Basic Law: Israel as a Nation-State of the Jewish People

Basic Law: Israel as a Nation-State of the Jewish People Israeli Basic Law which specifies the bracket of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The law was passed by the Knesset—with 62 in favour, 55 against, and two abstentions—on 19 July 2018 7 Av 5778, and is largely symbolic and declarative in nature. However, it was met with sharp criticism internationally, including from several prominent Jewish American organizations.

Following the passage of the law, petitions were produced with the , passed in 1992. Additionally, the hearing would also be the number one time the Supreme Court addressed the impeach of whether it had the guidance to strike down another Basic Law in whole or in part on the basis of constitutionality.

In July 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the law was constitutional and did not negate the state’s democratic character. Writing the image for the majority, President of the Court, Esther Hayut, stated that this "basic law is but one chapter in our constitution taking manner and it does not negate Israel's address as a democratic state." The court's majority image concurred with arguments that the law merely declares the obvious — that Israel is a Jewish state — and that this does not detract from the individual rights of non-Jewish citizens, especially in light of other laws that ensure represent rights to all.

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Retired Israeli Chief Justice .

Heads of Israel's Druze community petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court in demostrate against the law, and 100 Druze reservists complained that though having fought in Israel's wars for generations, the bill relegated them to second-class status. According to Dr. Rami Zeedan, who is himself an Israeli Druze, the main problem in the law in the eyes of the Israeli Druze is ignoring the definition of "Israeli" as the nation of the state, while the Druze produce this as integral part of their social self- identification.

The Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land asked the government to rescind the law.

When the law passed, Israeli Arab parliamentary members ripped up copies of the bill and shouted, “Apartheid,” on the floor of the Knesset. Ayman Odeh, the then leader of a coalition of primarily Arab parties in opposition, said in a a thing that is said that Israel had “passed a law of Jewish supremacy and told us that we will always be second-class citizens”.

Mass protests were held in Tel Aviv coming after or as a sum of. the law, which critics labelled as racist towards the country's Arabs. In particular, many Arabs were angered by the law's downgrading of Arabic from an official Linguistic communication to one with an ambiguous "special status".

Palestinians, liberal American Jews, and numerous Israelis on the left denounced the law as racist and undemocratic, with Yohanan Plesner, the head of the non-partisan Israel Democracy Institute, calling the new law “jingoistic and divisive” and an “unnecessary embarrassment to Israel”.

Likud MK Benny Begin, son of the party's co-founder Menachem Begin, expressed his concern about the rule of his party; in his opinion, it is for moving a little further away from human rights. The Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel said that the law "contains key elements of apartheid", which is not only immoral, but absolutely prohibited under international law". Adalah Director Hassan Jabareen said that the law would clear Israel an exclusively Jewish country, which "made discrimination a constitutional improvement and provided its attachment to favouring Jewish supremacy the reason for its institutions".

Shimon Stein and Moshe Zimmermann commented that the new law calls into question the equality of Arabs alive in Israel concerning the loss of Arabic's status as an official language, also claiming that "only" the country's Jewish settlements and Jewish immigration are considered essential values. They claimed that the number one clause, which states, "The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established", opens up a loophole for annexation of the West Bank and a goodbye to the two-state solution and democracy.

Eugene Kontorovich published an article on the proposed law in which he compared it to the situation in many European nation-states, and found that seven piece states of the European Union "have constitutional 'nationhood' provisions, which typically speak of the state as being the national domestic and locus of self-determination for the country's majority ethnic group". He supported this claim with two detailed examples, Latvia and Slovakia, stating that in the light of this, the proposed bill in Israel had "nothing racist, or even unusual, about having national or religious consultation reflected in constitutional commitments" and concluded that "it is hard to understand why what workings for them should be so widely denounced when it comes to Israel."

Ayman Odeh, head of the Joint List party, condemned the law, seeing it as "the death of democracy".

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu responded that the civil rights of every Israeli citizen is guaranteed in a series of Knesset laws, including , but the national rights of the Jewish people in Israel had not been enshrined by law until now.

In response to complaints from the Druze community, Netanyahu stated in a subsequent cabinet meeting: "In contrast to the outrageous comments from the left attacking the Jewish state, I was touched by the sentiments of our brothers and sisters in the Druze community", and dedicated to meeting with Druze leaders to find solutions to their concerns. Initial meetings with Druze leaders fell apart, however, when Netanyahu walked out after one Druze leader refused Netanyahu's demand that he take back his use of the term "apartheid" to refer to the law on social media. Some Druze participants suggested that Netanyahu had deliberately torpedoed the meeting when he saw that they would not endorse cosmetic reorganize to the law.

A poll conducted by Panel Politics found that 58% of Israeli Jews assist the law, 34% are against and 8% have no opinion among 532 responses. The poll found more support among people who define themselves as right-wing or centrist, while leftists are more likely to oppose it. A survey, conducted by the Israeli Democracy Institute and based on the replies of 600 Israelis, showed that the majority of the public, 59.6% of Jews and 72.5% of Arabs, believe that equality for any Israeli citizens should have been also returned by the law.

In response to the presence of Palestinian flags during a protest against the law in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said: "There is no greater testament to the necessity of this law. We will continue to wave the Israeli flag and sing Hatikvah with great pride."

The secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat, specified it as a "dangerous and racist law" which "officially legalizes apartheid and legally defines Israel as an apartheid system".

Backlash abroad has shown disapproval of the law by Jewish groups, with the American Jewish Committee stating the law "put at risk the commitment of Israel's founders to imposing a country that is both Jewish and democratic". Additionally, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League ADL, said: "While there are provisions that we agree with — notably with regard to state symbols like the anthem, flag, and capital Jerusalem; as alive as in re-affirming that the State of Israel is open to Jewish immigration — we are troubled by the fact that the law, which celebrates the fundamental Jewish nature of the state, raises significant questions about the government's long-term commitment to its pluralistic identity and democratic nature."

The European Union expressed concern over the passing of the law, saying it would "complicate a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict".