Passed last week by the Israeli Knesset was the thirteenth Basic Law. This latest law, called the Nation-State Law, recognizes Israel as the fulfillment of the Zionist dream declaring that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and “the actualization of the right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” In Israel which has no constitution, Basic Laws in Israel have the same power as the constitution in America.
The Nation State law had been in development for seven years. It declares that Israel is the actualization of the historical and religious right of the Jewish people. It says Hebrew is the official language, but Arabic has a special status and must be treated the same as it was before the law was enacted. Saturdays and Jewish Holidays are the official days of rest in the state, however people of other faiths must be allowed to observe their holidays and days of rest. The law reaffirmed that all of the freedoms that were guaranteed to ALL Israelis no matter what their faith. It affirms that an undivided Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and asserts that Jewish settlement (without specifying where) is a national value, and promises to encourage and advance settlement efforts. Finally, it indicates that Israel will work to ensure the safety of Jews all across the diaspora as well as their historical and cultural heritage.
It is important to note that the law does not supersede the Israeli Declaration of Independence which says in part that Israel,
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“will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture”
Those rights were reaffirmed in 1992 with the Human Dignity and Liberty basic law which states in part,
“Fundamental human rights in Israel are founded upon recognition of the value of the human being, the sanctity of human life, and the principle that all persons are free; these rights shall be upheld in the spirit of the principles set forth in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel.”
That law as is not superseded by the new law either.
Despite the guarantee of rights already established in the Declaration of Independence and Basic Law, progressive politics-first Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee (which opposed Zionism in the 1940s) claimed the law would somehow make Israel less democratic especially the provision making Hebrew the official language of Israel. Their objections ignore that the law explicitly says, “This clause does not change the status given to the Arabic language before the basic law was created.”
Ignoring the AJC added that law “put at risk the commitment of Israel’s founders to build a country that is both Jewish and democratic.”
Rick Jacobs, the head of the U.S.-based Union for Reform Judaism, which also puts progressive politics before their Jewish mission wrote the confusing, “The damage that will be done by this new nation-state law to the legitimacy of the Zionist vision … is enormous,” but all it does is put the Zionist mission in writing.
Part of the objection of liberal Jews in the diaspora traces back to the way Zionism is seen. American Jews mainly see Zionism mostly as a religious movement, But if one reads the bill, there is no mention of Judaism as the official religion of Israel. That’s because Israelis see Zionism as more a political movement to provide self-determination to the Jewish nation. One does not preclude the other and Zionism has elements of both, but it does skew the perception of the new law.
The tolerant left are as anti-Semitic as much of Europe and Muslim countries and they don’t bother to hide it.
They will do fine as long as they put their citizens first.
What we’re seeing in the jihad of population/migration/large families in Europe, Israel has been seeing for over a decade.
Israel’s Jewish population was in danger of being over-run by new “citizens” who are Muslims.
Something had to be done to prevent a tyranny of pure democracy in which Muslims would soon out-number Israeli Jews.
So, this law solves that.
And, boy!, are the Muslims mad!
They can NEVER take over the governace of Israel, no matter how many of them live inside Israel.
Their 2nd class treatment is still FAR BETTER than how non-Muslims are treated by most of the planet’s 53 Sharia states, however.