Palestinians and the Jewishness of Israel

Palestinians and the Jewishness of Israel

Israel in the Declaration of Independence announced on the eve of 15 May, 1948: “THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of worship, conscience, language, education, and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
Netanyahu has been roaming, roaring about the declaration of Israel as a Jewish state for the last years, until he finally succeeded in passing a bill, amid one of the fiercest aggressions against Palestinians since Oslo; if one considers damages in numbers.
The beginning of this week, the Israeli cabinet passed a contentious “Basic Law” Israeli as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. As with all the immoral controversy of Israel since its making; An announcement of the upper mentioned declaration that speaks of equality with social and political rights, to be accompanied and continued by massacres and an exodus of half of a population.
Later Begin in 1980, signed a peace treaty with Egypt and in what became the enactment of Basic Law, Jerusalem was declared as the Capital of Israel. An act that made the UNSC adopts a resolution calling FOR ITS ANNULMENT.
In the recent bill, Netanyahu said, “nationality law is essential to establish Israel as the national home of the Jewish people –especially in the face of international and domestic calls to undermine this fundamental determination.” He stressed that: “ using this law, with fortifying the status of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and the full equality before the legislation of every citizen without discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, or gender. Enshrining Israel’s identity as the national home of the Jewish people does not contradict full equality to every Israeli citizen, and will make it impossible to undermine these two fundamental principles. “
The poison comes further in the different proposals. “ Israel is the national homeland of the Jewish people, which fulfills its desire for self-determination according to historical and cultural heritage, and that this right is unique to Jewish people. It reinforces the state symbols that include the flag, anthem, and the Hebrew language is the official language with Arabic only having a “special status.”
While “ moderate “ figures, such as Lapid is objecting Netanyahu; he is not opposing the principle of passing such a bill. His problem is with the rights of the 300,000 Russian non-Jewish immigrants, the loyal Druze, and mostly, his problem is with the fact that the proposals were formulated by the Likud only, which serves Netanyahu’s upcoming party election purposes only.
For Livni, who also objects Netanyahu, not the essence of the bill, joining Netanyahu’s primal words about the bill, “ a Jewish and democratic state with full equality before the law for every citizen… and she ignored the language-based definition, also like Netanyahu himself.
In the end, we are standing in front of a consensus on passing such a bill, where Israel amid its continuous vicious criminal aggression against innocent Palestinians inside and outside its “ officially (according to the world) “ determined territories is asking for its self-determination and the right to a national homeland.
I cannot but read and listen to what is said with an openly awed mouth. I admit that these people fascinate me. They have this power of determination that always reminds me of my ex-husband’s wars in our battles of divorce.
I am trying to rationalize this as an outsider. Seriously, as a Palestinian, it doesn’t bother me on a personal level, they already occupied my land, I am already living in an ethnic cleansing situation since the creation of Israel, and I am a living witness of an upcoming official apartheid.
I understand the Palestinian inside Israel’s fear towards being more marginalized and officially declared as second-class citizens. But where they otherwise before or now? One just needs to walk in an Arab-Israeli town to see that.
Yes I know, they have better rights than Palestinians inside the Palestinian “ruled” territories, they are superior by law and status on Jerusalemites. But this is again not the case. “ Israeli- Arab” state has been as discriminated as immigrants and marginalize groups since the making of Israel, with an ups and downs variations, that Arabs fell into its traps believing that having a few seats in the Knesset and being allowed to scream gives them real rights. Israelis know that we love to cry and they enable us to do it even in the Knesset.
Amid all that something important is happening in the Israeli discourse that reminds me of Arabs, this nationalistic voice that hides behind religious fanaticism. Arabs were trapped in this for years, in an attempt to unite against imperialism and colonization under the Arab nation, not religions.
What is Israel trying to do? If Israel is the home for Jews by international declarations, and Judaism is the religion that defines their gathering in Israel. Transforming Jewishness of the same state from a religious perspective to nationalistic one makes it nothing but fundamentally fanatic. While Israel is already suffering from the rise of such fanaticism in what it has been implanting in fanatic colonies all over the west bank and Jerusalem, it wants to transform all Israelis into one settler fanatic nationalistic state.
Netanyahu and his Family always reminded me of Adam’s family, some gothic horror hidden type of psychos… Transforming all Israel into this will be quite a show… that will end up in a real nightmare before Christmas and after Pesach …
Each day passes by me understanding more and more the connection of the concept of Apartheid and BDS, and how both compliment each other …
BDS, after all, is a real practical tool for a solution…