Four Special Rapporteurs express ‘deep concern’ that Nation-State Law is ‘discriminatory in nature and in practice against non-Jewish citizens and other minorities and does not apply the principle of equality between citizens, which is one of the key principles for democratic political systems,’ and gives Israel 60 days to explain itself.
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 has for years been guilty of detention, mass incarceration, targeting one group while letting another off scot-free. But since the passage of the Nation-State Law, extremists are emboldened in a new way that eerily resembles White-Privilege-MAGA-USA. (Both Israel and the US should be disgusted by the comparison.)
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.”
Palestinian reaction to Israel’s new Nation-State Law is hostile: words like “racism,” “ethnic cleansing,” “declaration of war,” “legitimization of hate,” and more.
Reporter Judy Maltz reports in Ha’aretz on: “How Israel excludes those ‘not Jewish enough’: Meet the ‘second-class’ Jews whose plight is sparking an uprising against Israel’s supreme religious authority…”