Israeli Nationality Law and What it Does Do, Does Not Do and Why

 

Israel finally passed a Basic Law called the Nationality Law. First a few reasons behind the necessity followed by what it does not do, then what it does do and finally a further look into the why. The necessity comes from the fact that Israel has yet to form a constitution and instead has a grouping of laws known as Basic Laws. Basic Laws are very much the same as any other law when it comes to amending them through additional explanatory law. They can be repealed by a simple majority vote, reworded by a simple majority vote and amended by a simple majority vote, and here is the important part, by the Knesset. What they cannot be is struck down by the courts, even the Supreme Court of Israel, and this was the intent of making the Nationality Law a Basic Law, the Knesset desired to place this law once encoded beyond the reach of the Supreme Court. As proposing this as a Basic Law, its formers also realized they would face a far more difficult challenge to all wording and simply in getting it passed. The Nationality Law now joined the other laws making up the Basic Laws of Israel. These will also be the laws taken into consideration should Israel ever write herself a constitution.

 

The Nationality Law does not change anything, as it is a statement of facts and nothing more. It does not change the rights of any Israeli. It does not change the civil, legal, voting, religious, social, residential, taxation, moral, economic or practically any other standing of any Israeli citizen. It does not change the rights and protections for tourists and visitors. It does not change the situation of the Palestinian Arabs. It does not change and place the Jewish religion above any other religion in Israel with regards to rights and only allows the Jewish People an easier path to citizenship, which they have had since 1948, and the founding of the Jewish State, Israel. It does not change the right for anyone to speak whatever language they desire and all the signs in Israel which are now in Arabic will remain as such as will the signs in English, Russian, Hebrew and any other language throughout Israel. It does not change or make Arabs or anybody else a second-class citizen. It does not change today in respects to any day before or since the Nationality Law. It will not have any effect on Israeli Democracy nor will it denigrate other than Orthodox forms of Judaism which will enjoy the same rights and freedoms as all others.

 

The Nationality Law does encode the declarations made when founding the State of Israel which were made on that fateful evening of May 14, 1948 by David ben Gurion. It states that Israel was founded to be the nation state of the Jewish People. This is just as the Constitutions of Germany declares it is the nation state of the German People, France declares it is the nation state of the French People, Italy declares it is the nation state of the Italian People, the United States declares it is the nation state of the American People and Russia declares it is the nation state of the Russian People. It formalizes and fixes the National Anthem to be Hatikvah (translates to “The Hope”), sets the flag of Israel to be the blue Star of David with two horizontal lines, with one above and the other below, set upon a white field (see image below), recognizes the national language to be Hebrew and sets Arabic as having special status (this may be amended to include a few other languages as special as they belong to other minorities who resided here at the founding of the state), formalizes that the laws of the State of Israel are to be based upon Jewish Law, formalizes that the Jewish Holidays are national holidays, formalizes using the Hebrew calendar and lays out a few other lesser items.

 

Israeli Flag

 

Things this law will not be capable of meeting are the levels of perfidy claimed enshrined within. It will be totally incapable of enacting an Apartheid State, will not eliminate other than Orthodox Judaism (that will accomplish that on its own), will not make any second-class citizens, will not reach any point where it prevents people other than Jews from citizenship, can in no way alienate Diaspora Jews and will be seen to be completely incapable of any of the false hyperventilating fake news being expounded across the globe. This law will have no effect on the peace process, which in the Arab world is how one says the path to erasing Israel from the world map. The peace process never existed, as it was a mirage, a false front, a façade designed to fulfill the Arab view of their total rights to all the lands thus replacing Israel. This is why there can be no Deal of the Century which President Trump claimed would bring peace to the Middle East and end the Arab-Israel Conflict. President Trump has since realized that the problem is not the Palestinian Leadership, it is all of the Arab Leadership which refuse to recognize the right of the Jews to self-government and their insistence on the Jews accepting their Dhimmitude and come under the rule of the Arabs who are their superior people who must rule over the Jews.

 

Why was such a law as the Nationality Law necessitated? With the world attempting to redesign Israel as a multi-ethnic democracy where the Jews were not given a homeland and Israel was to become a mini-America, long a dream of the Israeli left and the Arabs. The Arabs desired this so they could bring in millions of Arabs and subsume the Jewishness of Israel and vote Israel into another Arab state which would then enact Sharia and the Democracy would die swiftly thereafter. The left desired this simply because they detest religion, all religion and especially anything Judeo-Christian in its origins and Judaism is as Judeo as it gets. Another set of reasons dwell at the United Nations and its affiliated agencies. The Human Rights Council was doing all in its power to defame Israel while UNESCO was taking away one piece of Jewish history and declaring them Islamic in an attempt to erase any link to Judaism within the State of Israel. UNESCO has already declared the Tomb of the Patriarchs as Islamic, the Temple Mount as Islamic, the Old City of Jerusalem as Islamic all because as far as the members of the governing board of UNESCO, like all too many United Nations agencies, believes that the history of any location begins when Islam conquers them and afterwards must never revert to the rule of their indigenous peoples. The Nationality Law was the Israeli answer to a world which was redefining her as not Jewish and not the State of the Jewish People. This law brings that to an end officially and was made necessary by a Europe which wanted Israel dead, a Middle East-North Africa which wanted Israel dead, and much of a world which either wanted Israel dead or would do little to prevent such from becoming her fate. Every other nation in their Constitution or founding documents claims to be the national place of their peoples; this made the Israeli revelation and proclamation for her being the home of the Jewish People required, thus placing to rest the idea that she would become anything different forever into the future. What never ceases to amaze us here at BTC is how whenever Israel acts just like almost every other nation the world declares such actions as crimes against humanity when in reality their reactions and overblown denunciations are a crime against Judaism, and they are all fully aware of what it is they are declaring and doing so with all the malice and spite one can muster. That alone was justification for this new Basic Law, the Nationality Law declaring to the world that Israel is now and forever will remain the Home of the Jewish People over and above all else should such ever become necessitated.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Man with the Iron Grip

 

There is a politician who controls his party to such an extent that anybody whose popularity rises to a point where they might pose as a rival, their continued ability for recognition becomes subsumed by inner party politics. They soon find themselves placed so far down on the party list for the Knesset that their hopes are dashed. Once not in the Knesset their ability to receive media coverage shrinks and before one realizes, they are no longer in the public eye. Through this maneuvering, along with his group of close supporters who aid in these maneuvers, this man remains the leader of his party and in line to become Prime Minister should his party prove to be chosen to form a coalition after elections. Add to this that his party has a near monopoly on right-wing and nationalist politics; he has remained Prime Minister for closing in on a decade. Additionally, he has made arrangements; some might call them deals, with those who might challenge from other parties such that his party and he remain the sole apparent leaders for his nation. This remains the appearance of politics for the upcoming future.

 

Despite opposition groups who have powerful positions investigating he and his wife continuously even managing to wrench out an indictment every so often, these attempts to mire him with criminal acts always have fallen short as they often consist of wisps of hope and despair. These leftists will never rest, as their belief that they alone are the ones with the only correct and legitimate solutions despite their previous attempts when enacting such solutions have all resulted in disaster after disaster. Still, they scream and shout about how everything being done is wrong-headed and will result in the end of the nation’s legitimacy. They stomp around demanding that their righteous solutions must be enacted immediately if the nation is to survive. Fortunately, the people have come to realize that the opposite of this is true, which has cemented this man referenced above as Prime Minister.

 

What about the leadership of the other parties, one might query. Once, in an election cycle, there was the drive which placed one such person as a potential rival for Prime Minister. This election also had a strong alliance of a group of leftist parties in an attempt to garner enough support from their collaboration that they would receive the nod to form the coalition. The long-serving Prime Minister struck a gentlemen’s agreement with this challenger who then made a statement which removed any consideration of granting him the leadership of the nation. His party suffered a great loss of votes as many who would have supported him immediately reconsidering and casting their vote for the only other choice and the man was returned to power. This other party has now been struck sufficiently hard by this deal that they will need years to claw and climb back into contention.

 

The sole other party which might challenge for the Prime Ministership has as their leader a man who many perceive him as just not quite what they desire in a leader. He has great name recognition and support, largely from leftward leaning supporters with a smattering of those on the middle-right. He has made those right-leaning supporters before the public to enhance his claim that he is just as right-wing and just as nationalist as the current Prime Minister. Many find that a shaky proposition and remember his claims to support the Two State solution and other leftist ideas. He is finding his support and loud claims of this being the central idea for his solution to the greatest problems facing the nation as a legacy he just cannot escape. This will very likely prevent his ever becoming the Prime Minister.

 

Right Wing or Left Wing

 

The other right-wing, nationalist and religious parties are too small to make a challenge unless one was to find somebody who would shine bright enough to mount a formidable challenge. Perhaps one of the former rising stars from the Prime Minister’s party might form a party and present an alternative. The problem with such is as a former member of the Prime Minister’s party, he would face the charge of seeking to aggrandize himself potentially at the nation’s risk. This could be sufficient to sink such a campaign. But the real problem lies elsewhere.

 

Currently, another right-leaning, nationalist, religious and Zionist party has proposed a piece of legislation in conjunction with a member of the Prime Minister’s party which would remove the 2005 disengagement plan which gave Gaza and Northern Samaria to the Palestinian Authority (PA) so they could prove their ability and capacity to build a functioning society which had proper governance and economic development such as is the aim of most nations’ governments. The PA lost the Gaza to Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations which have provoked war after war with conflict a constant ever since their coup in 2007. One need not look far to see the disaster Gaza has become. Many claim their problem is their disastrous economic condition and claim that is what drives their terrorist acts and violence. The actual problem is their total fixation by their leadership to destroy Israel and their subverting revenues and resources which could be used to feed the economy and provide the necessities which governments presumably are to provide and the insistence to pay for building rockets, infiltration tunnels and paying people to commit acts of violence and terror that causes the economic problems.

 

That still leaves the areas in Northern Samaria where the PA could have built a functional society. Instead of investing in the future of the society, Mahmoud Abbas has lined his, his families and his cohort of collaborators pockets and diverted ever increasing portion of the remaining funds to pay terrorists and their families funds in proportion to the numbers of Israelis they managed to murder. This has ended the opportunities for those under the rule of the PA. This is despite their receiving disproportionate amounts of international aid. Such is the proof that granting the PA the opportunity to provide a functional society has disastrously failed. Thus, legislation to end the ban on Israelis entering these territories is in order. When this disengagement was enacted, Jews were evicted from the communities of Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim and Kadim. This law would allow these families, many of whom still have not found new homes and live in temporary mobile units, to return to their homes and rebuild their lives. This would not in any way alter the lives of any of the PA Arabs and could result in these Israelis providing additional employment opportunities for PA Arabs residing in the region. PA Arabs have found that finding work in Israeli owned businesses provide their best opportunities with higher salaries than they can receive within the PA region. This was covered in this New York Times article which admits the advantage of Arabs finding employ with Israeli businesses though they amplify the idea that these businesses should not be permitted to operate in lands on which the New York Times does not believe that Israel has any claim, but they also do not believe Israel has any right to exist, so why should these be any different.

 

This bill would likely improve the lives of both Israelis and those who will be their PA Arab neighbors. Further, since these Israelis were removed, the IDF presence had to be maintained as threat and actual terror attacks increased when they removed their patrols and bases. These had to be reestablished. If the IDF had to be returned to the disengaged areas, why not allow the former resident Israelis to return. But despite the Prime Minister originally signaling that he would give this legislation the green light, he has since blocked its coming up for discussion a dozen times and appears to be about to do so once again. In the explanatory notes to the bill, it is written, “The purpose of the [Disengagement] plan was to lead to a better political, economic, demographic and security situation. Yet today it is clear to all that the Disengagement not only failed to achieve this goal, but in fact caused tremendous damage to the State of Israel in these areas. Despite the expulsion of the residents from northern Samaria, there was no change in the area in terms of the status of the land and the military presence there.” Justice Minister Shaked has brought the bill to the agenda of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, and 12 times Netanyahu has removed the bill from the agenda with the aid of Minister Yariv Levin, who is the deputy chairman of the committee.

 

What are the reasons for this reversal of direction? The Prime Minister has given reasons of various types including, “We have to wait for coordination with the Americans,” “This is a politically sensitive time period,” “We cannot disrupt the struggle against the Iranian nuclear program,” and “We should wait until the relocation of the embassy.” None of these are the real reason. The real reason is far simpler; he likes being Prime Minister and will not alter the situation which makes him the sole legitimate savior. This is why there will be no change of the situation in Gaza or in the PA territories. As long as the threats remain and the people realize that steady leadership is the game, then he will remain Prime Minister. The good news is that in the future there is one who many people would rally around, were they to be placed as the party choice for Prime Minister. This would take an unusual move by that party, as they would need to place somebody who is not the leader of the party as their candidate. This is because the current party leader is not about to step aside while they continue to have strong support allowing them to remain as the party leader. So, all we can say is that with time things might arrive with the stars aligning in just the right way and the planets all lining up signaling a great and momentous event is coming. Until then, we wait and we apparently will continue to elect the man as Prime Minister. Until then, the status-quo is the way it will go.

 

But wait, there’s more. A group of Likud members are pressing for the upcoming “Nationality Law” to exclude the mention that Israeli code of law gives special consideration to traditional Jewish law. The rest of the “Nationality Law” includes the establishment of the status of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish People and the right of the Jewish People to self-determination in its homeland as a unique right for the Jewish People. It would also anchor the symbols of the state with Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the Jewish calendar as the country’s official calendar, and Hebrew as the official language. The original writing of the “Nationality Law” also included provisions giving special consideration to traditional Jewish law but Likud Ministers of the Knesset have signaled their willingness to abandon the clause. “It is unthinkable that there would be no mention of “Mishpat Haivri” (traditional Jewish law) in the Nationality Law,” said Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee Chairman Nissan Slomiansky from the Jewish Home Party. Chairman Slomiansky added, “Likud leaders promised to include this in the Nationality Law. Has the Likud really decided to abandon Mishpat Haivri?” One can only wonder what the Prime Minister will demand of his party members as he has demanded this law be passed by the end of the summer session in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, the leadership of the Jewish Home Party, a member party of the ruling coalition, has refused to vote to allow passage of the “Nationality Law” without the “Mishpat Haivri” clause. This could lead to a direct confrontation between these two nationalist parties with Jewish Home, as also a religious party, is standing on solid ground supported by their members to stand up and confront the ruling Likud Party over this issue and the result will be telling.

 

Beyond the Cusp