‘Nation state’ law gives Jews exclusive rights over Arabs who make up fifth of Israel’s population

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The passing of a law in Israel that affords exclusive rights to Jewish people and removes Arabic as an official language has rippled through the country’s Arab minority, who have decried the legislation as unabashedly racist.

“It’s one more law, one more racist law,” said Najib Hadad, 56, in Nazareth, the country’s largest northern city whose residents are predominately Arab.

“We have got to the point where we just want to work; to live. In Israel, we have good lives, we work, and we are free to speak. We have our people in the Knesset [parliament],” he said. But he added: “This law is a racist law.”

There are roughly 1.8 million Arabs in Israel, making up about a fifth of the state’s population. They are mostly Palestinians and their descendants who remained in place after the 1948 war between Arabs and Jews. Hundreds of thousands of others were displaced or fled.

Suhad Banna, an English teacher who is also from Nazareth but lives in the Mediterranean city of Tel Aviv, said the legislation made her feel like a “class B citizen”.

“The ironic thing is that Israel is calling itself a democratic state,” she said. “I have no idea how it’s a democratic state after this bill. What democratic state are they are talking about?”

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Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has promised to ensure civil rights but says “the majority decides”.

Many Israeli Arabs complain of prejudice in their access to services and education, even as racial discrimination is illegal. The “nation-state” bill was amended this week after a previous version appeared to legalise racially segregated communities. However, another contentious clause says “the state sees the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation”.

Banna says Arabs in Israel are not “full citizens with equal rights”.

“I have no problem with Judaism; my problem is with the Zionism,” she said. “I am living in Tel Aviv with two roommates: one of them is a Jew, and the other one is Christian, and I am a Muslim. We are talking about it all the time.”

From Jerusalem’s Shuafat neighbourhood, a walled-off area that expanded as a Palestinian refugee camp and is now one of the most deprived districts of the city, Mahmoud Ali said Arabs have lost “what is left of our rights”.

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“I am afraid with this law the Israeli will have an excuse to expel us from our land,” the 50-year-old said. “Welcome to the dark ages.

“They can do whatever they want, and nobody can stop them. Imagine if Jordan approved a law that made it an Islamic state? The whole world would turn upside down.”

Samah Salaime, 43, who lives between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, said everyone in the minority had previously felt like second-class citizens “but now it’s official”.

“I came from a refugee family, the rest of my family were deported to Syria in 1948, and now they are in Germany and Sweden,” she said. “They are saying we can stay under the umbrella of the Jewish state with economic rights but no language and no nation, or even culture.”