Nation State of the Jewish People - except in a pandemic

• Author: Ilan Wagner
• Date: 11 March 2021
• Published date: 11 March 2021
• Publication title: Globes (Rishon LeZion, Israel)

The aspirational commitment of Netanyahu's governments to the rejection of the post-Zionist narrative is even clearer with the passing of the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People in 2018 ranks as one of the most significant and impactful domestic accomplishments of the Netanyahu led governments in Israel over the last decade. The law is not without its critics, and its ratification sparked a still simmering public debate over the nature of Israel as a Jewish and democratic State.

Regardless of the divergence of views about the necessity of this Basic Law, it clearly determines that Israel is not just as the home of its citizens, but is also the nation state of the Jewish people (paragraph 1), and that by law it is invested in ensuring the continued connection between the state and the Jewish People in the Diaspora (paragraph 6). The special relationship between the State of Israel and the Jewish people was highlighted in the Declaration of Independence and has long lain at the heart of the Zionist movement. The 2018 Basic Law anchors this value in a binding statute for Israeli policy.

And yet, despite the rhetorical commitment to the law's key principles, and the role it often plays as a litmus test of Israeli patriotism, particularly in the nationalist camp, it has been essentially ignored and abandoned by policy makers. The recent set of decisions by the Israeli government to limit entry to Israel only to returning Israeli citizens (first through the flawed mechanism of the exemption committee and then through numerical quotas and the requirement of self-quarantine) draw a clear line in the sand between Israeli citizens and Diaspora Jews, despite Israel's standing as the Nation State of the Jewish People. In my opinion, this post-Zionist policy is a clear violation of one of our most fundamental legal obligations and a sharp departure from one of the...