Mizrahi academics and activists demand Israel’s High Court strike down the Jewish Nation-State Law, saying it erases their cultural legacy and perpetuates injustices against both them and Palestinian citizens of Israel. As of 2005, 61% of Israeli Jews were of full or partial Mizrahi ancestry.
Jewish-only communities, mostly in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. No Palestinians allowed.
The Nation magazine reports that a quarter-century after the Oslo agreement, Israel is consolidating its domination by cruel and illegal means—but the global resistance movement is growing.
While my country has long been free from racist minority rule, the world is not yet free of the crime of apartheid. I see the eerie similarities between Israel’s racial laws and policies towards Palestinians, and the architecture of apartheid in South Africa. We South Africans know apartheid when we see it. In fact, many recognise that, in some respects, Israel’s regime of oppression is even worse.
Ever have one of those days? In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, you never know whether your house, or your car, or your family members will be there when the day is done.
Israel’s new Nation State Law, just over 1 month old, has emboldened right-wing Israelis and removed all protection from Palestinians living in Israel. Laws forbid them from growing or selling certain crops, picking certain herbs, and applying for many jobs; besides this, many factories are closing or moving to Jordan. It is clear that institutional racism is no longer in the shadows, and Israel wants Palestinians to leave.
Israel’s Nation-State Law, celebrated by many Jewish Israelis, is deeply worrying to Palestinian Israelis. Already, after just one month, violence, threats of violence, and discriminatory policies are in high gear – this after decades of unrestrained injustice. And still the world remains silent.
Burt Cohen interviews Alison Weir about Israel’s new law… Cohen: “At least it’s now out in the open. All Israelis who are not Jewish have had their rights diminished. Given the longstanding discrimination against non-white non-European Jews, Palestinians and Druze are now just third class citizens…” Listen to the interview.
Jewish News Service reports: “A new poll by the Walla news website shows that most Israelis support the Nationality Law, with 58 percent agreeing with the current language and 34 percent opposed to it… The poll also showed that even more Israeli voters would choose Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party than prior to the controversy over the new law.”
Israel’s new Nation-State Law gives Jews exclusive right to self-determination; names Jerusalem as united capital; prioritizes ingathering of exiles and Jewish-only communities.