RAMALLAH, March24, 2011 (WAFA)- The Ministry of Media Thursday, condemned the adoption of the Israeli Knesset’s second and third  drafts of the discriminatory  ‘Nakba Law’.

The law stipulates that the Minister of Finance can withhold or reduce budgets from government-funded bodies which deny a Jewish Israel (Israel only for Jews).

The Ministry of Information’s statement said “in the framework of obliterating the moral facts and the history from the minds, the Israeli authorities have recognized a new racist law.”

It added that “Palestinians in Palestine and all over the world will maintain their survival and every meter of their homeland.  All the Israeli oppressive and fascist measures will not deter them from establishing the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

It also said that “this new law is a culmination of series of racist laws against the Arabs living in Israel. In addition it allows Israel to intervene in the ideas or beliefs of these people, showing the real Israel; afraid of the historical truth and of the Palestinian memory.”

37 Knesset member voted in favor of the law and 25 opposed. This law also applies to activities which deny that “Israel is a Jewish state and the country's democratic character, as well as it supports armed struggle against the state or the terror acts against Israel”.

 Nevertheless, some Israeli legal advisors consider this version a softened one of the approved draft in July 2009, by the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which made participation in Nakba Day events a violation which is punishable by up to three years in prison.

Y.Y./F.R.