Democracy: Israel passes new Nakba Law to punish public institutions for any reference to the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948 as a catastrophe or 'Nakba'
Israel's parliament passed a measure on Tuesday enabling the denial of state funding to institutions that question the country's existence as a Jewish state, in a move criticised as targetting an Arab minority. The so-called Nakba Law, using the Arabic word for "catastrophe" which is how many Palestinians regard the founding of Israel, passed by a vote of 37 to 25 after an angry debate among right and left-wing lawmakers. Civil rights groups have denounced the measure as an effort to restrict freedom of expression to Arabs, who make up about a fifth of Israel's predominantly Jewish population.
The law would enable the withholding of funds to public institutions deemed to be involved in publicly challenging the founding of Israel as a Jewish state or any activity "denying the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state." Many Israeli Arabs, as relatives of Palestinians who remained in what is now Israel when hundreds of thousands of others were driven away or fled during a 1948 war over Israel's establishment, question whether Israel should be a Jewish state.
PalestineRemembered.com
1948 LEST WE FORGET – Palestine and the Nakba
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