High Court Hears 15 Petitions against Racist Nation-State Law

Israel’s High Court of Justice heard 15 petitions against the controversial Nation-State Law on Tuesday, December 22, in a hearing broadcast live from the court. An expanded panel of 11 Supreme Court justices heard the case. Far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the hearing in a statement posted to his Facebook page: “The court receives its power to rule by virtue of a basic law, and therefore cannot judge the source of its own power. This hearing illustrates the need for a series of judicial reforms.”

In a rare move, Knesset Speaker MK Yariv Levin (Likud), even farther to the right than the PM, warned the High Court in a written letter that if the justices were to strike down the law, he would consider the court’s decision “illegitimate.” “Any decision that would violate the Basic Laws that were passed in the Knesset is a decision made without authority, and is thus invalid,” Levin said in a letter addressed to Chief Justice Esther Hayut.

"This is the first time in Israeli legal history that the Supreme Court has to deal with the legal status of the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel," said Atty. Hassan Jabareen, founder of Adalah, during the hearing on Tuesday, December 22, 2020.

“This is the first time in Israeli legal history that the Supreme Court has to deal with the legal status of the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel,” said Atty. Hassan Jabareen, founder of Adalah, during the hearing on Tuesday, December 22, 2020. (Footage from the live broadcast)

Hadash MK Yousef Jabareen (Joint List) said in a statement on Tuesday morning: “The Nation-State Law anchors Jewish supremacy and entrenches discrimination against Arab citizens. Its place is in the trash heap of history with the apartheid laws of South Africa.” Likud activists attacked MK Jabareen as he left the Supreme Court building shouting “death to terrorists” and “death to Arabs.” Adalah’s Atty. Hassan Jabareen and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel’s Atty. Dan Yakir, demanded during the hearing that the entire law be tossed, citing several court cases where lower courts have already used it in an allegedly discriminatory manner.

On July 19, 2018, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, voted 62 to 55 to approve the Jewish Nation-State Law that constitutionally enshrines Jewish supremacy and the identity of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel filed a Supreme Court petition against the Jewish Nation-State Law less than a month later, on August 7, 2018. The petition was submitted against the Knesset on behalf of the entire Arab political leadership in Israel: the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, the National Committee of Arab Mayors, the Joint List parliamentary faction, and in the name of Adalah.

Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law – which has distinct apartheid characteristics – guarantees the ethnic-religious character of Israel as exclusively Jewish and entrenches the privileges enjoyed by Jewish citizens, while simultaneously anchoring discrimination against Arab-Palestinian citizens and legitimizing exclusion, racism, and systemic inequality. Adalah’s petition stresses, “A law that denies the civil and national rights of Palestinians in their homeland is racist, colonialist, and illegitimate.”

Related: CPI Posts on the Nation-State Law