July 19, 2018
Israel passes a law establishing the country as the “historic land of the Jewish people with a ‘united’ Jerusalem” as its capital and declares that Jewish people “have an exclusive right to national self-determination.” Those who oppose the law cite the omission of equality or minority rights as especially troubling and also potentially dividing as Arabic is downgraded from an official language to one of “special status.” Passage of this law brands Israel as one of the only Western-style democracies without a constitution securing the rights of its citizens.