"We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel." These words, which validated our natural and historic right, are at the core of the State of Israel's proclamation of independence. It is the cause and effect. It is the essence and identity of the state. It is the justification for and the aim of its existence. Had a constitution been formulated immediately after Israel's first elections, as was promised in the Declaration of Independence, it is clear that the significance of this line, which pertains to some 90% of the content of the declaration, would be the core of Israel's constitution. But it was decided at the time that the declaration would be constructed layer by layer through Basic Laws. Seventy years later, the nation-state law was passed.
The nation-state law should have been widely accepted by all the Zionist political parties. The initiative by the Institute for Zionist Strategies over a decade ago was intended to anchor the foundations shared by all streams of Zionism, precisely because of their deep disagreement over the question of borders. The initiative was aimed at declaring to ourselves and the world that even if we disagree on the territorial question, we are united in agreement on what the State of Israel stands for in essence, regardless of the country's borders. It is not for nothing that the person who was supposed to introduce the bill was then-Opposition leader and Zionist Union party leader Tzipi Livni, under the assumption that both the coalition and opposition would support it. It's a shame she got cold feet, possibly when she understood that a Jewish state was not fashionable among her core constituents.
Basic Law: Israel – the Nation-State of the Jewish Nation is a very important basic law. That it was not widely accepted by the public and was instead the focus of contention is a major problem that is largely the fault of the law's opponents. While some of the responsibility falls on supporters of the legislation, who did not do enough to unite the ranks and agree upon a version of the law.
Those who oppose the essence of the law and see a Jewish nation-state as "racist," "ethnocentric" and "nationalist" were never meant to support it. But a majority of the law's opponents believe in its ideas, and that is why the right thing at the time would have been to try to reach an agreement with them on the wording of the law before it was passed. This can still be done. Opposition to the legislation was based on concerns it would infringe on the civic equality of Israel's minorities. This is a false fear. The law does not harm equality in the least. In fact, it doesn't even touch on the subject. But had they added a sentence to clarify this in the law, even though there was no real need to do so, this would have been beneficial because it would have ensured wide support for the legislation.
In 2014, I proposed adding a clause to the law that states that the nation-state of the Jewish people will maintain full civic equality for all its citizens, regardless of religion, race or gender. It's not too late to rectify this, but it will need to be carried through in another law. It is important to include the concept of civic equality in the state's constitution, but the proper place is not the nation-state law but Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. That is where we should add a clause in this spirit. To the nation-state law, which anchors the country's national symbols, flag, anthem, and the state symbol, we must add a sentence that expresses a commitment to the Declaration of Independence and its principles.
