Israel calls itself a ‘Jewish state.’ Doesn’t that mean it discriminates against non-Jews?

The term ‘Jewish state’ does not mean that Israel is a theocracy (rule by clerics) or a state exclusively for Jews. Israel is a democracy (rule by the people), governed by the rule of law as drafted by an elected parliament, the Knesset. All faiths vote and enjoy freedom of worship. ‘Jewish state’ just means that Israel is the national homeland for the Jewish people with citizenship, civic equality and minority rights for its non-Jews. Tal Becker, the Israeli lawyer and peace-negotiator under the Annapolis process in 2007-8, puts it most clearly: ‘When we say Israel is a Jewish state, we mean that it is the national home of the Jewish people, where the Jewish people realise their right to selfdetermination. The Jewish people realising their right to self-determination is not a principle that is contrary to democracy. It is a universal legal principle.’ The Declaration of Independence explicitly provides for the protection of minorities: ‘[Israel] will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.’

Israel’s so-called ‘Basic Laws’ – its quasi-constitution – are interpreted by the independent judiciary, which has shown itself willing to challenge discrimination against Israel’s minorities on many occasions. Racial and other forms of discrimination are prohibited by Israeli law. Yes, Israel is a state with a national character; it is the national home of the Jewish people. But as Tal Becker points out, ‘Many states around the world are both national homelands for a majority ethnic or racial group and democracies.’

He goes further: ‘most democracies are nation states in this way. These states realise and express the rights of the ethnic majority to self-determination, but they are still democracies because of their systems of government and because the rights of the minority are protected in terms of equality before the law, and so on.’92 To take just one European example, Slovenia, a member of the European Union, states in its constitution that ‘Slovenia is a state of all its citizens and is founded on the permanent and inalienable right of the Slovenian nation to self-determination.’ Being a ‘Jewish state’ means being a state in which Jewish traditions, language and customs are given full expression. Thus, Jewish holidays are observed by the organs of the state, Hebrew is the national language, traditional Jewish law is integrated into jurisprudence, and so on.

There is nothing discriminatory in this, as long as minority rights to express their traditions, language and customs are protected too. And they are. For example, Israel’s civil service allows non-Jewish civil servants to celebrate their own religious holidays without having those days docked off their annual leave. (The same cannot be said to apply to Jews in Britain.) If Israel’s definition of itself as a Jewish state is ‘racist’, then Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia are likewise ‘racist’, since they define themselves as ‘Islamic’ states. Several Islamic countries go even further, invoking racial/ethnic criteria as well. Bahrain, for example, defines itself as ‘an Arab Islamic State, independent and fully sovereign, and its people are part of the Arab nation.’ Turkey defines itself as a ‘Turkish state’ even though a significant proportion of the population are not Turks but Kurds.

See more here: http://static.bicom.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/BICOM_Apartheid-Smear_FINAL.pdf