Jews of a Palestinian teenager.
    Rabbi Michael Melchior, a former cabinet minister from the Labour Party, said the law would distort both the Jewish and democratic nature of Israel.
    "What this is doing is not only crashing the basics of the democracy of the state of Israel, it's crashing the Jewish experience and the Jewish tradition and the Jewishness of the state of Israel and really is
    pure power play," he said.
    Citing Hillel the Elder, an ancient Jewish scholar, Melchior said Judaism is partly based on the principle "do not do unto others what is hated by you".
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