Arab leaders in Occupied Palestine have reacted with fury to plans by Benjamin Netanyahu, to spearhead legislation defining Israel as \u201cthe nation state of the Jewish people\u201d.<\/p>\n
Arab Israelis say the law will pave the way for discrimination against them to be entrenched in law.<\/p>\n
Liberal Israeli Jews are also warning that Mr Netanyahu\u2019s announcement that his government intends to \u201cprovide a constitutional anchor for Israel\u2019s status as the nation state of the Jewish people\u201d is \u201cundemocratic\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Netanyahu says that a Basic Law is necessary because enemies of Israel are trying to challenge the historical, legal and moral basis of the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.<\/p>\n
Taleb al-Sanaa, a former MP, responded yesterday: \u201cThis initiative is very dangerous to democracy and pushes the Arab public beyond the borders of the state in a legal sense. It perpetuates the inferiority and marginalisation of the Arabs and is a sure prescription for confrontation. It represents a parting of the waters between the Arab public and the state of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Arab citizens of Israel, who number a fifth of the population, comprise Palestinians who remained behind when their compatriots were expelled or fled when Israel was established in 1948. They have the right to vote but regularly face discrimination from authorities. For example, while hundreds of new cities, towns and localities for Jews have been established since 1948, not a single new Arab town has been created. Traditionally Arab citizens have sought redress in Israel\u2019s Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Yariv Levin, the coalition chairman from Mr Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party, says that a Basic Law delineating the Jewishness of Israel is needed to \u201creturn Israel to the Zionist path\u201d after years in which the Supreme Court issued rulings that went against Israel\u2019s Jewish identity.<\/p>\n
In a draft law Mr Levin prepared, Israel is delineated as the national home of the Jewish people and it is stated that the right of national self-determination in Israel is exclusive to the Jewish nation. Israel, it continues, is the Jewish people\u2019s historic homeland, without mention being made of it as a historic homeland for its Arab citizens.<\/p>\n
Jafar Farah, director of Mosawa, a non-governmental organisation that promotes equality for the Arab minority, predicts that legal discrimination will now become more pronounced. \u201cThis will mainstream racism and discrimination and marginalisation of the Arab community and give us the feeling that we are not only second-class citizens but a fifth column,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Galia Golan, a member of the dovish Meretz party, says \u201cthe implication is that everyone else is a second-class citizen. By implication you are excluding others when the whole basis of democracy is pluralism and equality. In that sense, it\u2019s undemocratic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt amounts to sending a message to your minority, that was here to begin with, that they have no place here,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n