At a Knesset discussion Tuesday, MK Yariv Levin (Likud) said that it was time to return to some "basic truths" about the State of Israel which, he said, was established not as a "Jewish, democratic state," but a "Jewish state with a democratic system of government. Israel was established in order to be the state of the Jewish people," he said.
Levin made the comments after discussion in the Knesset on a law he proposed that seeks to preserve a law that prevents Palestinian Authority Arabs from acquiring Israeli citizenship if they marry an Israeli Arab, and a law that would allow local authorities in private communities, such as moshavim, to deny membership to those they decide not to enroll.