Arabic not spoken here


May 8, 2017
Sarah Benton

Three articles, 1) Reuters for a brisk overview, 2) Haaretz editorial, 3) Middle East Eye.


Official languages on public signs have hitherto been in Hebrew and Arabic and often English too as the unofficial lingua franca.

Bill to declare Israel a Jewish state back on national agenda

By Jeffrey Heller, Reuters
May 07, 2017

JERUSALEM–Israel’s cabinet breathed new life on Sunday into efforts to anchor in law the country’s status as a Jewish state, legislation Palestinians have described as an obstacle to peace.

A ministerial committee approved a revised version of a bill first proposed in 2011 that declares the “State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people”, its author, Avi Dichter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, wrote on Facebook.

The legislation still has to go through further drafting by the Justice Ministry and pass several votes in parliament in what could be a lengthy process.

But the cabinet-level step — two weeks before a visit by U.S. President Donald Trump — could help Netanyahu shore up relations with far-right members of his government and underpin his campaign to press Palestinians to recognize Israel as the “nation-state” of the Jewish people.

Such acknowledgement has been a key Netanyahu demand for reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that collapsed in 2014 and which Trump has pledged to pursue.

Palestinians say accepting Netanyahu’s call could deny Palestinian refugees of past wars any right of return. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has characterized such “nation-state” legislation as putting “obstacles in the way of peace”.

In meetings in Israel, Trump will discuss how he plans to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a goal that has evaded many previous administrations. He is also scheduled to meet Abbas during the trip.

Critics have described the proposed legislation, which also declares that the “right to self determination” in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people” as impinging on the rights of its Arab minority, who make up some 20 percent of the population.

Opponents said that the bill designates only Hebrew as the country’s official language, although it requires government services and forms to be available in Arabic as well.”The nation-state law is tyranny by the majority and ‘legally’ turns us into second-class citizens,” Arab legislator Ayman Odeh wrote on Twitter after the cabinet committee’s decision.

Dichter, however, called the move “an important step in entrenching our identity, not only in consciousness of the world but primarily in our own minds”.

The revised legislation appeared to soften previous language that would have given Jewish values prominence in law-making and judicial decisions.

Centrists in Netanyahu’s government have argued a “nation-state” bill is unnecessary, noting the 1948 Declaration of Independence already proclaimed a Jewish state. They have accused him of pandering to right-wingers, and past versions of the legislation failed to make it through parliament.

Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell



“Israelis dance with Israeli national flags during celebrations marking Israel’s Independence Day”, JPost’s caption to this Reuters photo, April 27, 2017. In fact once the sun’s gone down only young men come out to celebrate, as though Independence Day is a machismo thing.

A Cornerstone of Apartheid

Israel’s ‘nation-state’ law must be stopped – the only way to preserve a democratic Israel is to enshrine equality among all its citizens in law

Haaretz lead editorial
May 08, 2017

The nation-state bill, which the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved unanimously on Sunday, is a bad bill. Nobody denies that Israel, as the bill says, “is the national home of the Jewish people,” or that “the right to the realization of national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.”

The only explanation for why Israel is advancing this bill is the millions of Palestinians whom it keeps under its control in territories that it fantasizes about annexing.

The Jewish people’s right to national revival in the Land of Israel was recognized back in the 1917 Balfour Declaration and approved by the League of Nations Mandate in 1922. On November 29, 1947, this right was reaffirmed and recognized by the UN General Assembly as well.

“We … hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, to be known as the State of Israel,” reads the Declaration of Independence. Similarly, the state’s Basic Laws define Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. And aside from all this, just last week, Israel celebrated the 69th anniversary of its independence.

Nevertheless, this bill is bad, because the only legitimate way to ensure the state’s Jewishness is for Israel to be a democracy that grants full equality to all its citizens, but which also has a Jewish majority. Any situation in which Jews were a minority in Israel, and the state’s Jewishness was maintained solely via discriminatory laws and a regime that enforced them against the majority’s will, would be undemocratic, and in any event would certainly not be viable over the long run.

The only explanation for why Israel is advancing this bill is the millions of Palestinians whom it keeps under its control in territories that it fantasizes about annexing. Because Israel is interested in applying its sovereignty to the land but isn’t interested in annexing the Palestinians who live there as equal citizens in a single state, it is forced to create the legal infrastructure for segregating Jews from Arabs and preserving the Jews’ legal supremacy. The nation-state law is the constitutional cornerstone for apartheid in the entire Land of Israel.

The nation-state law is fundamentally antithetical to democracy, as it seeks to enshrine the rule of a Jewish minority over an imagined Arab majority. This is a fearful and aggressive move by a people that sees itself as a minority and is preparing to maintain control over an apartheid state that contains a Palestinian majority living under its rule. Yet even before that point is reached, the law discriminates against members of Israel’s Arab minority and legally labels them as second-class citizens.

The nation-state bill must not be allowed to pass. The only way to preserve the national home of the Jewish people is to separate peacefully from the occupied territories and liberate the Palestinian people. And the only way to preserve a democratic Israel is to enshrine equality among its citizens in law, in line with the promise of the Declaration of Independence: “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.”

 


Israel’s cabinet submits bill to remove Arabic as official language

Cabinet drafts bill declaring Israel as ‘national home of the Jewish people’ and demotes Arabic from official language status

By MEE and agencies
May 07/08, 2017

Israel’s cabinet breathed new life on Sunday into efforts to anchor in law the country’s status as a Jewish state and revoke Arabic’s “official language” status, in legislation a Palestinian MP described as imposing “tyranny by the majority”.

A ministerial committee approved a revised version of a bill first proposed in 2011 that declares the “State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people,” its author, Avi Dichter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, wrote on Facebook.

The legislation still has to go through further drafting by the justice ministry and pass several votes in parliament in what could be a lengthy process.

But the cabinet-level step, two weeks before a visit by US President Donald Trump, could help Netanyahu shore up relations with far-right members of his government and underpin his campaign to press Palestinians to recognise Israel as the “nation-state” of the Jewish people.

Netanyahu has demanded this acknowledgment as a condition for reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that collapsed in 2014 and which Trump has pledged to pursue.

“The nation-state law is tyranny by the majority and ‘legally’ turns us into second-class citizens,” Arab legislator Ayman Odeh wrote on Twitter after the cabinet committee’s decision.

The bill states that “the national language is Hebrew” and downgrades Arabic to “special status,” but adds that “its speakers have the right to language-accessible state services”.

It says that “every resident of Israel, without distinction of religion or national origin, is entitled to work to preserve his culture, heritage, language and identity,” and that “the state may allow a community, including members of the same religion or national origin, to have separate communal settlements”.

Palestinians say accepting Netanyahu’s call could deny Palestinian refugees of past wars any right of return. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has characterised such “nation-state” legislation as putting “obstacles in the way of peace”.

In meetings in Israel, Trump will discuss how he plans to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a goal that has evaded many previous administrations. He is also scheduled to meet Abbas during the trip.

Critics have described the proposed legislation, which also declares that the “right to self determination” in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people” as impinging on the rights of its Arab minority, who make up some 20 percent of the population.

Opponents said that the bill designates only Hebrew as the country’s official language, although it requires government services and forms to be available in Arabic as well.

Dichter called the move “an important step in entrenching our identity, not only in consciousness of the world but primarily in our own minds”.

The revised legislation appeared to soften previous language that would have given Jewish values prominence in law-making and judicial decisions.

Centrists in Netanyahu’s government have argued that a “nation-state” bill is unnecessary, noting the 1948 Declaration of Independence has already proclaimed a Jewish state.

They have accused him of pandering to right-wingers, and past versions of the legislation failed to make it through parliament.

[The rest of this article details the latest events in Palestinian knife-stabbings and has been cut as irrelevant to the article.]

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