Egypt on Saturday said a new Israeli law giving Jews the exclusive right to self-determination in the country undermined the chances for peace in the Middle East and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
Largely symbolic, the new Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People stipulates that "Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it."
The law, which passed its parliamentary vote on Thursday, further cements the status of state symbols and Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the State of Israel, and strips Arabic of its designation as an official language alongside Hebrew, instead awarding it a "special status" that enables its continued use in Israeli institutions.
The legislation was sharply criticized by the country's Arab minority, with Arab lawmakers calling it "racist" and "verging on apartheid."
Israel's Arabs number some 1.8 million, about 20% of the population.
The law also drew a rebuke from the European Union and was denounced by the Palestinian Authority and Arab citizens of Israel as racist legislation.
"The Arab Republic of Egypt announces … its rejection of the law passed by the Israeli Knesset on the 'national-state for the Jewish people' law … for its ramifications that consecrate the concept of occupation and racial segregation," the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"It undermines the chances for achieving peace and reaching a just and comprehensive solution for the Palestinian issue," it said.
It said the law would also have a potential impact on the right of Palestinians displaced from their homes in 1948, when Israel was founded, and their descendants, to return to their homes under United Nations resolutions.
On Friday, Egypt's influential Al-Azhar mosque denounced the Israeli law, calling it "a step that reflects repugnant racism."
Egypt was the first Arab country to forge a peace treaty with Israel following the 1978 signing of the U.S.-sponsored Camp David Accords.
