The Ministerial Committee for Legislation voted Sunday to reject a bill presented by Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) that would strip citizenship from a person who refuses to pledge allegiance to the state, and from whoever refuses to serve in the IDF or carry out alternative national service.
Ministers from Likud, Labor, Shas and the Jewish Home voted to reject the law, known as the 'Allegiance Law' or 'Citizenship Law.' Only ministers from Yisrael Beiteinu voted in its favor.
The Yisrael Beiteinu faction voiced disappointment with the decision to strike down the bill.
“It is very regrettable that the Likud, Labor, Shas and Jewish Home factions voted today against the strengthening of the State of Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and Democratic state and made it possible to continue to harm the symbols and values of the state in whose government they sit,” a statement from the faction said.
“Stopping the Allegiance Law will make it possible for people to keep on misusing their Israeli citizenship and to continue to use it against the state that they live in. Yisrael Beiteinu will continue to act for strengthening the State of Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state and will continue to fight phenomena of disloyalty and abuse of Israel’s democracy,” the faction stated.
Naqba Day law softened
The law is a separate one from the Naqba Day Law – which was proposed by MK Alex Miller of Yisrael Beteinu and approved by the committee last week, but which will be amended. That law would make it illegal to mark Israel’s Independence Day as “Naqba Day” (the “Day of the Catastrophe,” as anti-Israeli Arabs call it) and would make such an action punishable by up to three years in prison.
Ministers from Likud and Labor tabled appeals against the decision to approve the Naqba Day law, which they said contradicts the right to protest and freedom of speech, and the government responded to the appeals by deciding to amend and soften the bill. On Saturday evening, Cabinet Secretary Tzvi Hauser said that the government would temporarily freeze the Naqba Day legislation and change it. The new version of the law would strike the clause making the marking of Naqba Day punishable by imprisonment but would instead deny government funding to bodies and organizations that observed it.
The amended law would make it possible to prevent the transfer of funds to bodies of Arab local government that marked Naqba Day. In addition, it would make it possible to deny tax-exempt status to nonprofit organizations that held events to mark Naqba Day.
A third law, proposed by the Jewish Home party, makes it possible to sentence to one year in prison a person who calls for the negation of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. This law was passed by the government and is likely to pass in the Knesset as well.