The new law is a departure from the territorial principle and is likely to erode Israel’s legitimacy as a nation state

Highlights

Regional implications

• The impact on Israel’s domestic situation is likely to be very severe as well. The law automatically excludes Israeli Arabs from the sphere of full citizenship.
• While this may have been the case in practice from 1948, this law makes discrimination against more than a fifth of the Israeli population legal.
• The Jewish homeland law can have major regional implications too. It is likely to make the prospect for peace with the Palestinians more remote.
•  It will put states like Saudi Arabia that are interested in normalising relations with Israel in a very uncomfortable position and will strengthen hard-line Iranian leaders who argue that Israel is an alien construct in West Asia and has no right to exist in the region.

Creating a “caliphate” by passing a law may appear easy. Sustaining it against multiple hazards is a much more difficult task.

Source : The Hindu