Israel passes Jewish-only "national self-determination" law despite outcry

rt.com

The Israeli Knesset has approved the 'nation-state bill' that promotes Jewish-only settlements, downgrades Arab language status and limits the right to self-determination to Jews. Arab MPs chided the law as racist.

The bill, which has the status of a basic law (approximately the same as a constitutional law in countries with a written constitution), was passed overnight to Thursday with 62 votes in favor and 55 against after hours of fierce argument and debate. It will now come into force as soon as it's published in the Knesset's Official Gazette...

The bill formally defines the main principles that should stand at the core of the Israeli state and its symbols, such as the flag, the anthem, its capital and language. In a clause that set Arab lawmakers off, the bill explicitly states that "the right to exercises national determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people."

The critics of the bill argue that such wording makes some 1.8 million Israeli Arabs, a quarter of the population, second-class citizens...

At the center of the controversy is the part of the law aimed at promoting the "establishment and consolidation" of Jewish settlements, which is being castigated by the opposition as a shorthand for segregation bordering on apartheid.