Discriminatory Laws

Israeli governments regularly enact legislation which excludes, ignores, and discriminates against the Palestinian Arab minority. Since the establishment of the state, Israel has relied upon these laws to ground their discriminatory treatment of Arab citizens and allow the unequal status and unequal treatment of Jewish and Arab citizens to persist.

In February 2009, elections for the 18th Knesset brought to power of the most right‐wing government coalitions in the history of Israel.The current government is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, of the Likud party, with strong support from Avigdor Lieberman, of the Yisrael Beitenu party. Members of Knesset (MKs) immediately introduced a flood of discriminatory legislation.

These new laws and bills, which continue to surface on a near weekly basis, seek, inter alia, to dispossess and exclude Arab citizens from the land; turn their citizenship from a right into a conditional privilege; undermine the ability of Arab citizens of Israel and their parliamentary representatives to participate in the political life of the country; criminalize political expression or acts that question the Jewish or Zionist nature of the state; and privilege Jewish citizens in the allocation of state resources. It is particularly disturbing that some of the legislation appears to be specifically designed to preempt, circumvent or overturn Supreme Court decisions providing protection for these rights. Adalah closely monitors new legislation and regularly updates the following lists.

Click here for the most recent collection of Discriminatory Laws.

This paper lists 30 main new laws and currently-tabled bills that discriminate against the Palestinian minority in Israel and threaten their rights as citizens of the state, and in some cases harm the rights of Palestinian residents of the OPT. It also documents a series of bills that have been introduced to drastically restrict the foreign governmental funding and activities of human rights organizations; Arab human rights organizations in Israel would be particularly affected bythis legislation.

Last update: October 2012

Older versions: