Introduction to Israel Dialectics—The 2018 Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People

The following two documents and eight articles comprise the newly updated section of Israel Dialectics, formerly Zionist Dialectics. This selection reflects the widening scope of what is intended by the change in terms. By dialectics we mean an intellectual discourse in which a particular issue is critically analyzed from multiple and even contradictory perspectives by individuals holding decidedly different points of view. Dialectical debates are often not merely empirical or even analytical. They frequently reflect a dialogue between people with sharply different sets of values. In other words, the dialogue—the origin of dialectics—is often normative in nature.

As the opening "salvo" in the Israel Dialectics section, we chose one of the most controversial laws passed in recent memory by the Knesset, the Basic Law: Israel as Nation State of the Jewish People (INSJP). This choice reflects the conviction that Arab-Jewish relations in Israel are at the very center of the politics of the country and are inherently linked to its self-definition as a democracy. The INSJP law can be considered from different perspectives and in a variety of ways: as a detailed legal analysis (from within), in the overall context of Israeli politics, and in relation to populist political processes in the contemporary world. Several of the selections that follow adopt all of these perspectives.

Following a highly contentious and prolonged debate, the INSJP was finally passed by the Knesset on July 19, 2018 by a narrow margin (62-55). To facilitate examination of the legislation and its potential implications, we have included the Law itself in this section, along with a legal challenge filed by Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and several other petitioners. In essence, Adalah's petition argues that the Law violates the right to equality and the right to dignity by establishing ethnic supremacy in the state and assigning exclusive collective rights to the Jewish majority, in violation of international law.

Responding to many arguments against the Nation-State Law in Israel and abroad, expressed by individuals and organizations, two scholars argue in favor of the Law. Eugene Kontorovich adopts a comparative methodology in his analysis (referring to the constitutional laws of countries such as Greece, Latvia and Slovakia), arguing that other Western liberal democracies accept the particularistic communal identity of their national majority, and emphasizing that the Law does not change any preexisting individual rights, but only collective provisions.

Abraham Bell maintains that the Law includes purely symbolic and declarative statements that are not legally enforceable and which have long been part of Israel's Declaration of Independence and its political consensus; he interprets the Law and the omission of the words "democracy" and "equality," as representing the struggle between the Knesset and the Supreme Court over constitutional reform.

Several scholars express strong opposition to the Law, although not necessarily to all its provisions or even to its overall objectives, content and tone. The critical assessments of the Law reflect the many negative positions taken by academics and others toward this particular legal initiative. A common view held by critics of the Law is that it is symptomatic of other questionable processes and trends within Israel's body politic and in the world as a whole.

Alexander Yakobson, while supporting Israel as a Jewish State on the basis of national self-determination, maintains that this particular law is wrong because it fails to express "respect to the principle of civic equality"; without a firm commitment to equal rights for minorities, writes Yakobson, it could be implied that members of the minority are "not citizens in the full sense."

Gad Barzilai views the Law as a legal counter-revolution against principles like human dignity, and as a political nationalist document that imposes inequality on the Israeli Palestinian-Arab minority, monopolizing Jewish hegemony by declaring that Israel belongs exclusively to the Jewish people in Israel and the world.

Doreen Lustig contextualizes the Law within Israel's larger constitutional process, arguing that it is a particularly low watermark in the "democratic backsliding" Israel has undergone in...