Why Israel Needs a Nation-State Law

To much fanfare and controversy, the Knesset last week passed a basic law—a law with de-facto constitutional status—declaring Israel “the nation-state of the Jewish people.” The new law’s clauses grant official status to the Hebrew language (while granting unique “special status” to Arabic), the national anthem, and the Israeli flag; others proclaim that the state “will act to encourage and promote” Jewish settlement and “will be open for Jewish immigration.” While some of the law’s critics have claimed, wrongly, that it relegates non-Jews to second-class citizenship and spells the end of liberal democracy in the country, others have contended that it is a wholly unnecessary restatement of what is already in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Emmanuel Navon argues that it is anything but unnecessary: