can be admitted to the Jews’ hospitals; that they can study in the
Jews’ universities and live anywhere they choose. (You bet.)
How enlightened we are; our Supreme Court ruled in the
KaadancasethatanArabfamilycouldbuyahomeinKatzir,
afteryearsoflitigationandendlessevasion.Howtolerantweare
thattheArabsarepermittedtospeakArabic,anofficiallanguage.
Thelatterwascertainlyafiction;Arabicneverwasremotely
treatedasanofficiallanguage,thewaySwedishisinFinland,
wheretheminorityisfarsmallerthantheArabminorityhere.
It was comfortable to ignore that the lands owned by the
Jewish National Fund, which include most of the state’s lands,
were for Jews only—with the progressive Supreme Court
backing that stance—and claim we’re a democracy. It was
much more pleasant to think of ourselves as egalitarian.
Now there is a law that tells the truth. Israel is for Jews only,
on the books. The nation-state of the Jewish people, not of its
residents. Its Arabs are second-class citizens and its Palestin-
ian subjects are hollow, nonexistent. Their fate is determined
in Jerusalem, but they aren’t part of the state. It’s easier this
way for everyone.
There remains a small problem with the rest of the world,
andwithIsrael’simage,whichthislawwilltarnishsomewhat.
It’snobigdeal.Israel’snewfriendswillbeproudofthislaw.
Forthemitwillbealightuntothenations.Andpeopleofcon-
science all over the world already know the truth and have
longbeenstrugglingagainstit.AweaponfortheBDSmove-
ment?Certainly.Israelhasearnedit,andwillnowlegislateit. Israel’s Nation-State Law: Teaching
Jews That the World Is FlatBy Amira Hass
FROM A BALCONYin Ramallah, surrounded by friends and ac-
quaintances, the nation-state law shrinks to its proper ludicrous
proportions. The creationists erased a nation from the written text.
And yet, nine indisputable representatives of that nation sat
and joked, turned serious, reminisced, traded political gossip
about senior Palestinian Authority officials, voiced fears and con-
cerns, made predictions and retracted them. What a privilege it
was for me to sit among them and enjoy what is so natural to
them that they don’t even categorize it—a rootedness and a be-
longing that don’t need verbal trappings; a zest for life; unimag-
inable strength and courage.
They were born in a village that was destroyed; in a refugee
camp in the Gaza Strip; in Damascus, Jaffa, Nablus, Ramallah,
Nazareth, Acre. They’re the first, second and third generations
of the 1948 refugees. Some are third-class citizens—fifth-class,
now—of the state that robbed them of their homeland. Some re-
turned to their homeland after the Palestinian Authority was es-
tablished in 1994 and settled down in the West Bank, subject to
Israeli military orders.All are members of the same nation, regardless of what is writ-
ten on their identity cards. They escaped Israeli bombings in
Beirut and in Gaza; they lived under Israeli-imposed curfew,
siege and house arrest; they were jailed in Israeli prisons for po-
litical activity; they were interrogated by Israel’s Shin Bet security
service; they raised themselves from poverty; they wandered,
studied, worked in left-wing organizations.
All of them have lost relatives and close friends, killed by Israel
or in civil wars in the Arab countries where they used to live. All
of them treasure the silent, pained gazes of their parents, who
told them about the home that was lost 70 years ago.
Some of them also became bourgeois. Which doesn’t spare
them the checkpoints; the Israeli expressions of racism and arro-
gance; the forced separations from relatives who cannot go (from
the Gaza Strip) or come (from Syria); the fears for the future.
Not far, yet very far from there—under a lean-to in Khan al-
Ahmar—women sit on thin mattresses placed on the ground and
talk about the attack by police officers two weeks ago and a wed-
ding party that is scheduled for this week. The strength and
courage of these women from the Jahalin Bedouin tribe are
equally evident. There, in those heartbreaking shelters, Israel’s
greedy racism is also an immediate issue, broadcast by the spa-
cious houses of the settlement of Kfar Adumim.
How do they live like this, with nonstop threats and aggression
from bureaucrats, soldiers, policemen and settlers who covet the
little that remains to them? Where do they get the strength to live
in crowded conditions that are hard to get used to, without elec-
tricity or running water—which are the minimum conditions for
community life—with shrinking pasturage and shrinking income,
and yet not give in to the expellers’ orders? Their strength comes
from that same rootedness and natural sense of belonging,
which the deniers of evolution, the drafters of the nation-state
law, are incapable of understanding.
For over a month, this community, which is threatened with a
new expulsion, has been hosting mass public events—press con-
ferences, rallies, speeches, delegations. There’s an element of ex-
ploitation and ostentation here on the Palestinian Authority’s part.
Yet at the same time, another process is taking place, one that is
very political: Palestinians from both urban and rural communities
are liberating themselves from the alienation they used to feel to-
ward the Bedouin.
Palestinians from both sides of the Green Line are meeting.
What they have in common is growing stronger, despite their dif-
ferences. And the Arabic language—with its wealth of Palestinian
slang and pronunciations—is spoken without the seal of approval
of Israeli Knesset members.
The nation-state law reflects the reality of hedonistic discrimi-
nation that creates feelings of superiority and racism. This dan-
gerous law declares the intentions of its authors: to teach addi-
tional generations of Israeli Jews that the world is flat and entrust
them with the mission of expelling and wiping out a nation.
Infected with superiority and devoid of shame, they’re inca-
pable of understanding that this strength, this courage, this root-
edness and belonging that Palestinians have in their homeland,
will always find ways to cope, to resist, to innovate and to fight. OCTOBER2018 WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS 11Amira Hass is the Haaretz correspondent for the occupied territories.
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