As a Palestinian citizen of Israel, it is a strange experience to watch your humanity become a subject of national debate between a prime minister and a model. Responding to criticism by the well-known Israeli actor Rotem Sela this week, Benjamin Netanyahu took it upon himself to declare, via Instagram: “Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the nation-state law we passed [in July 2018], Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people – and not anyone else.” His assertion quickly dominated international headlines. Israeli Hollywood actor Gal Gadot (who played Wonder Woman in the 2017 blockbuster), President Reuven Rivlin, and other public figures joined the fray to defend Sela, who had posted the question: “When the hell will someone in this government convey to the public that Israel is a state of all its citizens and that all people were created equal?”

Sela’s remarks are commendable. But Netanyahu is right: Israel is not a country built for all its people, a fifth of whom (more than 1.5 million) are Palestinian Arab citizens of the state. This was the case long before the “Jewish nation-state law” was enacted last year, and long before Netanyahu returned as prime minister a decade ago. Since the state’s establishment in 1948, more than 65 laws have been used to restrict the rights of Palestinian citizens in all fields of life, with more being passed every year. While many of these laws may not appear discriminatory at face value, their racist impact is evident to the people they target.

For example, as a non-Jew in Israel, I cannot buy property in the vast majority of the country, and I can be barred by an admissions committee from living in a small, community town if I am not deemed “socially or culturally suitable”. I am unable to study Palestinian history at a state school because it is not taught, and I could put a theatre at risk of losing state funding if I promote a play describing Israel’s independence as a Nakba, or catastrophe, for the Palestinian people. If I wished to marry a Palestinian from the occupied territories, I could not bestow residency or citizenship on her so she could live with me and raise a family inside Israel; any Jew in the world, however, can fly into Ben Gurion airport and become a citizen.

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In many ways, the nation-state law changes little for Palestinian citizens of the state, as the legal infrastructure for their inferior status has always been in place. And yet, by anchoring Jewish supremacy as a constitutional rule, the law also changes everything: now, Israeli courts and state bodies are obligated to carry out racial discrimination. This includes demoting Arabic from its former status as an official language, and, most dangerously, pursuing exclusive Jewish settlement as a “national value”. With this law, the avenues for Palestinian citizens to combat inequality – an already Sisyphean undertaking – are narrowed even further.

This year’s Israeli elections – and the spat between Sela and Netanyahu – must be understood in the shadow of this law. Until now, the political coverage has largely focused on the possibility of former army chief Benny Gantz replacing Netanyahu, or on Netanyahu’s facilitation of the fascist Jewish Power party to enter the Knesset. The real issue that should be examined – and that should matter in every Israeli election – is why none of the main parties are discussing true equality, or the end of the occupation, as a central issue. The answer is simple: most Jewish-Israelis agree that anyone who questions Jewish superiority, or Israel’s rule over all people between the river and the sea, is not welcome in the public discourse.

The distaste for such discussion is systemic. Last year, the Knesset Presidium refused to allow a bill entitled Basic Law: State for All Its Citizens, proposed by Balad, a secular Arab nationalist party, to be brought to the floor. Another bill entitled Democratic, Multicultural and Egalitarian State, proposed by Yousef Jabareen of an Arab-Jewish party, was dismissed in the early stages of parliamentary debates. Just last week, the Knesset’s central elections committee disqualified Balad-Ra’am (a joint slate of Balad and the Islamic Movement) as well as Ofer Cassif, a Jewish member of Hadash, from running in this year’s elections. (Adalah, the legal centre where I work, is representing both Balad-Ra’am and Cassif before the Israeli supreme court this week in an attempt to cancel the committee’s decisions).

Although the supreme court is expected to allow their participation, this marks the sixth consecutive election in which Arab-led parties and their candidates have had to fight disqualifications. These decisions have been endorsed by rightwing and centre Jewish parties alike, accusing the Arab parties of supporting terrorism because they criticise the occupation, or denying Israel’s character as a “Jewish and democratic” state because they demand a racially just society, a “state for all its citizens”. What this shows again is that, as far as the Israeli political spectrum is concerned, Palestinian citizens are not to be regarded as equals, and their demands for human rights are a national threat. It should not have taken an Instagram post by a Jewish-Israeli actor to expose that reality.

• Amjad Iraqi is an advocacy coordinator at the legal centre Adalah. He is also a contributing editor at +972 magazine