ISRAEL PASSES ‘NATION-STATE’ LAW HIT AS NEW APARTHEID VERSION

JERUSALEM— Israel passed a law on Thursday declaring that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country.

The “nation-state” law passed by a vote of 62-55 and two abstentions in the 120member parliament after months of political argument.

“This is a defining moment in the annals of Zionism and the history of the state of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset after the vote.

Symbolic law

Largely symbolic, the law stipulates that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self- determination in it”.

The bill also strips Arabic of its designation as an official language alongside Hebrew, downgrading it to a “special status” that enables its continued use in schools.

Arab-Israelis number some 1.8 million, about 20 percent of the 9 million population.

Early drafts of the legislation went further in what critics at home and abroad saw as discrimination towards Israel’s Arabs.

Anti-Arab

Even after the changes, critics said the new law will deepen a sense of alienation within the Arab minority.

Israel’s Arab population is comprised mainly of descendants of those who remained in the territory during the conflict between Arabs and Jews that culminated in the war of 1948.

Arab-Israelis have full equal rights under the law but say they face constant discrimination, citing inferior services and unfair allocations for education, health and housing.

Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, called the law a bid to advance “ethnic superiority by promoting racist policies.”