As massive tent protests rock Israel, a coalition of lawmakers are pushing legislation meant to officially redefine the character of the state, making explicit that "Jewish" can trump "democracy" in legal decisions.
Haaretz is reporting that the bill, which has broad support, is expected to pass in the next Knesset session. Here is Zeev Elkin (Likud) describing the bill (emphasis mine):
According to Elkin, the law is intended to give the courts reasoning that supports "the state as the Jewish nation state in ruling in situations in which the Jewish character of the state clashes with its democratic character."
Elkin said: "The courts deal with this issue quite a lot, such as with the Law of Return as a discriminatory law."
The bill redefines basic consensus regarding the character of the state. For example, it also proposes that Hebrew would be the only official language in Israel, as opposed to the present situation - based on current mandatory law, Arabic and English are also recognized as official languages.
The bill accords Arabic "special status," and states that Arabic speakers "have the right to linguistic access to the services of the state, as determined by law."
Not only is this madness from a democratic perspective, it is madness when one considers the massive protests now taking place, for as Etgar Keret wrote yesterday in Tablet Magazine about the nature of the protesters swarming Israel's streets:
It’s funny to see how this group of people, in their cool, trendy clothes, feels so unrepresented: It contains artists, lawyers, academics, doctors—not the types you stereotypically find shouting about not having their voices heard. But in the Israel of 2011, these are precisely the people who can’t find themselves any genuine political representation. The people demonstrating here are exactly the same people who don’t feel quite comfortable with the flood of new laws, such as the recently passed boycott law, that limit basic freedoms.
Israel is a country without a constitution, and these "basic laws" that the Knesset passes are meant as guides for the courts to consider as they make legal decisions. In other words, such laws serve as a surrogate for constitutional principles.
This bill would, essentially, make Arabs and non-Jews second class citizens, literally, for Jewish law would now dictate in cases where the legal lines are fuzzy, given the lack of a constitution.
Noam Sheizaf writes:
...a new bill, signed by members of opposition and coalition alike, aims to strip Israel even of the appearance of democracy. If passed (it has a fair chance), this law will determine that in any case of contradiction between democratic values and the Jewish nature of the state, the Jewish element will prevail. More specifically, the bill aims to cancel the status of Arabic as one of Israel’s two official languages; it orders the state to develop communities for Jews only; and in a passage that seems to be taken from the Iranian constitution, declares that when there is no law referring to a certain case, courts should rule in the spirit of halakha, or Jewish religious jurisprudence.
As Israelis rise up against their leaders, many (including myself) hope that the undeniable re-ordering that is occurring in Israeli society will lead to electoral shifts away from these leaders who the people are currently rejecting.