At the beginning of this May, the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) approved the draft nationality law, which considers Israel the nation-state of the Jews, occupied Jerusalem as its capital, and Hebrew as the state language. The draft resolution is deficient, according to a report published by the network The island, from the status of the Arabic language and transforming it from an official language into a language with a special status. It also gives Jewish communities a special status that prevents Arabs from residing in them. It also stipulates that “the State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, and that the right to self-determination in the State of Israel is limited to the Jewish people.” Under the wording of the draft law, the Supreme Court will be made to favor the Jewish character of the state over democratic values when there is a contradiction between them. However, the word “democracy” does not currently appear in the draft law, which will be amended before it is voted on on the second reading. The report said that a special committee will begin extensive discussions in an attempt to reach agreements and settlements on some of the controversial provisions of the law before submitting it to the Knesset for final approval in the second and third readings after which it becomes effective. The bill’s sponsor, Knesset member Avi Dichter, said: “Anyone who does not belong to the Jewish nation cannot define the State of Israel as a nation-state. The Palestinians will not be able to define Israel as a nation-state,” adding that “the citizenship law is the insurance certificate that we leave to the next generation.” For his part, Israeli Minister Yariv Levin said in his speech at the opening session that “the nation-state law expresses in a sophisticated way Herzl’s vision that the State of Israel is first and foremost the nation-state of the Jewish people.”
Why now?
It seems that Israel is trying to capitalize on the prevailing Arab preoccupation and distance from the central Palestinian issue, and Western satisfaction represented by American support that culminated in its decision to consider Jerusalem the capital of the occupation, as well as unprecedented German support for Israel’s right to Judaize the state. In early April, the German Parliament approved a resolution renewing recognition of “Israel’s right to exist,” after a draft resolution submitted by both the Christian Union Party, led by Angela Merkel, and the Social Democratic Party, in light of the celebrations held by the occupation on the occasion of “the seventieth anniversary of the establishment of Israel.” The text of the resolution passed by Parliament stated that “Israel’s right to exist and its security are non-negotiable,” in addition to considering Israeli security a priority for Germany. The resolution called for “continuing to work actively to strengthen the existence of the State of Israel and its legitimate security interests, as this is a basic principle of German foreign and security policy.” This German support comes despite its apparent opposition to Trump’s decision to consider Jerusalem the capital of Israel, at a time when the German Parliament’s decision to accept the Judaization of Palestine did not receive the same media coverage… revealing once again to the Arab observer that the Western world will never stop supporting the Israeli enemy at the expense of the Arab people who have a historical right to the cause, and that the Arabs’ preoccupation with their central issue is soon translated by the occupation into decisions and laws that establish its trembling feet in the stolen land.
