Los Angeles Times · July 2018

CP-2018-054

Separate and unequal in Israel

A new law formalizes the rights of Jewish citizens over Palestinians

By Yousef Jabareen

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Transcribed from the clipping

On Thursday, the Israeli parliament passed into law a bill that formalizes the supremacy of Jewish citizens over Palestinian citizens of Israel. As a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a member of the Knesset, I voted against it.

The law, which has the status of a constitutional Basic Law, declares that the right to exercise national self-determination in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people.” It establishes Jewish settlement as a national value and mandates that the state “will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.”

And it downgrades Arabic from an official language to one with “special status.” Palestinian citizens of Israel make up about 20 percent of the population. We are the indigenous people of this land, the remnant of those who were not expelled or did not flee in 1948.

How this transcription was made

Published at reduced precision. The slide label gave 2018-07-20; the page does not support a day, so the record carries only what can be shown. Adjudicated against the printed page: Running masthead band across the head of the page: 'LATIMES.COM/OPINION' set in small caps at the left, and 'Los Angeles Times' in the paper's blackletter nameplate at the centre, above a heavy rule; below the rule, a grey section band reading 'OP-ED'. Unambig Paper corrected with certainty: this is the Los Angeles Times op-ed page, not the Palm Beach Post. DATE NOT RESOLVED — the masthead band carries no date on this crop and there is none elsewhere on the page. The first sentence, 'The Israeli Knesset on Thursday passed into law a bill designed to make a permanent undercla Filed under the archive’s spelling; the page prints “Palm Beach Post”.

Context added by this archive

2018 GROUP, and the strongest item in the batch. Headline phrase for the law: 'A new law' in the deck; the headline itself is 'Separate and unequal in Israel' - no mention of 'nation-state'. Neither 'nation-state law' nor 'Jewish nation-state' appears in the headline or the deck.

WHO LOSES, IN THE HEADLINE FURNITURE: this is the ONLY item in the 2018 group whose deck names the losers - 'the rights of Jewish citizens over Palestinians'. TERM USED: 'Palestinian citizens of Israel', repeatedly, by a man who is one.

ARABIC DEMOTION: yes, in the author's own voice, in the same sentence structure the NYT story uses - 'it downgrades Arabic from an official language to one with “special status.”' The piece also names the 1948 expulsion, which no other item in the 2018 group does.

Cite this clipping

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