Israel is the only national state of the Jewish people. International law recognizes the Jewish people's right to a national home in the Land of Israel, the land of its forefathers from which they were forced out, as far back as 101 years ago at the San Remo Conference, and has approved it since then through the League of Nations as the United Nations.
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As stated in the introduction to the British Mandate to establish that same home here, international recognition was granted to "the historical connection of the Jewish people with the Land of Israel ["Palestine" in the language of the Mandate] and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."
In 2,000 years of exile, in which our people did not have a state of our own, we were subject to violence and persecution, and there is not enough room here to list them all.
The state of Israel was founded so that Jewish blood would no longer be forfeit, and so that every Jew would now that he or she has a home to which they can make aliyah, whether because they want to live a fully Jewish life in their ancestral land, or because they were forced to flee antisemitism that reared its head where they were living.
The Knesset expressed Israel's identity through the Law of Return, which states in its first article that "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh [immigrant]." However, in the past few decades the government has been forced to deal with constant waves of illegal migration. The laws passed by the Knesset each year never established clear rules about migration to Israel by non-Jews, and were full of holes, through which appellate courts and administrative courts and the Supreme Court used "family reunification" to bring into Israel anyone who wanted to implement "right" of return for Arabs inside the Green Line in a way that endangers the Jewish people's national home. This, in addition to the thousands of illegal infiltrators, mostly laborers, whose comfortable lives in Israel bewitch them even though the point of the country is foreign to them.
The Supreme Court has already expressed its opinion that it is inappropriate for the Knesset to set constitutional norms on a whim and that is certainly true when it comes to a subject as important as the country's identity.
And therefore, last Thursday, MK Simcha Rotman, along with other MKs from the entire national camp – Amir Ohana, Yinon Azoulay, Uriel Busso, Bezalel Smotrich, Yitzhak Pindrus, and Amichai Chikli – submitted a bill for the Basic Law: Immigration to Israel. It should be noted that former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked supported passing a similar law, and her party's platform included a commitment to passing it Anyone to whom the country's identity, security, and ability to ensure the long-term existence of the Jewish people's national home in our country matter should support this basic law. It is a commandment for generations to come.
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