After World War I, the world gave Britain the mandate to establish a Jewish national homeland, based on the Jews' historic rights in the land of Israel, even though there was a large Arab majority here at the time. This was affirmative action that gave an advantage in principle to the persecuted Jewish community in a small country in a vast Muslim region.
This state is defined as Jewish because that is the purpose of its existence; the democratic aspect is merely the preferred form of government. This is the reason for the discriminatory Law of Return, which bestows Israeli citizenship on all people who are at least a quarter Jewish as soon as they make they aliyah but not to Arabs born in Hebron. The essence of this affirmative action is embodied in this law. The mandate afforded Jews exclusive national rights here, as compared to the religious and civil rights afforded to other communities.
The fact that Israel is a Jewish state has always been self-evident. But some Jews have recently begun to question the righteousness of the Zionist path.
Following his retirement, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak told a New Israel Fund conference he was in favor of a "state of all its citizens," thereby exposing the line behind his rulings, which eroded Zionism when he harmed the Jewish settlement enterprise. Barak also attempted to abolish the Nationality Law, passed in 1952, which prevented the state from being flooded with people from all over the world who marry Arab Israelis.
It is interesting that, as chief justice, Barak spoke of a "Jewish and democratic state," while concealing his true opinion, which he revealed only following his retirement. Barak's judicial coup included many post-Zionist measures, and his successors are continuing with this approach, shared by their progressive partners in the world, which equates nationalism with racism.
This same progressive fashion guides the rulings that thwart any attempt to expel illegal migrants, the destruction of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria for destruction's sake, the High Court of Justice's assistance in enabling the Bedouin takeover of the Negev and the court's outstanding responsiveness to petitions from Arabs and the Left. Such is the painful situation that demanded we legislate what once was obvious.
The nation-state law is an interesting test, a test of Zionism, reading comprehension and logic. Some of those crying out over the legislation have not read the law, others have read it and failed the basic logic test, and still others – the worst – have read it, understand it and have yet decided to use the law as political capital to incite and agitate by driving an unnecessary wedge between Jews and members of the Druze community, whose lives and rights are not impacted by the nation-state law.
