New law would demote Arabic language in the name of 'social cohesion'

[Israeli]

Members of Knesset say law builds a ‘collective identity’ that will preserve the ‘values of democracy.’

By Orly Noy

A group of MKs from Yisrael Beiteinu, Likud and Jewish Home recently submitted a bill that calls to rescind the status of Arabic as an official language in Israel.

On its own, the bill is neither out of the ordinary nor surprising, as it joins a long list of draft laws that were brought before the Knesset plenum over the past years, including the Citizenship Law, the Nakba Law, the Loyalty Law, the Basic Law that declares Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, and so on. After several decades of dispossessing its Palestinian citizens from their lands, the state is now moving on to dispossess them of their culture, including their language, identity and sense of belonging.

The identity of the lawmakers behind the bill is not surprising, nor are their party affiliations, which that have long ceased to be part of the right-wing margins and have reached deep into the heart of the ruling party. Let us not forget the benefactor of the bill, “The Lobby for the Strengthening of the Hebrew Language.” One of its members is Dr. Zvi Zameret, the former chairman of the Pedagogical Secretariat of Israel’s Education Ministry. He is the same man who was behind the widespread cuts in civics studies in favor of Jewish studies, as well as the “updating” of the contents of civics books in the spirit of Zionism.

What I find interesting about the current proposal is its wording:

"""Passing this law will contribute to social cohesion in the State of Israel and to building a collective identity necessary to foster mutual trust in society and preserve the values of democracy."""

I won’t waste my time writing about the so-called “values of democracy” that this bill seeks to promote. However, it is important to look closely at its other goals: social cohesion, building a collective identity and mutual trust in society. The authors of the draft law are actually saying, unanimously, that excluding Arabic – and thus the people who speak the language – is a condition for social cohesion in Israel, and that a collective Israeli identity does not include Arabic-speaking citizens.

( More to follow ).....

[Israeli]

1. continued.....

It seems to me that in today’s political context, it is no coincidence that this is seen as a form of “social cohesion.” The Jewish public in Israel has spent the last two months celebrating that oh-so-evasive “social cohesion,” whose bedrock is made up of unrestrained militarism and growing nationalism.

This social cohesion is mainly expressed by the media’s avoidance of asking the necessary questions and telling the public what needs to be told. Instead, it blathers on in an endless loop about “the strength of the home front” or our collective embrace of the IDF. When the media doesn’t cover a series of radical, anti-social moves by the government under the guise of war [Hebrew], the term “social cohesion” becomes meaningless – nothing more than an empty, nationalist shell. It is obvious that this shell has no room for Palestinian citizens.

In the end, one must praise the wording of the draft bill, as it reveals, once and for all, the lie behind the ethos of individual integration that the government has tried to sell to its Arab citizens for so many years (while cleverly winking at its Jewish population). The Palestinian citizens of Israel are discriminated against through numerous economic and social mechanisms, and are oppressed as a collective, most of time through legislation.

It is time to wake up from this false dream of integration, and support Palestinian citizens in their demand for political rights and the recognition of the Palestinian minority as a national one, with full autonomy in everything having to do with managing the educational and cultural systems in their communities. This, of course, alongside the struggle for full and equal civil rights for everyone with Israeli citizenship.

An aside: someone ought to speak to MK Shimon Ohayon (Yisrael Beiteinu) about the cultural impact that excluding Arabic from the public sphere will have on his community. But that’s a whole other story.

Orly Noy is a Mizrahi activist, translator and writer for Local Call. Read this article in Hebrew.

Source: http://972mag.com/new-law-would-demote-arabic-language-in-the-name-of-social-cohesion/96048/

[still_one]

2. Is this a law or is it a bill?

Last edited Wed Aug 27, 2014, 12:00 PM - Edit history (1)

[Israeli]

4. Its a bill ...

...more info for you :

Lawmakers seek to drop Arabic as one of Israel's official languages

Legislation, backed by Kadima, Labor and Likud MKs, would make democratic rule subservient to state's definition as 'national home for the Jewish people.'

By Jonathan Lis | Aug. 4,

Forty lawmakers from both the coalition and opposition Wednesday submitted a proposal to the Knesset for a new Basic Law that would change the accepted definition of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state."

The bill, initiated by MKs Avi Dichter (Kadima ), Zeev Elkin (Likud ) and David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu ), and supported by 20 of the 28 Kadima MKs, would make democratic rule subservient to the state's definition as "the national home for the Jewish people."

The legislation, a private member's bill, won support from Labor, Atzamaut, Yisrael Beiteinu and National Union lawmakers.

Sources at the Knesset say the law currently has broad support, and they believe it will be passed during the Knesset's winter session.

According to Elkin, the law is intended to give the courts reasoning that supports "the state as the Jewish nation state in ruling in situations in which the Jewish character of the state clashes with its democratic character."

Elkin said: "The courts deal with this issue quite a lot, such as with the Law of Return as a discriminatory law."

The bill redefines basic consensus regarding the character of the state. For example, it also proposes that Hebrew would be the only official language in Israel, as opposed to the present situation - based on current mandatory law, Arabic and English are also recognized as official languages.

The bill accords Arabic "special status," and states that Arabic speakers "have the right to linguistic access to the services of the state, as determined by law."

Jewish inspiration

Another clause states that Jewish law will be a source of inspiration to the legislature and the courts.

This would mean that MKs would be asked to legislate in the spirit of Jewish law, and courts to adjudicate by it in cases where no other express law exists. In the language of the bill: "If the court sees a legal question requiring a ruling, and finds no solution in legislation, custom or clear analogy, it will rule in light of the principles of freedom, justice, integrity and peace in Jewish heritage."

The bill also calls on the state to "act to ingather the exiles of Israel and [further] Jewish settlement within it, and allocate resources to this end."

As for other ethnic groups in Israel, according to the bill: "The state is permitted to allow a community, including people of another faith or nation, to maintain a separate community."

Elkin says he is not concerned over the implications of the bill for the image of Israel internationally. "If we were talking about the world in which the United Nations equates Zionism with racism, there might be a problem. But today the world is ready to accept this," he said.

As opposed to other Basic Laws, this one can only be changed by passing another Basic Law in its stead.

The bill was formulated on the initiative of, and jointly with, the Institute for Zionist Strategies, a conservative think tank.

Elkin and Rotem have supported a number of controversial pieces of legislation presented during the Knesset summer session. They include the successfully-passed Boycott Law, which calls for economic sanctions on people who boycott West Bank settlements; and laws restricting the activities of associations that oppose the existence of Israel and requiring political groups to reveal sources of funding they received from foreign countries.

In response, Kadima said that the proposed law is a private member's bill submitted by MK Avi Dichter and not by a faction. Like every other bill, this one will also be discussed by the faction, which will then decide its position on it.

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/lawmakers-seek-to-drop-arabic-as-one-of-israel-s-official-languages-1.376829

[still_one]

10. We have people in our Congress who have been known to introduce crazy legislation, that does not

represent a consensus

In fact, I would venture in most countries some bills get introduced that are not reflective of the majority, and do not succeed

[Israeli]

11. I understand what you are implying ....

and I hope this one does not succeed.....however , sadly, it probably will pass .

You should study up on the other " crazy legislation " that has succeeded :

Discriminatory Laws

Israeli governments regularly enact legislation which excludes, ignores, and discriminates against the Palestinian Arab minority. Since the establishment of the state, Israel has relied upon these laws to ground their discriminatory treatment of Arab citizens and allow the unequal status and unequal treatment of Jewish and Arab citizens to persist.

In February 2009, elections for the 18th Knesset brought to power the most right‐wing government coalition in the history of Israel. The current 19th Knesset, elected in January 2013, has continued this right-wing trend.Both governments were led by Benjamin Netanyahu, of the Likud party, with strong support from Avigdor Lieberman, of the Yisrael Beitenu party. The 2013 elections also introduced the far-right wing party HaBayit HaYehudi, led by Naftali Bennet, into the governing coalition. Members of Knesset (MKs) immediately introduced a flood of discriminatory legislation.

These new laws and bills, which continue to surface on a near weekly basis, seek, inter alia, to dispossess and exclude Arab citizens from the land; turn their citizenship from a right into a conditional privilege; undermine the ability of Arab citizens of Israel and their parliamentary representatives to participate in the political life of the country; criminalize political expression or acts that question the Jewish or Zionist nature of the state; and privilege Jewish citizens in the allocation of state resources. It is particularly disturbing that some of the legislation appears to be specifically designed to preempt, circumvent or overturn Supreme Court decisions providing protection for these rights. Adalah closely monitors new legislation and regularly updates the following lists.

Click here for the most recent collection of Discriminatory Laws (Updated June 2013)

This paper lists 29 main new laws and bills that discriminate against the Palestinian minority in Israel and threaten their rights as citizens of the state, and in some cases harm the rights of Palestinian residents of the OPT. It also documents a series of bills that have been introduced to drastically restrict the foreign governmental funding and activities of human rights organizations; Arab human rights organizations in Israel would be particularly affected bythis legislation.

Older versions:

October 2012
June 2012
June 2011
April 2011
November 2010
See Adalah's Discriminatory Laws Database

Read More: Discriminatory Laws

Source: http://adalah.org/eng/Articles/1771/Discriminatory-Laws

[azurnoir]

13. reminds me of what was called

separate but equal in the US a half century ago

[Scootaloo]

3. Absolutely unsurprising.

Israeli, I hope you might consider the great land of America in your future - after these people have their way with Arabs, they'll be coming after the left next.

[bravenak]

5. +1

[Israeli]

6. Nobody in my family ....

holds dual citizenship to anywhere Scoot .... and if the Left all left who would be left to fight for the rights of non Jewish citizens ????

[Jefferson23]

8. You're a stalwart, to say the least. It is a pleasure to know you on this internet thing we do. n/t

[stranger81]

16. From everything I've been reading, it sounds

like they're coming after the left now.

[oberliner]

7. Another reminder that there are parties in Israel other than Likud

That are even further right than they are.

And gaining popularity by the day, sadly.

[Jefferson23]

9. Troubling, for sure. n/t

[Israeli]

12. You obviously did not ....

read Jonathan Lis's report ....or did you oberliner ?

[LeftishBrit]

14. Ugh, hope it doesn't pass

[Israeli]

15. The real threat in Israel has been discovered

Only a frightened nation sees the minority’s language as a threat. Only a racist government seizes on language as a pretext for excluding about a fifth of the country’s population.

By Zvi Bar'el

MK Hamad Amar is a Druze member of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. The online publication Al-Amama, which focuses on Druze affairs, has lavished praise on him, describing him as a new kind of leader, one that wants to advance the Druze community and nurture its youth while also preserving traditional values.

It will be interesting to see what Al-Amama writes about him now, after Amar added his signature last week to the imbecilic bill sponsored by his party colleague, MK Shimon Ohayon, which has also been signed by MKs David Rotem, Orit Strock and Moshe Feiglin. This bill would abolish Arabic’s status as an official language in Israel, meaning inter alia that government offices would no longer be obliged to publish regulations and instructions in that language.

Even George Orwell would find it hard to improve on the explanatory notes to the bill. “Passing this bill will contribute to social cohesion in the State of Israel and to building the collective identity needed to create mutual trust in society and preserve the values of democracy,” it asserts.

“Collective identity”? “Mutual trust”? “Social cohesion”? There could be no better description of a racist society that is panicked over the possibility of being taken over by the minority’s language, and which would therefore rob it of its identity and, in the next step, destroy its culture.

“It’s inconceivable, inappropriate and illogical for any language in Israel to have a status equal to that of the Hebrew language. Precisely now, when Arab Israeli organizations are trying to turn Israel into a binational [state], it’s urgent to enshrine the unique status of the language of the Bible – the Hebrew language – in law.” That is what MK Limor Livnat, a representative of the humanistic right, wrote in the explanatory notes of a similar bill she submitted in 2008.

Judging by these explanations, it seems the Jewish collective doesn’t really exist, since it’s necessary to “build its identity.” In contrast, the State of Israel contains another collective with a unified identity and proven cohesion, which is based on the desire to turn Israel into a binational state.

Organizations belonging to this collective are digging attack tunnels under the language of the Bible. If they aren’t destroyed in time, we will face a national cultural onslaught that will finish us off. The day before yesterday, it was bilingual schools that threatened our children. Yesterday, it was the intermarriage of Morel Malka and Mahmoud Mansour. But now we’ve discovered the real threat.

If we just eradicate the Arabic language – if we erase it from the Jewish school curriculum and stop printing traffic tickets and electric bills in Arabic as well – the “threat” posed by the Arab nation will disappear and Jewish identity will be saved. Hebrew is for the Jewish nation state, and Arabic is for its enemies. That way we’ll know who is who, and will no longer get confused between the enemy and mere imposters.

That’s also what Turkey thought for generations, during which it forbade the study of the Kurdish language and persecuted everyone who wrote music or books in the language of its largest ethnic minority. Turkey, too, believed that squelching the minority’s language would create a united, harmonious society. But Ataturk’s extreme nationalism didn’t make the Kurdish problem go away; quite the contrary: It sparked a rebellion, parts of which were violent and deadly, until over the last three years former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided the time had come to reconcile with this minority.

Only a country that isn’t confident of its identity builds cultural and linguistic walls to protect itself. Only a frightened nation sees the minority’s language as a threat. Only a racist government seizes on language as a pretext for excluding about a fifth of the country’s population.

It would be interesting to know what intellectual mutation MK Amar had to undergo in order to sign a bill that would eliminate the status of his own mother tongue. Or perhaps this is his cunning method of preserving the Arab nation? Perhaps he, too, is part of the fifth column. It’s as if he said, take your Arabic and leave us Hebrew. Go figure what’s going on in a Druze’s head.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.613731

[Jefferson23]

17. They keep going from bad to worse...they know no boudaries that represent anything positive to

build upon. It is disturbing and disheartening.

[Israeli]

18. and depressing Jefferson....

and that is just you and I .... if we were Israeli Arab/Palestinian how do you imagine we would be feeling ???

[Jefferson23]

19. I imagine they feel hopeless. n/t