The most famous and frequently quoted sentence from the U.S. Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal." The author, Thomas Jefferson, was a prominent founding father of the United States. In his own life, however, he was far from practicing what he preached about the absolute nature of equality. He held some 200 slaves at his estate and also helped prepare the Virginia state constitution, which institutionalized slavery.
There is credence to the claim that the line about equality in the Declaration of Independence was meant to emphasize the values of the residents of the 13 rebel colonies, something akin to the values of King George III's subjects in Great Britain, Ireland and Hanover. The individual inequality in the U.S. in those days was appalling. No one at the time imagined that anyone other than property-owning whites would ever have actual political rights. Slavery was abolished in the U.S. only after a civil war. Women were only given the right to vote in 1920.
As we know, total equality between people is a noble aspiration, but it cannot be fully realized for a number of reasons. We all aspire to uphold the principle of equality, as we preserve the principle of liberty. It goes without saying that there is a contradiction between these two principles. Moreover, almost all social norms constrict the principle of liberty. Indeed, a person, regardless of his social status, cannot simply do whatever he pleases in a proper society.
Meanwhile, there are also quite a few norms that constrict the principle of equality for reasons considered both legitimate and relevant. For instance, it is legitimate and relevant to grant special aid to citizens who suffer from a handicap, but it isn't reasonable or appropriate to prevent a handicapped person from voting or running for office.
Israel's Declaration of Independence seeks to recognize the right of the Jews to self-determination, while the national affiliations of the country's non-Jews aren't mentioned at all. To stress that the distinction between Jews and the others relates to the right to establish a Jewish national home – without infringing on individual equality – the declaration determines:
"The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it 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; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations."
The Knesset only circuitously ratified the Declaration of Independence in 1994. In the amendments to the first clause in Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation, and Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, it states: "Fundamental human rights in Israel are founded upon recognition of the value of the human being, the sanctity of human life, and the principle that all persons are free; these rights shall be upheld in the spirit of the principles set forth in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel."
Clearly, these principles encompass both the national Jewish character of the state and its yearning for equality among its citizens.
When the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty was first discussed in early 1992, some people wanted it to include the right to individual equality. The decision was made to exclude it due to its vagueness, and because of concerns that its inclusion would open the door to political interpretation by the High Court of Justice on matters of social and economic policy. Despite this exclusion, in Miller v. Minister of Defense (1995), the High Court ruled, in a 3-2 majority, that the principle of equality "has become a principle with constitutional, super-legislative status."
Equality between the state's citizens is also underlined in the fact that every citizen has the right to vote and be elected regardless of differences of religion, race, sex and nationality. The State of Israel, in addition to being the national home of the Jewish people, is a state of all its citizens.
There is no contradiction between these things, and anyone who objectively reads the nation-state law will see it does not infringe on equality between individuals and does not detract from the fact that the country's sovereignty belongs to all its citizens. This, as stated and guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence, has been enshrined in the country's basic laws since its inception. The demand to add an equality clause to the nation-state law is intentional, unadulterated hypocrisy.
