ENRAGED Arab-Israeli politician Zoheir Bahloul quit parliament on July 28 in a symbolic protest against a new “basic law” that enshrines the special rights of Jews in Israel.
He condemned the law as “racist” and “destructive”. Arabs are a sizeable minority in Israel at near 20 per cent of the population.
His resignation followed parliament voting into law a bill sponsored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing allies 10 days earlier that declared Israel as the exclusive nation state of the Jewish people.
Without a written constitution, Israel’s legal system essentially functions by amending the 1948 Declaration of Independence. Ironically, the original document promised equality for all citizens, something the new law conveniently whitewashes.
It also puts another nail in the coffin of a sustainable peace settlement with the Palestinians and discards any pretensions of democracy in Israel by laying clear markers between “us” and “them”.
Buoyed by the unconditional support of American President Donald Trump for his government, including controversially relocating the United States embassy to Jerusalem, Netanyahu has given legal cover to Israel’s long-standing policy of social stratification based on race. All that’s missing are separate drinking fountains for Arabs and Jews.
The controversial “Jewish nation-state law” has three key elements. One, that Israeli Jews have a “unique right to self-determination.” If we take this phrase at face value, they can now infringe upon minority rights with the blessings of the state.
Two, Hebrew will be the only official language of Israel, with Arabic demoted to a “special status” that sounds like political-speak for “et cetera.” With this, the state will slash funding for a bi-lingual bureaucracy, education system, literary output, traffic signs and generally any public-funded messages.
Three, the state will champion Jewish settlements that often swallow up historically Arab land as a “national value.” Regrettably, not only have Arab-Israelis been treated as second-rate during Netanyahu’s premiership insofar as access to public goods and services are concerned, they have also been labeled a “fifth-column” that could immediately turn traitorous in the event of another war with Israel’s Arab neighbours.
It is worth noting the nation-state bill had been bouncing around parliament since 2011, and in its legislated form irks religious conservatives for excluding the word “God” from the text. This is unsurprising as the founders of Zionism were atheists who did not perceive Jews and Judaism as mutually inclusive.
Yet, the Jewish people’s divine right to the “promised land” has been central to the historical and biblical case for Israel, and the beating heart of its foreign policy.
Which makes this omission both curious and ominous. If Netanyahu’s government ignores the biblical definition of Israel i.e. a land where the “Halacha” or holy law is supreme, it may very well interpret to its advantage who is and isn’t a Jew tomorrow.
And this brings us to the slippery slope of any law that prioritises the protection of a particular community at the expense of others. Put another way, it can potentially endanger the very group it is trying to protect, especially when the government controls the membership criteria.
Israeli Jews, for example, are not a monolithic bloc, even if they support the nation-state law. There are sectarian, gender and sexual rights at play. More significantly, far-right politicians that led the charge towards codifying the nation-state bill are not only anti-minority; they are also anti-abortion.
Moreover, they are steadily gaining influence in parliament, especially after Netanyahu was recently charged with multiple counts of bribery and he needs their support to stay in office.
Since the national rabbinate is by all accounts also a state puppet, the right of “self-determination” may be narrowed to what preserves the status quo.
Are single women seeking abortions against the commandments in the Halacha really Jew? Are Arab and African Jews like the Mizrahi and Sephardim really Jews? Should African Jews have the same rights as European Jews? Who is an “average Jew” given sectarian differences?
These are all pressure points the increasingly vocal hard-right wing of Netanyahu’s government will gladly lean into if it continues to accumulate power.
Next, discriminatory state policies invariably turn into self-fulfilling prophecies that jeopardise national security. There are two layers to this equation. One, state patronage of illegal settlements as a “national value” may have the signaling effect of encroachment onto Arab lands within Israel as an expression of “self-determination.”
And if armed clashes break out as a result, how will the courts throw out any Jewish claims of a “historical right” to tracts of Arab land if he or she can prove it through some family heirloom or ancient will? After all, they may cite forced eviction by any number of historical parties and assert ownership. At that point, justice in Israel will be well and truly blind.
Finally, the nation-state law possibly sets Israel on the course to civil war. Now that Netanyahu and his hardliner allies have written into law the special status of Jews in Israel, this de facto turns everyone else, including the Arabs, into “others.”
Future policies that project such a narrative will inevitably reinforce the sense of victimisation among Israeli Arabs, who will in turn begin acting as those “others” and openly resent the oppressive state.
Down the road, such adversarial attitudes could easily take the shape of Hamas-style guerrilla warfare, specifically given the sizeable number of Arabs that serve in the Israeli police and military. Which, again, may be the outcome Netanyahu is hoping for to strip their citizenship and banish them from Israel.
The real shame here is another missed opportunity to convince the international community that terrorism is the sole target of his heavy-handed “defensive” operations in Gaza and not Arabs at large.
Finally, confident that Washington will veto any retaliatory United Nations sanctions, it seems Netanyahu remains oblivious to the fact that marginalising Arab-Israelis will sow nothing but strife for future generations. Is this what any wise leader should want for his people?
S. Mubashir Noor is an Ipoh-based independent journalist