The Knesset Interior Committee has approved legislation emending the Flag and Symbol Law, according to which HaTikvah - popularly assumed to be Israel's national anthem - would in fact officially receive this status. The law, which passed its first reading two years ago after being submitted by MKs Michael Kleiner and Zevulun Orlev, has laid dormant since then. MK Michael Nudelman (National Union) re-submitted it, and it is now on its way to the Knesset for its final readings.



Previous governments did not see a need to legislate the fact that HaTikvah is Israel's anthem, given its wide popularity and general acceptance as such. The situation changed, as Kleiner and Orlev explained at the time, when certain left-wing elements proposed that the anthem be changed to reflect Israel's Arab population.



Though the history of the song is not totally clear, it is accepted that the words were written in 1886 by Naphtali Herz Imber, an English poet originally from Bohemia, and the melody is by Samuel Cohen, an immigrant from Moldavia. The words are:



As long as the Jewish spirit is yearning deep in the heart,

With eyes turned toward the East, looking toward Zion,

Then our hope - the two-thousand-year-old hope - will not be lost:

To be a free people in our land,

The land of Zion and Jerusalem.