Israel's Next Basic Law Paves the Way for Official Apartheid
Date: 
June 14 2017

The bill sets the stage for the eventual absorption of the occupied territories into Israel while legally and permanently denying the political and civil rights of the Palestinians.

On May 10, 2017, the “Jewish nation-state bill” passed its first reading in Israel’s Knesset. With this first hurdle cleared, Israel took another step towards legalizing the de facto apartheid system by which it governs its Palestinian citizens and the non-citizen Palestinians it rules over in the occupied territories. The bill, which would have quasi-constitutional status, defines Israel as the national home of the Jewish people and stipulates that the right to self-determination in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people.”

With two more readings ahead, the consequences of passing the bill would be immense. For the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who represent a fifth of the country’s population, these provisions would legalize dozens of discriminatory laws they face. Equally important, the law would implicitly deny the right of self-determination to all Palestinians under Israeli rule, regardless of citizenship status or geographic location. Hence, the bill sets the stage for the eventual absorption of the occupied territories into Israel while legally and permanently denying the political and civil rights of the Palestinians. It is therefore no wonder why a Haaretz editorial called the bill the “cornerstone for apartheid in the entire Land of Israel.”

MAKING DISCRIMINATION CONSTITUTIONAL

The law threatens to imbue longstanding trends of discrimination with constitutional authority. This is because the proposed law is no ordinary legislation. When passed, it will become what is called a “Basic Law” and join the other fifteen pieces of legislation passed throughout Israel’s history that act as its de facto constitution. As such, it could only be replaced or changed by another Basic Law and would be immune to legal challenges.

An earlier version of the bill was introduced in August 2011 by a wide coalition of Knesset members. In addition to its provisions about self-determination and the status of the Arabic language, the bill aimed to make Israel’s democratic nature legally subservient to its Jewish character. In the words of one of the bill’s original sponsors, Zeev Elkin, “the law is designed to give the courts reasoning that supports the state as the Jewish nation-state when ruling in situations in which the state’s Jewish character clashes with the principles of democracy.”

The bill failed to become law at the time, but another version introduced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself appeared in May 2014 and was passed by his cabinet that November. Netanyahu claimed that the bill put Israel’s Jewish and purported democratic character on an equal footing, rather than privileging one over the other. However, his version still provided the possibility, or perhaps even the likelihood, that the Israeli Supreme Court would uphold discriminatory laws due to the constitutional primacy the law would grant to Israeli Jews.

While the latest version of the bill does not explicitly subordinate democracy to Jewish identity, it still privileges the rights of Israeli Jews and subordinates the Arabic language. Empowering these provisions with constitutional authority would provide a legal framework and create precedents for defending discriminatory laws in the name of Jewish self-determination.

ELIMINATION OF PALESTINIAN NATIONAL RIGHTS

The bill also threatens the rights of those Palestinians in the occupied territories who are under Israel’s control but not formally under its sovereignty. Israel is likely to use this law to prevent any semblance of an independent Palestinian state. Many across Israel already see parts, if not all, of the West Bank as integral to the so-called Jewish state. Indeed, support for outright annexation has been gaining steam in recent years. As Israel extends its sovereignty over all of the occupied territories (it has already done so regarding Jerusalem and the Golan Heights), it will preclude any claims of Palestinian statehood by deploying the assertion that self-determination is a right unique to Jews.

The bill also could provide the foundation for laws that would maintain Israel’s Jewish supremacy in the event of extending Israeli sovereignty over new Palestinian populations. Legally absorbing these Palestinians and granting them the right to full citizenship would dilute the Jewish character of Israel. Under this law, however, denying political rights to Palestinians, or even carrying out population transfers in order to maintain Israel’s Jewish character would be wholly within the bounds of law. In other words, apartheid and ethnic cleansing would be legally justified in the name of the “unique right of the Jewish people” to self-determination in Israel. Not only would the occupied Palestinians never enjoy the right to self-determination, they may lose the right to exist as a people, even a subjugated one, in their own homeland.

The Jewish nation-state bill, therefore, is not just a threat to the equality of Palestinian citizens of Israel or an obstacle to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. It also provides the means to legally and permanently strip the Palestinians across their homeland of their already truncated political and national rights, and possibly of their right to live in their homeland.

About The Author: 

Matthew DeMaio served as the Spring 2017 IPS Editorial Intern. He is also an editor of Muftah magazine's Israel/Palestine and Levant pages.

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