In Israel, if You're Not Jewish, You’re Not Accepted
July 27, 2023
It turns out that when it comes to excluding Arabs, we really are brothers. This week the Knesset passed an expansion of the so-called Admissions Committees Law, enacted in 2010 to circumvent a High Court of Justice ruling prohibiting cooperative communities from leasing land only to Jews. The amendment was sponsored by lawmakers Yitzhak Kroizer of Otzma Yehudit, Simcha Rothman of Religious Zionism and Sharren Haskel of the National Unity Party, and was approved on the second and third votes by 42 MKs, with only 11 MKs opposing (Noa Shpigel, Haaretz, July 25).
Aside from the MKs of Hadash-Ta’al and the United Arab List, the only lawmakers who voted against the bill were Naama Lazimi and Gilad Kariv of the Labor Party. As for other opposition parties, several National Unity Party MKs voted for it, while representatives of Yesh Atid abstained or were absent from the votes. In other words: When the legislature passed a law that is the epitome of racism – it enables the establishment of communities exclusively for Jews within Israel’s borders (not in the territories, that is to say, in a place where all citizens are ostensibly equal before the law, and where there is no apartheid and no occupation) – only two righteous people in Sodom who opposed it could be found.
The latest amendment increases the number of communities that could use admissions committees to reject prospective residents. They can now be used in localities outside of the Negev and the Galilee that are defined by the government as national priority areas in construction and housing and are within clusters 1 to 5 of the Peripherality Index of Local Authorities in Israel. In addition, the amendment increases the maximum size of communities in which admissions committees can be used to 700 households, up from 400.
The Cooperative Societies Ordinance prohibits the rejection of a candidate for reasons of race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or political affiliation, but it allows rejection on the basis of “incompatibility” with the community’s “social and cultural fabric.” Add to this vague pretense the national value that was enshrined in the Basic Law on Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, according to which the state will work to promote and entrench Jewish settlement, and you get apartheid inside the Green Line.
It’s hard to understand how such a despicable law was born from members of two political camps that are ostensibly on two sides of the divide in the battle for Israeli democracy. It’s impossible to excuse the total public indifference to the passage of a law that is no less anti-democratic and dangerous – if not much more so – than the repeal of the reasonableness standard. It’s hard to understand how those who are fighting for the future of Israeli democracy are giving their votes to a bill that has no place in a democratic state. We must hope that the High Court will reject it, and pray that the democratic camp will one day internalize the fact that there is no such thing as a democracy for Jews only. Otherwise, there is no protest movement that could save Israel.