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Monday 23 July 2018 - 04:23

Consequences of Knesset’s Jewish State-Nation Law

Story Code : 739534
Consequences of Knesset’s Jewish State-Nation Law
The latest piece has made it highly possible to figure out the final form of the plan. On Thursday, the Israeli Knesset passed the "nation-state law”, granting the Jews the exclusive right to self-determination. The bill was approved by 62 lawmakers while 55 others opposed it.

The draft bill was agreed on May 10, 2017, by 48 votes of the government coalition. 41 members of the parliament rejected to offer support to it. The law is an effort started from 2011 by the rightist parties to establish the Jewish status of the Israeli regime. Now, after seven years, the supporters of the bill are reaping what they have sown.

In the initial version of the bill, the councils of the settlements and Jewish-inhibited regions could prevent the Arabs and non-Jews from residing to preserve the Jewish uniformity of them. This core point of the law and others drew opposition from some Israeli sides. The president and the attorney general both strongly came against it, as vehemently did the Arabs of the occupied territories. The wide-ranging opposing voices forced some amendments to the draft bill approved by the lawmakers.

In the initial version, the all-Jewish areas were regarded as “a national value” worth of boosting. Also, according to the bill, the right for all of the world’s Jews to migrate to the Israeli regime and be granted an Israeli citizenship was recognized. Moreover, it underscored the need to bolster Tel Aviv links to the Jews worldwide and also to cherish the Jewish people’s cultural, historical, and Jewish legacy. The bill additionally says al-Quds (Jerusalem) belongs to the so-called Jewish state which has full control over the whole city. It also set the Hebrew as the only official language of the Israeli regime.

The clauses of the bill suggest a new period Jewish supremacy. Many argue that the newly-passed law shows the true colors of the Israeli leaders and politicians who over the past decades have been hidden behind a mask of democracy.

The move, seen highly racist, raises a question: How does it influence the Palestinian conditions and the Muslim-Israeli dispute triggered by the announcement of the creation of the Israeli regime in 1948?

The consequences can come in three main areas. Here are they:

Chances of so-called peace fade away, as does the right for Palestinians to return home

The Palestinian Authority and Tel Aviv have been engaged for decades in what the sponsors, mainly the US, call the peace process. They held talks for many rounds but the outcome was frustrating for the Palestinian side who only saw more lands were seized and more violence was used against the Palestinian people. The new Israeli law deals a blow to decades-long peace, or as pro-resistance Palestinian factions call it a compromise, process. Now that the bill is passed, all of the Palestinian sides and even some Arab lawmakers and government officials agree that hopes for reaching a peace deal have gone away. They openly call it a racist law. The Arab members of the Knesset, leading a campaign to prevent the law from being passed, denounced the bill  as “death of democracy” and revelation of racism and apartheid against the non-Jews. In a symbolic move, the Arab members of the Knesset tore up the copies of the Jewish nation-state law, arguing that it will make the discrimination constitutional. They threatened with collective resignation to sink the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The law legalizes the discrimination of Tel Aviv against the Palestinians and automatically forces the issue of return of the displaced Palestinians to their land out of the agenda of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. This destroys the ideals of Mahmoud Abbas-led Palestinian faction which seeks to secure the Palestinian rights out of dialogue with the Israelis. If there were rays of hope for the return of the displaced Palestinians, there is none now under constitutionalized racism and apartheid policy in the Israeli regime.

Entrenching racist apartheid

Another consequence is the entrenchment of the racist apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territories. Presently, some 1.5 million non-Jews, including the Arab Muslims, Christians, Druzes, Circassians, Falahims, and others, are living in the occupied territories, accounting for 21 percent of the Israeli population. The Arabs only, account for 17.5 percent of the Israeli population of 9 million. Now, the new law eliminates Arabic from among the official two languages in the Israeli regime, allowing Hebrew to be the only official one. The law echoes the “one nation-one state” idea which gives supremacy to the Jews. Many argue that the law will build ground for future oppression against the minorities in the Israeli regime.

Death of two-state initiative

Another influence is the end of the two-state solution, which supports establishing a Palestinian state along with an Israeli one and has UN resolutions’ backing for realization. According to the new law, the whole of al-Quds city, not partially and divided into eastern and western parts, is held the capital of a Jewish state. A right for the Jews to open businesses and buy homes is officially recognized now. The law follows the US recognition of a-Quds as an Israeli state’s capital and relocation of Washington embassy and from Tel Aviv to al-Quds which took place on May 14. Many hold the US and some pro-compromise Arab states accountable, arguing that their favor to Tel Aviv has emboldened the Israelis to pass a law this openly breaching the human rights and international principles. 
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