Indonesia has denounced Israel’s declaration last week of the country as a Jewish nation state warning it would threaten the possibility of finding a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
“The enactment of this law (the nation-state law) has dismissed the rights of Palestinians in Israel” foreign minister Retno Marsudi told reporters in Jakarta on Monday.
Retno also voiced concern that the law would make a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible.
The Knesset adopted a racist law on Thursday that defines Israel as a nation state for the Jewish people. The law makes Hebrew the country’s national language and gives Jews the right to national self-determination.
The law downgrades Arabic as an official language to one with “special status” further stoking fears that it will be used to discriminate against Israeli Arabs.
The law also includes clauses stating that a “united Jerusalem” is the capital of Israel” and that “the state sees the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.”
