On July 19, the Israeli Nation-State bill passed as a basic law in Israel. The law establishes constitutional-level protections for the Jewish people and its culture in Israel.
Overall, the law is less damaging to principles of democracy than earlier proposed versions would have been. Some of its effects are more symbolic than material. However, many believe that its provisions set a tone of discrimination against Arabs, even if they may not change their material condition.
I am writing to explain the general significance of the law, what some of its provisions do (and do not do), and explain what the Jewish Federation of St. Louis is doing to continue to promote a strong and secure democratic and Jewish state.
(The Times of Israel has posted a translation here. Statements from Jewish Federations of North America appear in links below.)
The general significance of the bill
The state of Israel was founded to protect the Jewish people in the face of historic and catastrophic persecution. It was further established to promote the flourishing of Jewish culture and protect the collective rights of our people to self-determination. To achieve these aims, Israel afforded special rights and privileges to Jews so it could be a refuge for the Jewish people. In this way, Israel is an ethnocultural nation.
Yet Israel has long recognized that it must secure the rights of all who live within its borders. The Jewish people’s own experience of 2,000 years of persecution and its own prophetic tradition led Israel’s founders to reject a narrowly Jewish state. It has thus historically constrained its ethnocultural nationalism by establishing legal protections for all minorities. These include commitments to human rights and justice as expressed in its Declaration of Independence and other basic laws.
These aspirations toward justice were critical to Israel’s self-definition as both a Jewish and democratic state. Israel’s commitment to universal principles of justice even as it retains its Jewish character have been a consistent source of pride for the Jewish people. And Israel remains the only recognized democracy in the region.
The current Nation-State law appears to upset that balance by establishing provisions that favor the Jewish nature of the state arguably at the expense of the rights of non-Jewish citizens. Areas of concern include language use, symbols and possibly areas of residence. Some of these provisions are already the law of the land, so the immediate impact of the law is uncertain or merely symbolic. But it could very well mark a profound tilt toward ethnocultural nationalism away from its universal principles of justice.
What the Nation-State bill actually does (and does not) do
The Nation-State law has five key areas that are important to track: Jewish settlement; the establishment of Hebrew as the sole official language; the declaration of Jerusalem “complete and united” as Israel’s capital; provisions about Israel’s national symbols; and language about the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora.
Jewish settlement. The Nation-State law explicitly supports Jewish settlement and instructs the government to “encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.” On its face, this provision is unexceptional: Israel was founded by the creation of Jewish settlements (kibbutzim, the city of Tel Aviv, etc.), as those fleeing persecution sought refuge and desired to maintain closed Jewish communities.
Yet the active promotion of “Jewish settlement” is raising a number of legal concerns.
First, while the Hebrew does not refer to settlements in the disputed territories, some are concerned that the language will provide constitutional-level support for expanding them there. Similarly, this language may provide additional support to new Jewish communities being built in the Negev (within the Green Line) that are, at times, on land claimed by Bedouin tribes.
Some wonder if the Jewish settlement clause may also permit future residential segregation that restricts Arabs and non-Jews from living anywhere they would like, despite the fact that an explicit provision in this direction was excised before passage at the behest of Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin. While informal segregation between Arabs and Jews is common in Israel, the question is whether this law will make residential segregation legally permissible.
Hebrew as the sole official language. The Nation-State law formally demotes Arabic from an official state language to a language with “special status.” What this means is not yet clear as the law includes a statement that the provision “does not harm the status given to the Arabic language before this law came into effect.” A key concern is that the language provision will further exclude Arabs from the public sphere by creating barriers to non-Hebrew speakers.
Of course, all countries have a right to establish a common, official language that binds its people together. The original establishment of Arabic as a co-equal language was a clear constraint on Israel’s ethnocultural nationalism. It respected the existence of Arab-speaking residents in the land who, along with Jews, had been there for centuries. The issue at this moment then is not the right of Israel to establish Hebrew as its official language. Rather the concern is that the loss of Arabic as an official language will create a new burden to inclusion for them in a shared society, moving Israel toward a narrowly Jewish state.
Jerusalem. The law declares that the capital of Israel is “Jerusalem, complete and united.” This provision is unlikely to have much practical or legal effect. While it may sound like it creates a new impediment to peace, I do not believe it does. This is because Israeli law already requires a majority of Knesset members to approve concessions in East Jerusalem.
National symbols. The law formalizes the existing national symbols of Israel into basic law. Hatikvah is already the national anthem, the Israeli flag already includes a Jewish star and the Menorah is already a potent Jewish symbol of the State. These symbols celebrate Jewish culture. They are a source of pride for most Jews because they connect the modern state to symbols and themes of our shared, collective history.
While the law does not change Israel’s national symbols, its inclusion marks a defeat for some civil-rights activists.
Because they celebrate specifically Jewish themes and history, Israel’s national symbols have excluded non-Jews from their inception. Arab and Palestinian Israelis, for example, generally do not sing Israel’s national anthem as its description of a 2,000-year longing for the re-establishment of Zion simply does not apply to them. The law does nothing to change that status quo.
Relationship with the Diaspora. The law asserts Israel’s responsibility to act “in the Diaspora to strengthen the affinity between the state and members of the Jewish people.” This was a noticeable “win” for those opposed to Jewish pluralism in Israel. Why? Because earlier versions of the law had instructed the government to act “wherever [Jews] may be,” which would have included within the state of Israel itself. By restricting their efforts to action “in the Diaspora,” the responsibility now stops at Israel’s borders.
It is unclear what tangible effect the Diaspora provision will have. The law does not forbid the state from promoting Jewish pluralism; it only lost an opportunity to create a constitutional-level provision that might have supported Jewish pluralism in Israel. Thus, the ongoing political fights over conversion, personal status and egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall will continue as political issues for the time being.
What we are doing
Jewish Federation of St. Louis recently set strategic priorities for its work in Israel and addressing the needs of the Jewish people around the world. They include our historic commitment to promotion of a democratic and Jewish state, the welfare of the global Jewish people and support for the education of our own community about Israel. Additionally, we have committed ourselves to promote programs that advance civil society initiatives between Jews and Arabs in Israel, and greater Jewish pluralism.
The Nation-State law as passed may create some challenges to our work. The Jewish Federations of North America worked hard to eliminate some of the more concerning provisions in earlier versions of the bill. We now have a responsibility of helping our community understand the ways this law might — and might not — undermine Israel’s historic commitments to justice, and its future as a stable and secure Jewish nation.
Governments and politics change; our work to support Israel must be based on the ideals on which it was founded. These include a commitment to the three principles expressed in its own Declaration of Independence:
- the security of the Jewish people;
- the flourishing of Jewish culture; and
- the promotion of principles of universal justice and human rights for all its citizens.
Israel has achieved remarkable and unprecedented success in its barely 70 years of existence. We will continue to work hard to promote all of these principles so that Israel may remain a strong and secure democratic Jewish state, a light onto the nations. Whatever its challenges, internal or external, we must be there, and I invite you to join us in these efforts.
(If you want to learn more about the history of Israel and Zionism, I invite you to join me this fall on Wednesday evenings starting October 10 from 7 to 8:30 pm at the Jewish Federation of St. Louis. I’ll be teaching a class for us to learn together about the issues that Israel is facing in a broader historical perspective.)
Statement from Richard Sandler