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‘Jewish nation state’ law: the last nail in the coffin for the ‘democratic Israel’ myth
Protesters carry a banner showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a demonstration against the Israel Jewish nation bill in Tel Aviv on Monday

THE passage of the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has been widely condemned as undermining any claim on Israel’s part to be a liberal democracy.

Aymen Odeh, the head of the Arab Joint List group of parties in the Knesset, described it starkly as representing “the death of our democracy.”

The reality is that Israel has never truly been a liberal democracy that treats all its citizens as equal regardless of race or ethnicity.

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