Radical Arab Knesset Members are seething as the parliament debates a set of bills that seek to solidify Israel's Jewish nature. MK Yariv Levine (Likud) said Tuesday, “There is a need to clarify basic truths that were clear in the past but for some reason have been forgotten.”
"There is a need to remind people again that the State of Israel is not 'a Jewish and democratic state,' but rather 'a Jewish state with a democratic regime,'" the Likud MK said, "and that Israel was established for the purpose of being the state of the Jewish people."
He was referring to a bill that he proposed together with MK David Rotem (Israel Our Home), intended to prevent the Supreme Court from knocking down a temporary ordinance that prevents PA Arabs from gaining Israeli citizenship by marrying Arabs who are Israeli citizens.
Another proposed law that aroused tension was debated in the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on Tuesday. The bill would amend the Cooperative Association Law so as to make it possible for Acceptance Committees in communities in the Galilee and Negev to deny applicants the right to build a home there if they would not fit the “lifestyle and social fabric” of the community, as well as the basic ideology it espouses. The bill's opponents object to the fact that it would allow the Jewish towns to reject Arab applicants. It was being prepared for the first reading.
MK David Rotem, who chairs the committee, said, “I am not ashamed to represent Zionism. When I seek to establish a Jewish community I am not ashamed of it. We have the same rights but not the same obligations. This is a Jewish state that was established for the Jews.”
MK Ophir Pines (Labor) and the Arab MKs angrily accused Rotem of “racism," "apartheid,” and “finishing off the country.”