The Counter-Revolutionary Nation-State Law

Anyone who reads Israel's Basic Law: Israel-Nation-State of the Jewish People, 5778-2018 with sufficient background knowledge of Israeli law will have a difficult time understanding what all the fuss is about. The hyperbolic criticisms-that the law establishes an ethnocracy, demotes the status of Arab citizens or the Arabic language, sends exclusionary messages or demotes equality or democracy in Israeli law-cannot be squared with a law that consists of symbolic and declarative statements that are not legally enforceable and have long been in the Israeli consensus. The real story of the Law is the institutional struggle between Knesset and judiciary over Israel's constitution. It is unsubstantial by design so as to highlight the Supreme Court's contradictory claims of exclusive control over constitutional principles versus the supremacy of Basic Laws.