Israel’s dilemma: Who can be an Israeli? – latimes.com

As the Canadian government prepares to introduce its revisions to the Citizenship Act, and in the wake of the Prime Minister’s trip to Israel, interesting commentary on the different classes of citizenship in Israel:

Some 60 years ago, the prescient Jewish thinker Simon Rawidowicz declared that it is not only Jews who dwell on the land by right, not sufferance, but also the Palestinian Arab population of Israel. That principle is one consistent with the vision of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which calls for equal rights for all of the country’s citizens and is the bedrock of Israel’s claim to democracy.

 

It’s time to apply that standard uniformly. Simply put, citizenship should not be divided into classes. Israel must begin to construct a meaningful sense of Israeli identity and confer an equal stake in the well-being of the society on all those entitled to call themselves citizens. Rights of residence and freedom in personal status issues should be the same for all citizens, whether they are Jewish according to religious law, Jewish only by citizenship or non-Jewish.

Israel’s dilemma: Who can be an Israeli? – latimes.com.