By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM — The text of the proposed Basic Law about Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people reads well and sounds good in Jewish ears. It addresses the question that Israelis have been asking since the beginning of the state: Is Israel the state of the Jewish people or the state of all its citizens? The answer that the new law offers is unequivocal: “The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people in which they realize their aspiration to self-determination in accordance with their cultural and historical heritage.”
The context of the ten sections of the law (of which the above is only the first half of the first) is much more problematic, for it seeks to establish that non-Jews – notably the Arabs who now live in Israel and who today constitute a little less than a fifth of the country’s population – don’t have the same rights as Jews.
This is reminiscent of the situation in say Poland before World War II where it was taken for granted that Polish Jews didn’t have the same rights as Christian Poles. Yes, they were citizens and could vote, even elect their own to Parliament, but they were not part of the “owners” of the country in which they had lived for centuries.
By all accounts, Arabs in Israel will be considered in this way by the Jewish “owners” of the Jewish State of Israel. Their leaders are understandably alarmed.
The new law is probably also meant to support Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence that, as a condition for peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, the latter must first recognizes Israel as a Jewish state. This flies in the face of the Palestinian narrative that sees the land as belonging to Arabs. Whether or not this narrative is accurate, by challenging it so blatantly, negotiations leading to a so-called two-state solution become impossible.
If the two-state solution isn’t to be on the cards, it’s clear that the one state will be a Jewish state as defined by the new law.
East Jerusalem, where Palestinians would like to establish their capital is now part of Israel and its Arab residents will thus now be subject to the proposed law.
Lately, right-wing members of the Knesset have urged their colleagues to annex also parts of the West Bank, for example the municipality of Ma’aleh Adumim, which would then become a suburb of Jerusalem.
This may explain why the Basic Law that has been on the books for a long time but dormant is now being brought before the Knesset: it prepares for the annexation of the West Bank into the Jewish State of Israel.
The fact that this hasn’t been made explicit yet has to do with President Trump’s planned visit to the region later this month. He’s said to bring a plan for a two-state solution. His recent meeting with the president of the Palestinian Authority and the latter’s favorable comments afterwards makes Israeli right-wingers fearful that Trump will impose a solution on Israel and that his sweet talk to Netanyahu and his wife during their visit to Washington won’t yield expected results. It wouldn’t be the first time that Trump said one thing and meant the opposite.
Of course, much more needs to be said about the text. However, as a start it seems helpful to speculate about the context.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Canada. Now residing in Israel, he may be contacted via dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com