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Just before its summer vacation, the Knesset pbaded a series of laws that alarmed many Israelis, including some members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's own party.
President Reuven Rivlin warned against this a week ago. In a letter to the Knesset, he urged Israeli parliamentarians to reject a draft constitutional law to codify the Jewish character of the state
The project could "harm the Jewish people, Jews around the world and in the state of Israel ". Written
Despite this extraordinary intervention, the bill was adopted yesterday with a narrow majority of 62 to 55 votes. This was only one of the dozens of laws pbaded during marathons sessions
. The legislative frenzy showed how Mr. Netanyahu became dependent on the extremes of his coalition. Nationalists and ultra-Orthodox parties have forced it to enact controversial laws, angering much of the population and compounding divisions with the Jewish diaspora.
The new national law wants to remedy an old problem. Israel's 1948 Declaration of Independence established a "Jewish State". The founders promised that within three months, a Constitution should define this term. But such a Constitution has not yet been written.
The reason is profound differences between different sectors of the population about what "the Jewish state" is meant to mean. Ultra-Orthodox Jews want the state to respect Jewish law. The settlers see it as a tool to "liberate" the entire biblical land. Secular Israelis consider their Judaism as ethnicity or culture, and want to be free from any religious constraint.
Then there are non-Jewish citizens of Israel – about 20% of its 8.8 million inhabitants are Muslim Arabs whose role in the Jewish state
Thus, instead of filing a Constitution, the Knesset has issued 13 fundamental laws anchoring the democratic system of government and certain civil rights. The ruling coalition argued that another basic law was needed to safeguard the Jewish character of the state. But critics claim that this law turns Israel into a state of apartheid.
Most paragraphs of the law are hardly offensive. They order the use of the Jewish calendar, declare national holidays and determine the symbols of the state, which have been valid for a long time.
But other sections were attacked even by prominent politicians from Mr. Netanyahu's own Likud party, including Mr. Rivlin and Mr. Benjamin Begin, son of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The Knesset's legal adviser said the law was illegal. Jewish groups in the United States warned that this would lead to a permanent break with the diaspora.
The question revolves mainly around two paragraphs, one of which lowers the Arabic – until then one of the two official languages alongside the Hebrew status "language ". In contrast, Hebrew is the national language. A controversial second paragraph considers the establishment of Jewish communities as being in the national interest. This reinforces a long-standing perception that the government wants to marginalize the Arab minority.
"The words equality and justice are missing in this law", complained Mr. Benjamin Begin. Other party members have criticized "the insulting humiliation of the Arabic language".
The influential American Jewish Committee stated that it was "deeply disappointed" by the new law that "jeopardizes the commitment of the founders of Israel to build a country to the once Jewish and democratic ".
Observers fear that tensions between Jews and Arabs will degenerate.
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