Anti-Zionist law - Haaretz Editorial - Israel News
Knesset sought to make clear that the purpose of the nation-state law is to fundamentally change the balance between Israel as a Jewish state and a democratic one
Haaretz Editorial Apr 30, 2018
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/anti-zionist-law-1.6035579
Two weeks after the historic celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the state’s establishment, the Knesset is busy with another historic process. On Monday, it is expected to hold the first of three votes on the proposed Basic Law, which states that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. The nation-state bill is meant to be the state’s identity card, equivalent to the preamble of a constitution, which defines its identity and values.
One of the “compromises” of the committee that prepared the law for its first vote was the removal of the section that established the explicit supremacy of the nation-state law over all other laws. Also removed was a paragraph stating that the law’s purpose is “to enshrine in a Basic Law the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state in the spirit of the principles of the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel.”
In other words, the Knesset sought to make clear that the purpose of the law is to fundamentally change the balance between Israel as a Jewish state and a democratic one, and to undermine the values of the Declaration of Independence, which promised a state that grants full equality to all its citizens. Apparently the combination of “Jewish and democratic” and the values of the Declaration of Independence have became inconceivable concepts — just like the words “equality” and “human rights,” which the Knesset refused to include in the law.