Saturday, August 4, 2018

Unconditional loyalty to the country - Ata Farhat


by Ata Farhat

I call on my Druze brethren and the leaders of the Druze protest not to take us down a slippery slope and leave us in the abyss.

Even before the framework agreement Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck with the Druze, I was in favor of the nation-state law, because loyalty to the country shouldn't be conditional on anything. Loyalty to the country must come from the heart, 100%.

Someone whose soul isn't loyal can't belong to the state.

Israel is democratic only because it is a Jewish state. If it isn't Jewish, it simply won't exist. The nation-state law is one of 14 Basic Laws that define Israel's identity – what and who the country is, what its flag looks like, what its national anthem is, what its capital is. The law does not focus on human rights or individual rights or the rights of ethnic groups. These are all spelled out in the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.

The Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People does not contradict the other basic laws; it complements them by discussing the aspect of identity in the existing basic laws.

Only the Jewish people have national rights in the Land of Israel. All other peoples can enjoy full civil rights such as self-determination. The nation-state law seeks to block the Arabs' nationalist aspirations and their demands in the Land of Israel.

I call on my Druze brethren and the leaders of the Druze protest not to take us down a slippery slope and leave us in the abyss. Between us and the Jewish people, there is a long-standing alliance, and we want this alliance to continue to exist. I say that the leaders of the anti-nation-state law protests will be responsible for everything that befalls the Druze. Because we, unfortunately, are losing the support of the Jewish public as a result of the protests.

We must not do what some of the Druze protesters are doing by echoing the lying Palestinian narrative. We must stick to historical facts.



Ata Farhat is Chairman of the Druze Zionist Council for Israel.

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/unconditional-loyalty-to-the-country/

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