Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has slammed Israel’s nation-state law as “racist” and reminiscent of South African apartheid.
Abbas says he complained about the law to Bosnian leader Bakir Izetbegovic.
“I told his excellency about the latest illegitimate laws that Israel legislated including the racist, apartheid nation-state law,” Abbas says at a press conference in Ramallah.
Abbas and Izetbegovic, the Muslim member of a tripartite inter-ethnic Bosnian presidency, met at the PA presidential headquarters in Ramallah today.
Mahmoud Abbas, left, and Bosnian leader Bakir Izetbegovic in Ramallah on Wednesday August 29, 2018. (Wafa images)
The nation-state law, which the Knesset passed in a 62-55 vote on July 19, enshrined Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people,” recognized Jewish holidays and days of remembrance, declared Hebrew the state’s national language and vowed to encourage Jewish settlement.
The legislation included no reference to the equality of all Israeli citizens akin to the one made in Israel’s Declaration of Independence — which pledged that the nascent state would “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex” — and it appeared to grant the Arabic language a lesser status than that of Hebrew.
— Adam Rasgon
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From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
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