Palestinian NGOs inside Israel reject new sectarian law

A large number of Palestinian NGOs inside Israel have issued a joint statement rejecting a new law passed by the Knesset earlier this week that, for the first time, gives separate representation to Muslim and Christian Palestinian citizens on a public advisory board of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The NGOs describe the legislation as “a dangerous attempt by the state to distort the Arab identity of Palestinians in Israel.”

We vehemently reject all attempts by the Israeli government to fragment and segregate the Arab Palestinian society along sectarian lines of Christians and Muslims. We assert that we were and will continue to be one people united – albeit with different religions and ideological affiliations – and an integral part of the Arab Palestinian people. We have the right to define our national identity, which is based on our Arab culture, language, common history, and on the unity of our destiny and our future as a single original group that remains in its homeland.

Signatories to the declaration include Adalah, Mossawa, Sidreh, the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Naqab, and many others.

The bill’s sponsor, Likud MK Yariv Levin, has previously remarked: “[the Christians are] our natural allies, a counterweight to the Muslims who want to destroy the country from within.”