Any suggestion that Israel is a racist and racial state is often met with outrage and accusations of antisemitism. For many liberals, supporters of the state, Israel is a Jewish state and a democratic state, the only democracy in the Middle East, a 'villa in the jungle', in the words of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
However, the recent legislation of the 'Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People', known also as the Nation-State law, managed to shock even supporters of Israel. The law, which enjoys a constitutional status, defines the Land of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and determines that 'the exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People'.
The law enshrines the existing state symbols (such as the state flag and emblem), which are exclusively Jewish, and declares Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. It foregrounds Hebrew as the official state language, and demotes Arabic from an official language to one with special status. Crucially, it legalises the establishment of Jewish-only settlements. The law is thus based on a racial divide between Jews and Palestinians, and enshrines Jewish supremacy as a core legal principle.
The law is, however, non-news. There is nothing new about it. Palestinians have been experiencing apartheid, occupation and colonisation for decades. Just like the apartheid law in South Africa, the Nation-State law doesn't signify the onset of apartheid; it enshrines it in law.
The facts are simple: while Israel is the effective sovereign power in the whole of historic Palestine, the vast majority of Palestinians are denied citizenship and political rights only because they are Palestinians. Apartheid is evident in the Occupied West Bank: segregated towns and roads are common scenery, with roads demarcated for Jewish settlers only. We see this separation in the legal system too, as Palestinians are tried in military courts.
Even within the Green Line there's discrimination. Adalah, a Palestinian human rights organisation, documents over 65 discriminatory laws in areas of citizenship, planning, land and housing, distribution of resources, and due process rights. As Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Knesset (MK), puts it, 'This country is Jewish and democratic: Democratic toward Jews, and Jewish toward Arabs.' The fact that the world still buys into the myth that Israel is a democracy is only a testament to the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanised.
This law, however,