HAIFA, July 15, 2018 (WAFA) – An Israeli law in the making would enshrine apartheid and Jewish supremacy if enacted, a rights group warned on Sunday.

The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, is expected to vote in the coming days on the proposed Basic Law: Israel - The Nation State of the Jewish People that would constitutionally enshrine the identity of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, according to Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

It argued in a new position paper that this Basic Law falls within the bounds of absolute prohibitions under international law and is therefore illegitimate as a colonial law with characteristics of apartheid.

Adalah General Director Hassan Jabareen said, “The Nation-State Basic Law is illegitimate, as it establishes a colonial regime with distinct apartheid characteristics in that it seeks to maintain a regime in which one ethnic-national group controls an indigenous-national group living in the same territory while advancing ethnic superiority by promoting racist policies in the most basic aspects of life.”

Earlier this spring, in response to the proposed Nation-State Law, three Arab Knesset members proposed an alternative known as Basic Law: State of all its Citizens.

However, the Knesset Presidium disqualified the proposed Basic Law: State of all its Citizens on the grounds that it "denies the existence of the state as the state of the Jewish People," refusing to even bring it for discussion before the Knesset. Adalah, together with the three MKs, has petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court against the Knesset‘s decision.

The case is pending.

M.K.