By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler
"JERUSALEM, May 29 (IPS) - Israel is set to approve a radical new bill which threatens to legalise discrimination against its sizeable Arab minority for the first time.
The bill, approved this week by the ministerial committee for legislation, would make it illegal to relate to the creation of the State of Israel on May 15, 1948 as a day of mourning, thereby banning Arab Israeli citizens from marking what Palestinians call the Nakba - their "Great Catastrophe".....
This proposed new law is seen as the first translation of that slogan into a tangible loyalty test which would demand of Arab citizens that they swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish, Zionist and democratic" state if they want to be accepted as citizens.
It is also viewed as the first tangible translation of a populist mood that is inclined to disallow freedom of expression for Arab Israelis and liberal Jews who line up with them......"
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