"Apartheid, officialized": Palestinians fight the law of the Jewish state | Palestine News

Palestinian citizens of Israel are planning a series of actions, including a general strike and an international campaign, with the aim of rescinding a controversial law that defines the country exclusively as "l & # 39; 39, the nation-state of the Jewish people ".

Palestinian members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, described the adoption of the law on July 19 as an effort to sabotage Palestinian "history and narrative." "

" It is an attempt to destroy all the rhetoric of historical Palestine … The Ahmad Tibi people told Al Jazeera

that the basic law, which has constitutional status, only gives the Jews as the right to self-determination. It also removes Arabic from its official language designation, reducing it to a "special status" that allows its continued use in Israeli institutions.

In addition, it allows the Israeli government to expand the annexation of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. and East Jerusalem. The law considers the expansion of exclusively Jewish settlements as a national value, encouraging and promoting their construction.

Pbaded with 62 votes in favor and 55 against, the law was largely condemned. Critics liken it to apartheid, claiming that it promotes ethnic superiority and marginalizes even more than 1.8 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and other smaller minorities

"We we expect to see a storm of racist legal proposals, "MK Aida- Touma Suleiman told Al Jazeera. "We must be ready to confront them and fight them in parliament as well as at the public level."

"Battle of Fate"

Since the adoption of the law, the Committee of High Monitoring – a representative body of the Palestinian citizens of Israel – have met to discuss a way to answer.

The various political factions within the committee unanimously agreed to launch a series of counter-actions.

The first is scheduled for August 8, when Palestinians from various cities will try to block the main street where the Knesset building is located in Jerusalem during 39, an extraordinary session convened by the Joint List, an alliance of four predominantly Arab parties in the Israeli parliament.

The committee will soon announce the "National Day of Anti-Apartheid," Tibi added. A petition to annul the law will soon be distributed, with the aim of collecting at least 500,000 signatures. A general strike is also in progress

"The goal is to describe the impact of contributions on a daily basis," said Tibi

"We are also considering the possibility of reading our speeches in Arabic during next parliamentary sessions, to protest against the revocation of the status of Arabic as an official language, "he said. "The Knesset has never been for us a place of privilege, it has served only one of the different spaces where we fight, fight and fight," said Suleiman

. "It's a long battle, but it's not impossible … it's a battle of fate," she said, describing the difficult way forward to overturn the law.

. in Brussels and also plan to work with various "Never Democratic"

Earlier this week, Zouheir Bahloul of the Labor Party resigned to protest the law, bringing to 17 the number of Palestinian MPs. His party, which is part of the list and alliance of the Zionist Union, voted in favor of the legislation.

"The law oppresses and oppresses the people who sent me to the Knesset", said Bahloul

"The government is subjecting the Knesset to its whims, the Knesset has become the mark of outstanding and racist legislation, and I will flee the furious fire," he added

for Suleiman and Tibi, whose the parties are members of the common list, the resignation of Bahloul was inevitable.

"There are Zionist parties with Arab deputies who voted in favor of the bill – that is the danger of joining a Zionist camp; Tibi says:

Palestinians from Israel represent about 20% of the population of the country.

According to Tibi, they have long been considered inferior to Jewish citizens – and the new law "

" Israel was never democratic at first, " he said, "it was racist in its policies, its actions and its laws.What is new, it is that this law is a fundamental law."

When Israel defined itself as " Jewish and Democratic "In 1958, the" Jewish nature "of the state had always been a point that the Palestinians categorically opposed, adds Tibi. 19659004] But the law goes even further: "It's the definition of apartheid," he said.

"We want to tell the international community that there is a fundamental law that institutionalizes apartheid and we ask that action be taken."

With the hope of reaching a new vote in parliament, a motion to either abolish it altogether or to reformulate its language requires at least 61 votes.

At the same time, Palestinian MPs plan to appeal to the highest Israeli body, Suleiman and Tibi confirmed

"Apartheid, formalized"

However, according to experts, neither the decision of the Supreme Court nor an appeal to the international community will change the reality of the Palestinians.

Diana Buttu, lawyer and political advisor in Al-Shabaka: Palestinians Policy Network, said that the EU and the UN can only pronounce convictions, but it would be "the extension "because of the veto of the Security Council am

Since coming to power, US President Donald Trump has been developing further recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in the midst of the "Deal of the Century" negotiations. The adoption of the law seemed to arrive at an optimal time, Buttu said, echoing the views of Suleiman and Tibi.

Buttu also noted that the Israeli Supreme Court has a history of bias with the "Jewish" component in ruling on cases advanced by the Palestinians against the state.

"In the past, they [Israeli courts] confronted this fundamental tension by always favoring the Jewish side and not the side of democracy," Buttu told Al Jazeera, citing the law of the Admissions Committee adopted seven years, which allows small Jewish communities to market the state lands and determine the preconditions.

In nearly half of Israel's cities, residential admission committees continued to filter Palestinian candidates for "Incompatibility with social and cultural issues". "This law is among at least 50 other discriminatory laws … and in decisions has always been on the side of the Jews, rather than being democratic," said Buttu

. The nation-state bill, Buttu said to publish similar decisions from now will only become "a lot easier."

"Now, clearly, they say: apartheid, formalized," she said. "This [law] was only to make it official."
Buttu attributes the pbading of the bill to the precedence of the Supreme Court and its previous decisions.

"The reason this bill was allowed up here is that the Israeli Supreme Court allowed Israel to be so racist."

Despite the challenges, the Palestinian MKS remain uncompromising to find a way to cancel legislation or change its language.

"Our history is stronger than their law," said Tibi.