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Egypt on Saturday said a new Israeli law giving Jews the exclusive right to self-determination in the country undermined the chances for peace in the Middle East and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
The law, which was passed on Thursday, has drawn rebuke from the European Union and was denounced by the Palestinian Authority and Arab citizens of Israel as racist legislation.
Turkey’s presidential aide on Saturday lashed out at recently-approved Jewish nation-state law, calling it as an attempt for legalization of occupation.In a column titled “Israel's nation-state bill is racist” for Daily Sabah newspaper, İbrahim Kalın said the legislation is a sign that Israel sees itself above the international law.“With the full backing of the Trump administration, the Netanyahu government shamelessly seeks to legalize occupation and antagonize the entire Muslim world,” Kalın wrote in his column.Approved by Knesset (Israel’s parliament) on Thursday, the legislation recognizes Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish people”.Video: Palestinian deputies rip copy of Israeli Nation-State lawDescribing it as racist legislation and advocate of an official apartheid system, the presidential aide said: “It is the last nail in the coffin of the two-state solution.”The legislation also states that a “united Jerusalem” is the capital of Israel and that Hebrew is the country's official language, stripping Arabic of its earlier designation as an official language while recognizing its “special status.”This is “another slap” in the face of the international community and the UN resolutions rejecting illegal occupation of Jerusalem and Palestinian lands, Kalın said.Also touching on Netanyahu’s remarks at the Israeli parliament, Kalın said it was “a confession of the Zionist project” that would continue at the expense of the lives, lands and freedom of the Palestinian people.‘Jewish state’ law sparks outrage among JewsAfter the passage of the bill, Nethanyahu told the Knesset: "This is a defining moment in the annals of Zionism and the history of the state of Israel.”Saying that the remarks amounts to erasing the Palestinian people from their homeland physically and legally, Kalın called on the world to reject the legislation.“All countries, communities and advocacy groups who believe in a legally, morally and historically fair settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should join forces against defenders of racism and apartheid,” he said.Israeli forces arrest, torture Palestinian youth with Down syndromeIsraeli army shells Hamas post in Gaza after truceTurkey’s MHP leader blasts Israel’s ‘Jewish state’ law
Presidential spox: Israel seeks to legalize occupation
A recently-approved Israeli law that recognizes Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish people” has invited a storm of condemnations and outrage in Israel and among Jewish groups.Approved by Knesset (Israel’s parliament) on Thursday, the legislation also states that a “united Jerusalem” is the capital of Israel and that Hebrew is the country's official language, stripping Arabic of its earlier designation as an official language while recognizing its “special status.”Israeli forces arrest, torture Palestinian youth with Down syndromeIsraeli army shells Hamas post in Gaza after truceTamar Zandberg, chairwoman of the left-wing Meretz Party, described the law as “shameful”.“Zionism is no longer a national movement, but a forceful nationalism that humiliates the minority and establishes racial supremacy,” she said.Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said “it is sad that the last speech for him as the head of opposition will be against this backdrop.”Turkey’s MHP leader blasts Israel’s ‘Jewish state’ law“History only will determine whether the law will benefit Israel or not,” he said.Former foreign minister Tzipi Livni said the legislation was only to benefit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.“Netanyahu wants the law for his fight,” said Livni, a member of the Zionist Union.Her party, the largest opposition party with 24 seats in Knesset, had voted against the law during its three readings.Netanyahu has earlier hailed the legislation, describing its passage as a “defining moment for Zionism and Israel.”ColonialAdalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel has decried the legislation as “colonial” and “features key elements of apartheid”.“The law guarantees the ethnic-religious character of Israel as exclusively Jewish and entrenches the privileges enjoyed by Jewish citizens, while simultaneously anchoring discrimination against Palestinian citizens and legitimizing exclusion, racism, and systemic inequality,” the NGO said in a statement.It said the law further violates absolute prohibitions under international law which “proclaims practices of apartheid, including legislation, as a crime against humanity”.Palestinian experts slam Israel’s ‘Jewish State’ law‘Extremist’ Israeli legislation draws storm of outrage“The new law constitutionally enshrines the identity of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people only despite the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of the state,” it added.New Israel Fund a U.S.-based non-profit organization, described the legislation as “tribalism as its worst.”"It is a slap in the face of Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel," it said in a statement."Legislation that identifies first- and second-class citizens has no place in a democracy and danger to Israel’s future,” it added.Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the head of Union of Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination around the world, said the law would do an “enormous damage” to Israel.The American Jewish Committee, a prominent Jewish advocacy groups in the United States, for its part, said it was disappointed by the law.“It puts at risk the commitment of Israel's founders to build a country that is both Jewish and democratic,” it said.
‘Jewish state’ law sparks outrage among Jews
"The Arab Republic of Egypt announces...its rejection of the law passed by the Israeli Knesset on the "national state for the Jewish people" law ... for its ramifications that consecrate the concept of occupation and racial segregation," the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement.
"It undermines the chances for achieving peace and reaching a just and comprehensive solution for the Palestinian issue," it said.
It said the law would also have a potential impact on the right of Palestinians displaced from their homes in 1948 when Israel was founded, and their descendants, to return to their homes under United Nations resolutions.
Four Palestinians were killed Friday by Israeli forces in two separate incidents near the Gaza-Israel buffer zone, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.The first incident took place in the Khan Younis and Rafah areas in the southern Gaza Strip, where Israeli tanks and aircraft targeted sites belonging to Ezzedine al-Qassam, the armed wing of Hamas movement, killing three of its members.“Three Palestinians were martyred by Israeli occupation forces, including two in the northern Gaza Strip and a third in the southern city of Rafah,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said in a statement.Israel’s Lieberman threatens ‘painful’ Gaza offensiveHe did not provide the names or ages of the slain individuals.However, the al-Qassam Brigades identified the killed men as Shaaban Abu Khater, 26, Mohamed Abu Farhana, 31, and Mahmoud Qeshta, 23.The second incident took place at the return marches, where a young man was killed and 120 others were wounded by Israeli army gunfire and tear gas.Palestinian experts slam Israel’s ‘Jewish State’ lawGaza’s incendiary kite-flyers defy Israeli threatsThe Palestinian Health Ministry identified the martyr as Mohamed Sherif Badwan, 27, who was shot in the chest by the Israeli army, east of Gaza city.For almost four months, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been holding almost daily demonstrations near the Gaza-Israel buffer zone.Since the demonstrations began on March 30, more than 140 Palestinian protesters have been martyred -- and thousands more injured -- by Israeli army gunfire.Protesters demand the “right of return” to their homes and villages in historical Palestine, from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.They also demand an end to Israel’s 11-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its roughly 2 million inhabitants of many basic commodities.
Four Palestinians in Gaza Strip killed by Israeli forces
Egypt in 1979 became the first Arab country to forge a peace treaty with Israel under the U.S.-sponsored Camp David accord that provided for the Jewish state to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula.
But relations between two countries remained lukewarm, with Egypt demanding that Israel quit other lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, including the Syrian Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem.
On Friday, Egypt's al-Azhar Mosque, the most prestigious Sunni Muslim institution, denounced the Israeli law calling it "a step that reflects repugnant racism".