Israel has passed a controversial new ânation-state lawâ thatâs sparking both celebration and fierce debate over the very nature of Israel itself. The law does three big things:
1. It states that âthe right to exercise national self-determinationâ in Israel is âunique to the Jewish people.â
2. It establishes Hebrew as Israelâs official language, and downgrades Arabic â a language widely spoken by Arab Israelis â to a âspecial status.â
3. It establishes Jewish settlement as a "national valueâ and mandates that the state âwill labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.â
To the 20% of the Israeli population who are Palestinian, it further solidifies that Israel is truly an apartheid state.
Today we feature a Palestinian pushback. Jafar Farah, director of the Massawa Center, which monitors and promotes Arabic rights in Israel, and clinical psychologist Nabila Espanioly, a feminist activist, who founded the Al-Tafula Womenâs Center in Nazareth, addressed the new apartheid law at the Harvard law school. We were there to record it. Here is their response to a law that negates the very existence of the Palestinian people.
This Week In Palestine (a weekly 8am feature of Truth and Justice Radio (TJR)) is an award-winning 45-minute (or more) segment of news from Palestine and discussion of issues relevant to the Palestinians' struggle for freedom from Israel's brutal military occupation and colonization of their homeland. It speaks from the point of view of Palestinians and those who care about them. TJR is aired Sundays 6-10am ET on WZBC 90.3FM, Newton, MA, also streamed live and archived for two weeks at wzbc.org; TJR's modest website, truthandjusticeradio.org, has a link to This Week In Palestine archives back thru 1-6-2008; editions are also accessible at radio4all.net. TJR sometimes airs Palestine coverage IN ADDITION to that provided by This Week In Palestine. We hope you'll write to us at tjradio@fastmail.com if you rebroadcast our work, or have questions or comments.
This Week In Palestine 10-21-2018
Jafar Farah and Nabila Espanioly comment on Israel's outrageous new "nation-state" law