The Israeli Knesset is expected to vote in the coming days on the proposed Basic Law: Israel – The Nation State of the Jewish People that would constitutionally enshrine the identity of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel argues in a new position paperthat this Basic Law falls within the bounds of absolute prohibitions under international law and is therefore illegitimate as a colonial law with characteristics of apartheid.
Adalah General Director Hassan Jabareen responded today Sunday, 15 July 2018, to the impending legislation:
“The Nation-State Basic Law is illegitimate, as it establishes a colonial regime with distinct apartheid characteristics in that it seeks to maintain a regime in which one ethnic-national group controls an indigenous-national group living in the same territory while advancing ethnic superiority by promoting racist policies in the most basic aspects of life.”
Adalah issued today a new position paper that provides in-depth legal analysis of the proposed Nation-State Law. [CLICK HERE to read the paper]
Earlier this spring, in response to the proposed Nation-State Law, three Arab Knesset members proposed an alternative known as Basic Law: State of all its Citizens.
However, the Knesset Presidium disqualified the the proposed Basic Law: State of all its Citizens on the grounds that it “denies the existence of the state as the state of the Jewish People,” refusing to even bring it for discussion before the Knesset. Adalah, together with the three MKs, has petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court against the Knesset’s decision. (HCJ 4552/18, MK Jamal Zahalka v. Knesset Speaker (case pending))
- CLICK HERE to read Adalah’s position paper on the proposed Nation-State Law
- CLICK HERE to read unofficial translation of sections of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People [English]
