Israeli Leaders Explain Support for Nation-State Law

(Jerusalem Post) Jeremy Sharon - Deputy Minister and former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren strongly rejected claims that the Nation-State Law is discriminatory and insisted that Israel's democracy was alive and well. "All you have to do is walk through the country, go to shopping malls, hospitals, and know there is no apartheid. All you have to do is spend a day in the Knesset, where Arab member after Arab member gets up and basically impugns and refutes the very existence of the Jewish state and you'll know we have democracy." He said no member of Congress would ever speak about their country, flag, or anthem the way Arab MKs speak about Israel and its national symbols. Likud MK Amir Ohana, who chaired the committee which dealt with the law, insisted that there is no right held by any citizen, that existed before the law was passed, that no longer exists. He continued: "Why did we come here 70 years ago and before? Why did people come here from Russia, Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, Poland, and so on?...They came to establish a Jewish state, where the flag, symbols, anthem, holidays, language belong to [the] Jewish people. There are 21 Arab states. Can't the Jews also have their own state?"


2018-08-17 00:00:00

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