Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, called on the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday to condemn Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law.
Adalah Attorney Myssana Morany, speaking in Geneva during an Interactive Dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, urged the UN body to demand that Israel revoke the law due to its racially discriminatory impact on Palestinian citizens of Israel.
“There is no democratic state in the world that defines its constitutional identity on exclusive racial grounds, and as serving one ethnic group,” Morany told the Council.
She spoke of the concerns expressed by the Council’s special rapporteurs, who considered the law discriminatory in nature and in its application against non-Jewish citizens and members of minorities, as it does not apply the principle of equality among citizens.
She said the rapporteurs warned that the law would strengthen the authority of the Jews in Israel over non-Jewish citizens, especially those belonging to other ethnic, racial and religious groups. She added it would also create a fertile ground, both legally and politically, to legislate more racist and discriminatory laws that contradict Israel's international human rights obligations.
Morany urged the Council to fully condemn the Nation-State Law and to demand that Israel cancel it and abstain from implementing it against Palestinian citizens and all Palestinians under Israel’s control.
