Netanyahu: Arab Israelis have 22 Arab nation-states, they don’t need another

Amid accusations that he is using anti-Arab rhetoric as part of his election campaign, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel’s Arab-Israeli citizens have “22 nation-states around them and they do not need another.”

Responding to a question on the “Likud TV” Facebook stream about how the controversial nation-state law impacts Arab-Israeli and Druze citizens of Israel, Netanyahu says the legislation “does not relate to the rights of the individual, because there are equal rights for all. The Basic Law deals only with fundamental questions of the rights of the Jewish people, a blue-and-white flag, the Hatikva [national anthem] and so on.”

After facing criticism for saying that Israel “was not a state of all its citizens” in reference to the country’s Arab population, the prime minister says that there are plenty of Arab states but only one Jewish state.

“The Arab citizens have 22 nation states around them and they do not need another. We define Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, the nation-state of the Jewish people, with equal rights for all.”

— Raoul Wootliff