Introduction to Adalah Petition to Israel's High Court of Justice

Abstract

Introduction to Adalah Petition to Israel's High Court of Justice Ilan Troen and Natan Aridan In order to ensure a useful and appropriate range of views regarding the "Basic Law: Israel—The Nation-State of the Jewish People," we sought to present the perspective of an important segment of the Arab population in Israel that objected to this legislation through an appeal to Israel's Supreme Court (High Court of Justice). However, we were unable to obtain an essay in parallel to those submitted in this special section by individual scholars. Nevertheless, on the advice of the leadership of Adalah—The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, we were directed to a legal petition they submitted to the Supreme Court to nullify the law in which they played a major role in composing. While the Court ultimately denied their appeal, this document stands as an articulate and deeply informed position fundamentally critical of the legislation. The brief is replete with legal reasoning based on precedents in Israeli courts as well as those of other countries as well as legal scholarship within and beyond Israel. That made for a document which is more than ten times as extensive as the abbreviated version found here. We commend to readers who wish to invest themselves in a more comprehensive examination of the opposition to this Basic Law to read the brief itself. Adalah has provided an English translation that is found on its website: https://www.adalah.org/uploads/uploads/Jewish_Nation_State_Law_Petition_English_Final_October_2018.pdf Adalah has also provided a brief summary that can be found through its website: https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9569 We have removed in our abbreviated version the legal scholarly apparatus, largely in the form of extensive footNotes. We have selected key passages that we trust convey the gist of the argument against the legislation. We apologize for the shortcomings in the selections. Caught between the limitation of space available in the journal and the need to present as best we can a diversity of views, we nevertheless hope to have provided a needed service to our readers. [End Page 228] Copyright © 2020 Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism