Communist lawmaker Aida Touma-Sliman met with UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs, Rosemary A. DiCarlo, in New York on Thursday, August 23, to try to advance international action against Israel’s recently passed racist Nation-State Law.
MK Touma-Sliman during a debate on Nation-State law in the Knesset: “Apartheid Israeli Style” (Photo: Knesset Channel)
“The law makes Israel an official apartheid state even within the Green Line, so it is not an internal Israeli matter, but rather a law that requires strong and urgent intervention by the international community and the UN,” said Touma-Sliman, who is a Hadash member of the Knesset from the Joint List,.
The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on minority issues recently announced in response to a Joint List petition that he intends to examine the possibility of launching an investigation into the law. Touma-Sliman asked the DiCarlo to advance the matter.
The Basic Law on Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, also known as the Nation-State Law, approved by the Knesset on July 19, affirmed that only Jews have the right to self-determination in Israel. It also downgraded Arabic to a language with “special status,” among several other controversial measures that affect the Israeli Druze. The law is designed to alter the application of the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty in court rulings, and permits judges to give priority to Israel’s Jewish character in their rulings.
MK Touma-Sliman continued a speaking tour in the United States last week, sponsored by the US Peace Council. Previous venues included one in Manhattan and another at the Palestine Museum in New Haven.
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