A Palestinian Look at the Recent Israeli Basic Law

One positive aspect of the Israeli Basic Law is to jump over the hurdle of Israeli insistence that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a Jewish State.

On July 19, 2018, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) passed the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law, a highly controversial law that describes Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people.”

While this was the de facto reality on the ground, it took the Israeli decision makers 70 years to officially put it on paper. If the goal of the Basic Law was to affirm that Israel is a Jewish state, then it did not bring anything new. The secular Theodor Herzl in his book “Der Judenstaat” (German, literally “The Jew State,” commonly translated as “The Jewish State”) published in February 1896 in Leipzig and Vienna envisioned the founding of a future independent Jewish state to avoid antisemitism in Europe.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration called for the establishment of a national homeland for the Jewish people. It is this bold vision which culminated in the birth of the Jewish State of Israel in May 1948.

The recent Basic Law cites three fundamental principles:

The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established;
The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination;
The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.

It affirms that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.” Using the two terms: “complete and united” may constitute a major obstacle to the peace process since it precludes Arab East Jerusalem from becoming the capital of the State of Palestine in a comprehensive peace settlement.

Such text contradicts Israel’s commitment in the 1993 Oslo Accords to delay deciding the status of Jerusalem until the final Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. It violates international law which considers the city of Jerusalem as occupied and the Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem to have de facto status and not de jure status.

The UN and its bodies often denounce Israeli actions in East Jerusalem. It challenges decades of international consensus on the city, considering it occupied and illegally annexed by Israel after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

The UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016, condemned Israel’s construction of settlements in all territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem. The UNSC emphasized it would not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 conflict lines, and stressed that the “cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the Two-State solution.”

The Basic Law singles out Hebrew to be the state’s official language giving the Arabic language “a special status in the state.” It is only natural that Hebrew would be selected as the language of the Jewish state because Israel is not a bi-national state. The Basic Law of the State of Palestine identifies Arabic to be the official language of the state.

The Basic Law affirms that “the state will be open for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of exiles.” The law considers the “development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.” The law avoids specifying whether that would be excluded within the boundaries of the State of Israel or would include the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Basic Law grants non-Jews “a right to maintain days of rest on their Sabbaths and festivals.” The Basic Law concludes that it “shall not be amended unless by another Basic Law passed by a majority of Knesset members.”

The new Basic Law generated much controversy. From its inception in 1948, Israel was created as “the nation-state of the Jewish people” as David Ben Gurion, one of its founders, asserted in his declaration of independence speech.

The law does recognize Jews and their rights but ignores asserting the rights of non-Jews as emphasized to no avail in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Nevertheless, it includes no provision that would deny non-Jews their economic opportunities, freedom of religion, and the freedom of speech. However, the law does not fend off governmental policies that may discriminate against its Arab minority and the Palestinians under military occupation.

The new Israeli Basic Law transformed Israel from being democratic and Jewish as the founders envisioned it to becoming Jewish and democratic. Liberal Jews fear the law would end the secular identity of the Israeli state, while the Arab citizens of Israel are concerned their rights would be lost as the state transforms into Jewish and Jewish when Jewish law is injected into Israeli law.

One positive aspect of the law is to jump over the hurdle of Israeli insistence that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a Jewish State.

The Palestinian leadership had categorically rejected the idea of a Jewish Israel. PA President Mahmoud Abbas had asserted this rejection of recognizing Israel as a Jewish State on some occasions. “I have said it before, and I will say it again,” he stated. “I will never recognize the Jewishness of the state or a ‘Jewish state.”

He reasserted: “The Israelis say that if we do not recognize the Jewishness of Israel, there would be no solution. Moreover, we say that we will not recognize or accept the Jewishness of Israel and we have many reasons for this rejection.”

However, one can argue that such recognition is possible since mutual recognition is key to future peace. Since the Palestinians recognized the State of Israel in the 1993 Oslo Accords and thus it is up for Israel to decide the nature of its political system, then the Palestinians do not need to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The past logic was:

Israel defines itself as the Jewish state;
Palestinian leadership does not recognize Israel as a Jewish state – that means Palestinian do not, in reality, recognize Israel.

The present logic would be