Dangerous law

Dangerous law

News:

1. The ‘nation state’ law passed by the Israel’s Parliament has raised concerns about its commitment to peace in the region.

Important facts:

2. The law lays down :

• The law undermines its Arab minority and obstructs the peace process.
• Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it.
• The law strips Arabic, as national language status.
• State Jerusalem, “whole and united” as its capital.
• Promotes and encourage the establishment and consolidation of Jewish settlements.

3. Arguments in favour of the law:

• It aimed to boost Israel’s Jewish identity.
• It will not discriminate against minorities.

4. Arguments against the law:

• Providing exclusive right to national self-determination only to Jewish and downgrading Arabic status.
• Arab MPs have called the legislation racist and form of apartheid aimed at creating two systems with one country.
• The new law challenges the basic concept of equality.
• The law allows the Israeli state to institutionalize discrimination against the minorities at home.
• The law further erodes the credibility of Israel’s professed support of an independent Palestinian state.

5. Controversial issues related to the law:

• The emphasis on Jerusalem and the promise to promote settlements pose a direct threat to peace process with the Palestinians.
• Jerusalem remains a disputed territory , with Palestinians seeing its eastern part as the capital of their future state

6. History of Jerusalem:

• In 1947, the United Nations devised a plan to divide British manmade Palestine into three entities:

a) a Jewish state

b) Arab state

c) Jerusalem

• Jewish leaders accepted the plan, but the Arab world rejected it.
• Following the British withdrawal, a war broke out in which Israel seized the west of the city, while Jordanians and Palestinians took the east.
• In the next conflict in 1967 Israel seized control of east Jerusalem and later annexed it, in moves never recognised by the international community.
• The predominantly Palestinian population in the east lives under full Israeli control, but cannot vote in parliamentary elections.