| Submit your comments on this article |
| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Netanyahu Defends Plans for Law on 'Jewish State' |
| 2014-05-05 |
| [An Nahar] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday moved to defend his plans to enshrine Israel's status as the national homeland for the Jewish people in law. Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the aim was to "anchor" in law Israel's status and ensure it would remain a Jewish state following any peace deal with the Paleostinians. "There are those who do not want Israel to be defined as the national homeland for the Jewish people," he said in remarks broadcast on public radio. "They want a Paleostinian national homeland to be established here next to us, and that Israel be gradually turned into a bi-national Jewish-Arab state within our reduced borders," he told ministers in a reference to Israel's Arab minority who number just over 20 percent of the population. Netanyahu and others in the rightwing camp have long expressed fears that following the establishment of a Paleostinian state, Israel's Arab citizens would seek to press their own claims for territory in the northern Galilee and southern Negev regions. "You cannot say we want to break away from the Paleostinians to prevent a bi-national state -- something which has a certain logic -- and at the same time give your blessing to a bi-national, Jewish-Arab state within Israel's permanent borders," he said. "Israel gives full equal rights to all of its citizens but it is the national homeland of just one people -- the Jewish people." |
| Posted by:Fred |