The Guardian view on Israel’s new law: popular will is being weaponised

Last week Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a controversial bill declaring that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country. Pushed by the most rightwing government in Israeli history, the bill is unashamedly majoritarian and illiberal. In promoting the law, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reveals that he pays lip service to minority protections. Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up around a fifth of the population, have every right to be angry. The law implicitly subordinates the country’s democratic nature to its Jewish nature rather than balancing the two. The “nation state” basic law will promote communities with a clearly Jewish character and reduce the status of Arabic. Israeli Arabs say this will make them officially second-class citizens. It’s hard to disagree.

It is significant that the bill has been condemned from outside the country and underlined the rift between the Israeli government and a liberal Jewish diaspora. Yet Mr Netanyahu and his Likud party have persisted with hardline, rightwing policies in coalition with some of Israel’s most hawkish factions. This combination has seen him win four elections. Mr Netanyahu has also engaged in very low politics: his 2015 victory was credited to what his opponent described as “lies, incitement and racism”. The new law highlights the rise of Israel’s ultranationalists, which Mr Netanyahu sees as part of a global revival of populism. The “nation state” basic law was passed just before Mr Netanyahu welcomed to Israel Hungary’s far-right leader, Viktor Orbán, who has praised Nazi-era antisemitic collaborators. If the claim is Mr Netanyahu is soft on antisemitism when it suits him, then honouring Mr Orbán is good evidence.

In Israel, basic law has a constitutional status. The new law represents an anti-democratic act by endorsing a toxic thought: that discrimination could be justified as being in line with the national interest. In giving a special status in law to the Jewish people, Israel’s majority population will be able to argue for greater privileges, subsidies and rights. The new basic law can be reviewed by the country’s supreme court, if petitioned, but there are real concerns that the bench has been cowed by Mr Netanyahu’s barely disguised war on the judiciary.

The moral case, advanced by Israel’s friends, is the country was founded to “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender”. Unfortunately these fine words, drawn from Israel’s declaration of independence, have no legal status. Israel ought to turn away from where it is headed. Mr Netanyahu risks the ruin of deliberative representation by weaponising popular will. Israel needs to reclaim the idea that as a nation it works through an amalgam of values and institutions which diffuse power and seek equality. The new law won’t help – it amplifies rather than counteracts Israeli democracy’s worst tendencies.