Novelists, poets, playwrights, screenwriters and others urge the prime minister and members of Knesset to cancel the controversial Nationality Law and amend the Surrogacy Law, which ‘are part of a long list of actions by the various Israeli governments that have unjustly penalized the most excluded and disadvantaged sectors in both Jewish and Israeli society.’
“According to a law recently passed by the Knesset and entitled ‘Israel: The Nation State of the Jewish People,’ Israel is now defined as a nation-state for Jews only. This is a Basic Law, with quasi-constitutional status, that explicitly allows racial and religious discrimination, rescinds the status of Arabic as an official language alongside Hebrew, does not mention democracy as the basis of the regime, and does not mention equality as a core value.
Among the signatories on the public statement, which was translated into English and Arabic as well, are: authors Amos Oz, David Grossman, A. B. Yehoshua, Savyon Liebrecht, Eshkol Nevo, Orly Castel-Bloom, Judith Katzir, Etgar Keret, Alon Hilu, Smadar Shir, Zeruya Shalev, Noa Yedlin, Yael Dayan and Prof. Ariel Hirschfeld; poets Agi Mishol, Ronny Someck, Eliaz Cohen, Shimon Buzaglo and Navit Barel; screenwriters Edna Mazia, Hillel Mittelpunkt and Shemi Zarhin; actress Hana Azoulay-Hasfari; and translator Halit Yeshurun, among others.
“We—writers, screenwriters, playwrights, academic scholars and members of Israel’s arts and letters community—would like to express to you our utmost shock and dismay, in light of the recent laws passed by the Israeli Knesset under your leadership,” they wrote in a letter to the prime minister.
