Reuven Rivlin speaks out after PM said Israel was ‘not a state for all its citizens’

Israel’s president has hit back at Benjamin Netanyahu after the prime minister said in reference to the country’s Arab minority that Israel was “not a state for all its citizens”.

Less than a month before the 9 April election in which the prime minister hopes to win with the support of far-right politicians and voters, Netanyahu wrote on Instagram that: “Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it.”

While not mentioning the prime minister – a long-time political foe – by name, Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, criticised what he said were recent “entirely unacceptable remarks about the Arab citizens of Israel”.

“There are no first-class citizens, and there are no second-class voters. We are all equal in the voting booth. We are all represented at the Knesset [parliament],” said Rivlin, who holds a largely ceremonial role.

Netanyahu’s comments referenced a deeply contentious “nation state” law passed last year declaring that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country.

Critics of the law have said it amounted to “apartheid” for the 1.8 million Arabs in Israel with citizenship, who make up about a fifth of the total population. They consist of Palestinians who remained on their land following wars surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948. Others either fled or were expelled from their homes.

The head of the Israeli Arab Joint List group of parties, Ayman Odeh, said at the time of the law’s passing that the Knesset had approved a “law of Jewish supremacy and told us that we will always be second-class citizens”.

Netanyahu has been accused of demonising Israeli Arabs in previous elections to boost rightwing turnout. In 2015 on voting day, in a last-ditch attempt to rally support, he said Israeli Arab voters were coming out to vote “in droves”.

In his comments on Sunday, Netanyahu went on to claim he had “no problem with the Arab citizens of Israel. They have equal rights like all of us and the Likud government has invested more in the Arab sector than any other government,” referring to his party.

Netanyahu’s original comments came in reply to an Instagram post by Israeli actor Rotem Sela, who had asked: “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?”

Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot, who is also Israeli, came to Sela’s defence on Sunday.

“Love your neighbour as yourself,” she posted on Instagram. “This isn’t a matter of right or left. Jew or Arab. Secular or religious. It’s a matter of dialogue, of dialogue for peace and security and of our tolerance of one towards the other.”

She added: “Rotem, sister, you’re an inspiration to us all.”