On Sunday, November 16, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his support to a contentious bill that would officially enshrine Israel as a Jewish state. Netanyahu added, however, that revisions would need to be made before the bill could fulfill its goal of lending “balance” to the judicial system. The bill will be brought before the Ministerial Committee for Legislation by coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin (Likud), who originally introduced it in 2011 along with then-MK from Kadima Avi Dichter. The bill is thought highly unlikely to become law in its current form. Netanyahu proposed his own version of such discriminatory legislation in May of this year.

Hadash Chairman MK Barakeh: “The bill would pave the way for the enactment of racist and discriminatory laws against Arab citizens.” (Photo: Al Ittihad)

Elkin’s proposal is considered to be the most extreme rightwing version of the various bills that have been circulating in the Knesset in recent years, all of which seek to define Israel as a Jewish state, but none of which has made much progress in the plenum. On Sunday, the prime minister’s remarks, as well as the bill itself, drew fierce criticism from Hadash MKs. MK Dov Khenin called the proposed legislation a provocative initiative which aims to subjugate the state’s democratic principles to its Jewish-religious ones, and which would “transform Arabs in Israel into second-class citizens.” According to MK Mohammed Barakeh, the bill “would pave the way for the enactment of racist and discriminatory laws against Arab citizens.”