Israeli parliament passes bill defining country as the nation-state of the Jewish people

[sandensea]

Source: Los Angeles Times

The Israeli parliament has passed a controversial bill defining the country as the nation state of the Jewish people, granting an advantageous status to Jewish-only communities and downgrading Arabic from an official language to one with a “special status.”

The bill passed at 3 a.m. Thursday, squeezing by with 62 votes out of 120. The new law defines Israel as the historic homeland of the Jewish nation, with “a singular right to national self-determination within it.”

Arab members of Israel’s parliament confronted Netanyahu as he left the venue.

“You passed an apartheid law, a racist law!” shouted Ahmad Tibi, a member of the Arab Joint List. “Why are you afraid of the Arabic language?”

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-nation-state-bill-20180718-story.html

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Separate but equal? Jewish and Arab Israelis together in Jaffa.

[sfwriter]

1. So a theocratic democracy where arabs have second-class citizenship?

Palestinians are kept in their reservations.

Remind me again, they are our allies why?

The remaining reasons now seem to be:

They are a STRONG ally in a region where our oil is.
They have exceptional intelligence assets.

Does "They are a Democracy in an autocratic corner of the world." still apply?

[brooklynite]

2. I thought that was the principle on which the nation was formed?

[karynnj]

3. That said it was a Jewish state, but also called for equality irrespective of religion.

From wikipedia:

Paragraph 13 of the Declaration provides that the State of Israel would be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex;. However, the Knesset maintains that the declaration is neither a law nor an ordinary legal document.[33] The Supreme Court has ruled that the guarantees were merely guiding principles, and that the declaration is not a constitutional law making a practical ruling on the upholding or nullification of various ordinances and statutes.[34]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Declaration_of_Independence

The law that passed IS law and it contradicts the Declaration of Independence.