The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, passed a law last year declaring Israel “the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious, and historical right to self-determination.” One might suppose that this “Basic Law” (akin to a constitutional amendment) would be as contentious as the Vatican proclaiming itself Catholic.
To the contrary. Although the “nation-state law” changed no policies and affirmed a relationship between Jews and Israel that had been manifest since the country’s founding in 1948, the legislation was exceptionally controversial. One of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main political opponents, opposition leader Tzipi Livni, charged that its passage showed that “this government is racist.” The leader of Israel’s alliance of Arab political parties called it “a law of Jewish supremacy,” while another Arab member of the Knesset described it as “the official beginning of fascism and apartheid.”
The reaction in America was more temperate but still critical. The Anti-Defamation League lamented the law’s “awkwardness and superfluity,” worrying about its potential to “undermine Israel’s cherished democratic character.” Thirteen left-of-center Jewish organizations issued a letter claiming that the new law would “give constitutional protection to policies that could discriminate against minorities.” One of the organizations, J Street (the “home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans”), said that the Basic Law “sends a message to the 20 percent of Israelis who are not Jewish that they are, at best, second-class citizens in the land of their birth.”
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