Opinion | Israel’s Nation-State Law Is Not Just Bark
photo: Dafna Talmon
After the passage of Israel’s nation-state law, which anchors the Jewishness of the state in Israel’s “basic law” or constitution, the Israeli right and its American fellow travelers were quick to tell us that the law was no big deal—that it merely codified what was already social reality in the State of Israel. (Of course, beforehand they had trumpeted its passage as of existential importance to prevent the demise of the Zionist dream.)
This notion that the law is of little significance is belied by the reaction to it, and not just on the left (which dreams of Israel as a “state of all its citizens”). Druze officers resigned from the Israel Defense Forces. An Arab MK resigned from the Knesset, and the only permanent former Arab Supreme Court justice, who had just retired,...