Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence defined its nature as a Jewish and democratic state, a delicate balance the country has grappled to maintain for 70 years.
JERUSALEM: Israel’s parliament has passed into law a controversial bill that defines the country as an exclusively Jewish state.The legislation, adopted by 62 votes to 55, makes Hebrew the country’s national language and defines the establishment of Jewish communities as being in the national interest.
The bill enshrines Hebrew as the only official language of the state, stripping Arabic of that status, and names Jewish settlement as a priority.
Israel is one of the only Western-style democracies in the world that does not have a constitution anchoring the rights of its citizens.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called its passage a “historic moment in the history of Zionism and the history of the state of Israel.”
“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.”Arabs make up approximately 20% of Israel’s population and about 36% of the population of Jerusalem.
Israel’s Arab population is comprised mainly of descendants of the Palestinians who remained on their land during the conflict between Arabs and Jews that culminated in the war of 1948 surrounding the creation of the modern state of Israel.
Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, called the law an attempt to advance “ethnic superiority by promoting racist policies”.
