The Knesset’s passage of the nation-state bill last month surely ranks as one the most self-defeating moves in Israel’s history. Its passage was unnecessary, but the damage it has wrought, one can safely say now, is incalculable. The law is anti-Zionist in its essence: It has sowed division, spread venom, tainted Israel’s image and weakened its national resolve. If the Knesset’s intent was to bolster the ties between the Jewish nation and its land, the results have been exactly the opposite: The Zionist hold on the State of Israel has never seemed more dubious. [...]
And even that wasn’t enough for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: To justify his pre-planned ambush of the Druze leadership in their meeting last week, the Prime Minister’s Office falsely disseminated the claim that retired Israeli General Amal Assad had described Israel as an apartheid state, so that the whole world, and not just his followers on Facebook, would know about the comparison. Coming from a retired Druze combat brigadier-general, a supposed symbol of equality and integration, the apartheid analogy sounded like reliable testimony from an expert witness.[...]
The law has cast a dark shadow over Israel’s attitude, not only for the future but in the present and past as well. It revealed that even today, Israeli Arabs are cast to the sidelines, that the Druze suffer discrimination, despite their loyalty, and that the sentiments and sensibilities of non-Jews as a whole are bypassed and ignored. The new law has shown that it’s not enough for the Jews to be lords of the land. They insist on flaunting their superiority, for the entire world to see. If minorities don’t like it, the Knesset said, they can lump it.
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