World

Why Israel's Jewish nation-state bill is so controversial

November 26, 2014
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Next week, the Israeli parliament will vote on legislation that would define the country's character as “the national state of the Jewish people.” The bill, which was approved by the Cabinet this week, paving the way for a Knesset vote amid huge controversy, is an attempt to cement the Israeli government's position on this intensely-disputed issue. Israel has often defined itself as a “Jewish state” but the nature of that is the subject of much debate. At stake is the religious, cultural and national identity of Israeli Jews on the one hand, some of whom feel recognition of “the Jewish state,” at least domestically, is fundamental to its continued existence; and the rights and equality of non-Jewish minority groups on the other, who make up 20 per cent of Israel's population.

There has been huge political disagreement about this bill—of which there are several versions on the table, some more hardline than others—with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushing it through as some members of his five-party coalition government rejected it as undemocratic. Although a package of draft bills was eventually approved—albeit with a promise from Netanyahu that the final text would be re-worded—it split the Cabinet, with several members voting against it. The shouting during discussions was apparently so loud that it could be heard by reporters waiting outside the room.

The exact content of the legislation has not yet been finalised. Two early drafts were put forward by politicians from Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party and the far-right Jewish Home. Those versions included hardline proposals such as delisting Arabic as a second official language. While the country's set of “Basic Laws” (which effectively form part of its constitution) tend to use the dual terms “Jewish and democratic,” these bills emphasize the Jewish aspect exclusively. After acute disagreement within the Cabinet, Netanyahu—who has long struggled to hold together his deeply-divided government and is frequently accused of attempting to appease vocal right-wing factions—put together his own softened proposal, asking his Cabinet to vote on these versions collectively while promising that the final legislation would drop the most controversial clauses. It was able to gain a majority of Cabinet votes—which means it can now be voted on by parliament as a whole—despite two members, Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid, who lead centrist parties, rejecting it. If they vote against the bill that is presented to parliament next week, they could be dismissed and the coalition dissolved.

Israel's founders always conceived of it as a home for the Jewish people. The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, made on 14th May 1948, repeatedly refers to Israel as “the Jewish state.” This is important to many Israeli Jews—even some liberal ones—because the Jewish people's historic connection to the land between Jordan and the Mediterranean is at the centre of Israel's claim to at least part of it. As one senior Israeli official told me when I spoke to him in Tel Aviv during this year's US-brokered peace talks, aimed at agreeing the terms of a two-state solution: “If we are just colonialists then we have no right to be here... [The Palestinians and ourselves] need to recognise that we each have a right to be here.” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed this sentiment in a debate on Sunday when he argued that Arab and liberal Israeli voices, as well as those from outside the country, are inconsistent in supporting the recognition of a Palestinian national state while opposing the recognition of a Jewish one. (Many international voices that are in favour of a two-state solution emphasize the creation of a Palestinian and an Israeli national state, rather than a Jewish one).

The point is also important to many Jews because Israel was at least in part intended to create a safe haven for the community after centuries of persecution—Netanyahu's draft bill includes a pledge to help Jews around the world who face imminent danger. Many argue that in order to defend potential future victims, Jews and their descendants need always to have the right to settle in Israel, and protecting that right, some feel, means insisting, in law, on the Jewish nature of the country.

Nonetheless, Israel is a modern democracy and many—including some secular liberal Jewish writers—are uncomfortable with defining it by a race or religion. According to Israeli media reports, one Cabinet minister, Yaakov Peri—a former head of the Israeli security service—said the bill reminded him of those countries (Israel's most passionate opponents, including at least one “Islamic republic”) that have adopted sharia law.

Human rights activists have always worried that defining the country as “Jewish” weakens the rights of its non-Jewish (mainly Arab) population, who already suffer discrimination—many rights NGOs allege that they have unequal access to state resources, for example, especially land. The content of the Jewish nation-state bill, even Netanyahu's softened version, gives substance to those concerns. It would institutionalise Jewish law as an “inspiration” for legislation. It “upholds the individual rights of all its citizens according to law,” but states that the right of national self-determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people. Netanyahu said that although all Israeli citizens would have the same civil rights, “there are national rights only for the Jewish people—a flag, anthem, the right of every Jew to immigrate to Israel and other national symbols.”

That language may be worrying, and even Israel's President, Reuven Rivlin, yesterday came out strongly against the proposals, describing Israeli Arabs as “citizens, flesh of the flesh in this land, which is their homeland.”

The bill comes, too, at an extremely tense moment. The territories have faced mounting disputes over access to the sacred Temple Mount—or Haram al-Sharif—in Jerusalem and a string of “lone wolf” attacks in the wake of the Israel-Gaza conflict that ended in August, which some have likened to the beginnings of a “third intifada” (Palestinian uprising—the first happened in the 1980s and the second in 2000). In the past month, a mosque and a home in the West Bank were torched in suspected arson attacks by Jewish settlers, while five Israelis were killed by Arab extremists at a synagogue and road attacks in Jerusalem have left two people dead.

The bill that goes before parliament to vote on next week is likely to be a watered-down version, at least compared to the early hardline proposals. But in solidifying Israel's position on a point that has always been deeply contested by the Palestinians—and with vocal opposition from rights activists both within and outside the country—any legislation that defines the character of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people will exacerbate tensions at a very fragile moment.