Israel’s ruling Likud party seeks to pass an Apartheid type legislation that will allow for Jewish-only communities in Israel.
According to The Guardian, “The proposed legislation would allow the state to “authorise a community composed of people having the same faith and nationality to maintain the exclusive character of that community”.
“In its current state, the draft would also permit Jewish religious law to be implemented in certain cases and remove Arabic as an official language.
“A vote on the bill is expected next week, although a final draft has yet to be agreed on. The legislation has been compared to South African apartheid by Israeli parliamentarians, and several thousand Israelis protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday.”, The Guardian.
The Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin, said it would harm the Jewish people worldwide and “even be used as a weapon by our enemies”. The segregation clause, he said, could also allow towns that exclude Jews of Middle Eastern origin, and homosexuals.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said the bill was a grave threat to Israeli democracy and hurt “the delicate balance between the Jewish majority and Arab minority, and it enthrones ultra-Orthodox Judaism at the expense of the majority of a pluralistic world Jewry”.
Daniel Sokatch, the chief executive of New Israel Fund, which supports civil rights groups in Israel, deprecated the bill as “tribalism at its worst
