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by Denis MacEoin • August 22, 2018
at 5:00 am
- Israel is being
wrongly condemned for something that not one Muslim state has
ever been condemned for: identifying its nationality with its
religion -- and in the case of those Muslim states, this is done
frequently in a manner that excludes or restricts the rights, or
even the very existence, of minorities.
- In Saudi Arabia and
the Maldives, only Muslims are allowed to be citizens. In both
those countries, the open practice of any religion other than
Islam is forbidden -- even Christianity and Judaism, which are
supposedly accepted by Islam. In Israel, members of all
religions and ethnic groups are full citizens.
In Saudi
Arabia and the Maldives, only Muslims are allowed to be citizens. In
both those countries, the open practice of any religion other than
Islam is forbidden. Pictured: Road signs in Saudi Arabia, designating
the road to Mecca as for "Muslims Only." (Image source:
Peter Dowley/Wikimedia Commons)
On July 19, Israel's parliament, the Knesset, voted
into law the Nation-State Bill. As Israel has never had a
constitution, the bill became the latest iteration of the country's
Basic Laws, in the form of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of
the Jewish People. To many, this seemed like stating the obvious. Had
not Israel been created in the first place for that very purpose? The
only question was, "Why had it taken 70 years to turn the
obvious into law?" Well, perhaps not the only question. The next
one was "Why did 55 Knesset members vote against it, with two
abstentions, with a narrow majority of 62 in favour?"
Once word got out to the outside world that the Israeli
parliament had dared to enact such a definition of their state, it
was, for many, as if the end of the world had taken place. As if they
had never known that, since the time of the Bible, the land now
called Israel was home to the Jews.
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