The Knesset on Wednesday night voted the controversial Nationality Bill into law by passing it in its second and third readings. The law defines the country as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and enshrines the inherent rights of the Jewish people in their homeland.
The law could not have been passed without the support of the Chareidi parties, scoring a major victory for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The chareidi parties were opposed to sections of the law, which they fear will open the door for official recognition of Reform Jewry. The law also contains other dangers, as was reported by YWN-Israel.
Hours before the votes, the Chareidim received assurances from coalition chairman MK (Likud) David Amsellem. Additionally, PM Netanyahu threatened the chareidim that if they do not support the bill, he will move to early elections, a move that neither Shas or Yahadut Hatorah favor.
The legislation is defined as a “Basic Law,” granting it quasi-constitutional status and requires a majority of 61 in Knesset to amend. The law passed with a 62-55 backing, with two members of the Knesset abstaining. It will likely face a challenge at the Supreme Court.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called its passage a “historic moment in the history of Zionism and the history of the state of Israel… 122 years after Herzl published his vision, we established the basic principle of our existence.”
“Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, which honors the individual rights of all its citizens,” he said. “I repeat this is our state. The Jewish state.”
“Lately, there are people who are trying to destabilize this and therefore destabilize the foundations of our existence and our rights,” he added. “So today we have made a law in stone. This is our country. This is our language. This is our anthem and this is our flag. Long live the state of Israel.”
The bill enshrines the status of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in its homeland, the symbols of the state, Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the Hebrew language as the language of the state, gathering of the exiles, and the status of Shabbos and Yomim Tovim.
In addition, the bill enshrines the development of Jewish settlements as a national value, and states that the State will work to ensure the well-being of the Jewish people and its citizens in distress due to their Jewishness or citizenship, and will work in the Diaspora to preserve the connection between the State and the Jewish people and preserve their heritage. The bill establishes the constitutional status of the Jewish calendar as the state’s official calendar and Independence Day.
Opponents of the new bill say it marginalizes the country’s Arab minority of around 20 percent and also downgrades Arabic language from official to “special” standing.
Lawmakers took turns to passionately express their views in a rowdy, hours-long debate in parliament overnight.
Ayman Odeh, the head of the Arab Joint List, pulled out a black flag and waved it during his speech, warning of the implications of the law.
“This is an evil law,” he told lawmakers, adding that “a black flag hovers over it.”
“Today, I will have to tell my children, along with all the children of Palestinian Arab towns … that the state has declared that it does not want us here,” Odeh said in a statement later. “It has passed a law of Jewish supremacy and told us that we will always be second-class citizens.”
Benny Begin, son of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the founder of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, abstained from voting, warning of the party’s growing disconnect from human rights.
“This is not a decision I expected from the Likud leadership,” he said.
Eugene Kontorovich, international law director at the Kohelet Policy Forum, a conservative Jerusalem think tank, defended the bill, arguing it “is similar to provisions in many Western democratic constitutions, which provide for an official language and national character that reflects the majority of the population.”
Kontorovich dismissed the “faux outrage” against the bill as “simply another attempt to single-out the Jewish state and hold her to a double standard.”
American Jewish organizations also expressed their disapproval of the law.
The American Jewish Committee, a group representing the Jewish Diaspora, said it was “deeply disappointed,” adding that the law “puts at risk the commitment of Israel’s founders to build a country that is both Jewish and democratic.”
Jeremy Ben Ami, president of J Street, a Washington liberal Israel-advocacy group, said the bill’s purpose is “to send a message to the Arab community, the LGBT community and other minorities in Israel, that they are not and never will be equal citizens.”
“Strong connection between Israel and Jews worldwide is based on these values that Israel is both a Jewish and democratic state,” Ben Ami said, adding concerns the bill would “weaken the strength of Israel’s democracy.”
Lawmakers had removed the most contentious clause of the bill on Sunday which would have allowed the establishment of “separate communities” and which critics had called racist.
Israelis, including President Reuven Rivlin and attorney general, voiced opposition to the earlier draft of the bill. Israelis opposed to the bill, deeming it discriminatory, took to the streets to protest in large numbers on Saturday in Tel Aviv.
(AP / YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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13 Responses
You gotta be kidding. That Israel is a Jewish state was proclaimed on Independence Day in 1948. This law in its original form was meant to legalize open discrimination against Arabs, with the probable aim of eventually legalizing annexing the West Bank. The law as it was originally written would have been a disaster for Israel’s standing in the world. And make no mistake. The US cannot defend Israel alone, and we’re doing our best to bring about exactly that situation.
We can’t howl about anti-Semitism when we discriminate ourselves. And we can’t depend on the US to back us up with unlimited financial and military resources, either. It’s time we took another long hard look at the two-state solution and started trying to do something serious about implementing it. Fantasizing about “from the River to the Sea” is great for inspirational tapes for the National Religious camp but in the world of international politics it’s all hot air.
And don’t talk about, “Well, Mashiach is coming (next week?) so we don’t have to worry about all this Olam HaZeh business.” If he didn’t come for R’ Elchanan Wasserman hy”m then we can’t count on his coming just now when it’s convenient for us.
A state based on ethnicty and ancestry, rather than one based on Torah. This was Herzl’s idea all along.
Israel is here. It’s Jewish. Get used to it. The leftists Jew-haters and self-loathing court Jews can take a walk.
Midwest2 – No, not kidding. Yes, Megillat Haatzmaut proclaimed that Israel was a ‘Jewish and democratic state’ and, for decades, this was sufficient. But then the Israeli Supreme Court under the leadership of Aharon Barak began to give official legal precedence to the ‘Democratic’ over the ‘Jewish’ and it has been slowly and systematically chipping away at the ‘Jewish’ part of the definition of the state ever since. This was accomplished by the application of some rather controversial doctrines for the interpretation of statutes that Justice Barak devised. The law that was just passed is an attempt to halt and possibly even reverse this trend of the courts (‘lehashiv yameinu kekedem’ as it were) and to keep the courts from blocking the government from working to achieve fundamental Zionist goals that earlier governments were free to work towards. These goals can only be viewed as ‘discriminatory’ if you ignore the ‘Jewish’ nature of the state as a legal consideration or if you consider that nature to be inherently illegitimate as the proponents of the ‘Zionism is racism’ do. The Supreme Court has denied that Zionism is racism but has worked for decades to minimize the ‘Jewish’ nature of the state as a legal consideration. Hopefully, this law (together with the appointment of new Supreme Court Justices) will help reverse that trend.
“So today we have made a law in stone. This is our country. This is our language. This is our anthem and this is our flag. Long live the state of Israel.”
What a disgusting law. No mention of Torah, mitzvos, Shabbos, These are the things that define us as a nation, not some flag or anthem. I can’t believe the charadi parties voted for this. I’m worried about the reform using this bill for their benefit, But I’m more worried about mesianic jews, Black Hebrews and other fringe groups.
disgusting this has nothing at all to do with torah values, and nothing to do with judaism. rather it is just a window of opportunity for the reform yemach shemam to gain more power.
@Elazar Valk, what the right did was also jew hating – torah jew hating. when netanyahu says that israel is the nation state of the Jewish people he doesn’t mean what the torah defines as jewish rather what he, the zionist rasha, or herzl ymch”sh, defines as jewish which may be race, ethnicity, facial features, i dont know but it is not our (torah observant) judaism. the proof to that is chilul shabbos in tel aviv, toeva parades all around the country, the treifa festivals going on, the drafting of irreligious women into the army, the drafting of frum bochrim into the army etc., that if this nationality law would mean real judaism, these thing would all be against the law.
zull zein uva letzion goiel, moschiach should come rescue us from the zionist menace of the state of israel (probably the biggest threat facing jews today) bkuriov mamesh.
Midwest2, are you for real, or are you John Kerry in disguise? What is the “West Bank”? Why are you using the Camel-driver’s term for Judea and Samaria (or Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim). Eretz-Israel belongs to the Jewish people, and Jewish people only. Ever read the first Rashi on the Breishis?
@Elazar Valk, ERETZ YISRAEL DOES NOT BELONG TO THE KLAL YISROEL it belongs to hashem, and hashem only hashem, it has a special holiness, NEVER does it say ANYWHERE in tanach that eretz yisrael belongs to us. However it does say many times klal yisroel will be privileged to be able to dwell there but if they abuse the land which is hashem’s, if they sin, poof they’ll be thrown out. but that klal yisroel holds rights to eretz yisroel, like a frenchman holds rights to france is not the torahs view. and if your wondering where you got it from you got it from the zionists. in their attempts to fool jewry to coming to israel (in order to shmad them which was herzl’s plan) they made a massive propaganda campaign to make israel the state of the jewish people.
The bottom line is, that the yidden swore to HKBH that they wouldn’t come back to their homeland and they would bow to the gentiles demands AND IF NOT THEY WILL BE DEFENSELESS AS GAZELLES IN THE FIELD.
What is worrying is that the Bill is probably Schizophrenic
though ,Yigal libi, for once we are on the same side
If it is democratic – it will lose its jewish character over time. If it is” Jewish”-get with it and start living as a Jew-no mix.
CALLING ISRAEL A JEWISH STATE DOESN’T MAKE IT SO. IF ISRAEL WAS REALLY A JEWISH STATE IT WOULDN’T BE NECESSARY TO PASS A LAW.
@daas Torah: all earth belongs to Hashem, and he GAVE Eretz-Israel to am Yisroel. No other nation can any hold on it and it would remain empty and a waste until times of Mashiah. Have you been to Israel recently? The land is flourishing again, and there is more Torah in Israel than in the Diaspora taken together, the Baal teshuva movement is growing and the majority of Jewish people will be in the land within a decade. Defenceless gazelles? Nice one. Who do you think is protecting Israel against the whole world? Hashem. Israel is deeply divided and is surrounded by enemies. How is that it miraculously survives and is flourishing? Hashem is the one who brought the Jews (including original Zionists) back, and who are you to argue how the Redemption will take place? You can complain to Hashem that he is not following what you think the redemption should look like. Apropos the “vows” not to rebel against Goyim that was already cancelled since the Balfour Declaration, and certainly since The Trump Jerusalem Declaration.
@daas Torah: yes, there is toeva parades in tel Aviv, but chilonim are losing their influence. The country is getting more and more religious. Chilonim also don’t have children, while frum families have 7-9 children on average, some times a lot more. In 25 years, there will be a frum majority just through birth rate. So don’t look at the glass have empty, the trends are excellent for Yiddishkeit in Eretz israel.