What's all the fuss about? The spirit of the nation-state law has engulfed Israel for decades already. The law says that the land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people; and that the state established in this land is the nation-state of the Jewish people in which they are realizing their natural, cultural, religious, and historical right to self-determination. According to the law, the realization of the right to self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish people.
Here are a few other trivialities: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Hebrew is the national language, and Arabic has a special status. The nation will be open to aliyah [Jewish immigration] and to an ingathering of the exiles. The state will be responsible for ensuring the safety of its citizens and other members of the Jewish people who are in distress or imprisoned because of their Jewishness or their Israeli citizenship. The state will work in the Diaspora to uphold the ties between it and the Jewish people abroad and will work to preserve the Jewish people's cultural, historical, and religious legacy in the Diaspora. The state sees national value in developing Jewish settlement and will take steps to encourage and promote new and existing settlements.
Any honest person will admit that the nation-state law is a clear expression of the political consensus in Israel. Most members of the Zionist parties would certainly sign a declaration like this one, if it wouldn't cause a political scandal. What's more, the vast majority of high school graduates can't understand the objection to it.
Those who follow political news in Israel can spot when the spirit of the nation-state law became government policy. The decision to remove the residents of the Bedouin community Umm al-Hiran from their land (where the government of Israel itself relocated them in the 1950s) so that a Jewish community named Hiran could be founded, is an example. Did the residents of Umm al-Hiran need to wait for the nation-state law to realize that the state "views the development of Jewish settlements as a national value and priority and will act to encourage and promote the establishment and consolidation of such settlements."
Every one of the unrecognized Bedouin villages – which even today aren't hooked up to most vital infrastructure – knows that Israel prefers a few Jewish farmers over them.
So the supporters of the nation-state law are right. Anyone who opposes the law opposes the basic operating system of the State of Israel – that same semidemocratic system that has dictated its conduct from day one.
The passage of the nation-state law is no tragedy for democracy, as its opponents try and portray it. The tragedy – if there is one – is the Israeli reality that the law has exposed. Reality and truth are preferable to deceit and cover-ups. History might see the nation-state law as a watershed moment in which the masks came off, and the real battle over the direction of Israel democracy started.
