JERUSALEM — The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has endorsed a proposed law that would allow Jews to bar Arab citizens of Israel from purchasing homes or living in many Israeli communities, a move that has touched off a divisive national debate.
The attempt to legalize "Jews-only" towns was swiftly criticized by numerous Israeli politicians and human rights groups, who said it was a discriminatory and racist proposal. Supporters praised the bill for protecting what they called the essence of Zionism.
The debate goes to the heart of Israel's existential contradiction: How can it be both a Jewish state and a democratic state?
"Israel is the state of the Jewish people," said Cabinet minister Dan Meridor, who opposed the legislation, "but because it is a Jewish state, it must not practice against its non-Jewish citizens the kind of discrimination to which Jews were subjected in the diaspora."
Drafted by members of an ultranationalist right-wing party, the bill comes in response to a landmark decision by the Israeli Supreme Court in March 2000 that said Arab citizens were equally entitled to purchase, lease or live on state-owned land. The court ruled on a petition from Adel Kaadan, an Israeli Arab who had been turned down repeatedly in his efforts to buy a home in an all-Jewish community in the Galilee region of northern Israel.
Right-wing and religious parties in Sharon's coalition endorsed the proposed law in a closed Cabinet session Sunday, with most members from the center-left Labor Party absent. When it was publicized Monday, the decision triggered a firestorm.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said his Labor Party would "fight with all its power against the racist decision"--even if it means quitting the government.
The bill still faces legal hurdles in the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, before it becomes law.
Assigning land for Jewish-only housing opens Israel to criticism at a time when its reputation in the Arab and Muslim worlds is especially low because of Israel's war with the Palestinians, Meridor said.
Education Minister Limor Livnat, a member of Sharon's Likud Party and the legislation's main proponent in the Cabinet, said it was a mistake to see the decision as racist. Instead, it would protect Israeli security by helping to ensure a Jewish majority in the heavily Arab Galilee, she said.
"This does not stem at all from discrimination, rather from the main basis of Zionism: the return of the Jewish people to its land," Livnat said.
