The nation-state bill that the Knesset has been debating for the past week became law this week. Since its inception, it's left a non-stop controversy in its wake.
From the noxious clause that would have enshrined state-sanctioned discrimination in one of Israel's Basic Laws – thankfully dropped after a wave of protest both in Israel and abroad – to the language whose most straightforward reading negates any role for Diaspora Jews in Israel, the effort to definitively enshrine Israel's status as the nation-state of the Jewish people has been anything but smooth.
For some, any nod toward nationalism is always going to be objectionable, and no nation-state bill would ever pass muster or be an acceptable Knesset legislative outcome. But there is no reason why a Jewish nation-state bill has to be problematic on its face; the problem is not with the idea, but with the execution. In this instance, the nation-state bill doesn't sit well because it needs to be based on a vision of ethical nationalism, but is instead based on an exclusive vision of nationalism that strikes a jarringly discordant note.
Any form of ethical nationalism propagated by a nation-state – in other words, a nationalism that effectively expresses a collective group identity without being exclusionary in practice to those who do not identify with the group – should meet a few standards.
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