Dangerous law could be time bomb

Having Israel recognised as a Jewish state should not have become an issue in a region that prides itself on having three republics attaching the epithet “Islamic” to their official title, and 14 political parties describing themselves as “Islamic”, be they in Sudan, Malaysia or Indonesia.

Since its inception, Israel was called “the Jewish state” by many Arab presidents and political activists in the context of mobilising public opinion against it.

But last week, Palestinians and Israelis expressed opposition to and condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his determination to pass in the Knesset the draft Jewish state bill.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin voiced the same condemnation of a move that will not be conducive to a better understanding between Arabs and Jews in an area that needs a culture of coexistence from all strata of society.

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, former Israeli national security adviser, published an article criticising Netanyahu’s move. He considered the bill a threat to the country’s long-term interests, as the world will label as racist the entire Israeli society.

Amidror said that the new law was bound to lead to more discrimination against Palestinians, and the accumulation of such alienation and frustrations will encourage more lone-wolf operations which nobody could control or predict even at the highest echelons of internal security.

Non-organised individual terrorist actions cannot be prevented since security agencies do not have the capacity to eavesdrop on phone calls, nor an agent in place at the highest level of a Palestinian organisation.

According to Amidror, the new law, if approved by the Knesset, will antagonise the 1.6 million Arabs in Israel who never took part in major terrorist operations, as the political formula of governor Israel Koenig in 1952 secured the docility of those Palestinians for decades.

With the new law, Arab Palestinians’ loss of citizenship and political rights will send an electric shock that will make them listen to their brethren members of Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad or Hamas and resort to violent actions.

It is not surprising that many Israeli ministers who had handled the Palestinian file would realise the potential danger.

They reject the new draft law as it will eradicate any possibility for future coexistence between the main demographic components of Israel and the Arab world, since Netanyahu incorporated in the main text many legal articles that would be a time bomb and that will abort any prospect for future peace.