[Iran Press TV] Israel is pushing for a bill, which, if passed, will downgrade Arabic from its current status as an official language in the occupied Paleostinian territories to a non-official language.
The provocative bill was approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday and now waits to pass a number of rounds of legislation in the Israeli parliament, Knesset, for further readings before becoming law.
Both Arabic and Hebrew are now the official languages of Israel, but according to the new bill, "the national language [of Israel] is Hebrew." The bill further states that "the right to realize self-determination" within Israel "is unique to the Jewish people" and the occupied territories are their "national home."
The bill was initially proposed in 2011 by a member of the hard-line Likud Party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It came up for ministerial consideration in 2015. The bill, however, failed to pass through the ministerial committee at the time.
If the proposed law, which substantially harms the rights of minorities, is ultimately passed by the Knesset, it will turn into a fundamental law and will become an essential ingredient of Israel's central body of legislation. It will also encode the structure of the occupying regime.
| This has been proposed in the past, but thus far has never passed. |
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