Minister of Education Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) addressed the anger among the Druze community over the Nationality Law approved by the Knesset.
The Nationality Law codifies in the nation’s Basic Laws Israel’s status as the nation-state of the Jewish people into Israel’s Basic Laws and establishes Hebrew as its sole official language while giving Arabic special standing.
“After discussions with many of our Druze brothers, it has become clear that the manner in which the nationality law was enacted was very damaging especially to them, and to anyone who has tied his fate to the Jewish state,” Bennett said. “This, of course, was not the intention of the Israeli government.”
“These are our brothers who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us on the battlefield and made a covenant of life with us. We, the Government of Israel, have a responsibility to find a way to heal the rift," added the Chairman of the Jewish Home.
Earlier this week, Druze MK Akram Hasson (Kulanu), together with the Druze Lawyers' Forum and Chairman of the Forum of Druze and Circassian Community Leaders, petitioned the Supreme Court to cancel the Nationality Law.
"We have no problem with the Jewish people and we have no problem that the State of Israel is the home of the Jewish people, but what about us?" asked Hasson. "What about those who sacrificed for the establishment of the state and fought for it? What about 420 killed and over 1,200 wounded IDF soldiers?
"The Nationality Law makes me a second-class citizen," he said. "After all, we are discriminated against as citizens, in planning, education, budgets and what not. Now we have to come and enact a law that opens a gap between the minorities and the Jews and basically pushes farther away hope of an equal starting line for my children and Jewish children,” continued Hasson.
"There is no doubt that the State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people, but why open up gaps and show how racist we are in this country," Hasson said.
MK Hasson, a member of the coalition, voted against the law and even voted in favor of all the reservations against it, and acted to thwart the law even though he is sitting in the Knesset in place of Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon. "We will do everything to stop this racist law, and not just for my community, but mainly for the beautiful faces of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. The law hurts my Jewish brothers first and foremost. Unfortunately, cheap political considerations won against the good of the State of Israel. In Ben-Gurion or Begin’s time, the law would not have been brought forward.”
