Dr. Aviad Bakshi and Prof. Gideon Sapir collaborated on an article titled “Israel as a Nation-State in Supreme Court Rulings”, appearing as a chapter in: “The Israeli Nation-State: Political, constitutional and cultural challenges”, Edited by Fania Oz- Saltzberger\u00a0and Yedidia Z. Stern (2014).\u00a0The article portrays the gradual erosion of the Nation-state concept in Israeli Supreme Court rulings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Excerpt:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The State of Israel is a Jewish nation-state. This was determined by the\u00a0United Nations Partition Plan as well as by the Declaration of independence\u00a0and by two Basic Laws dealing with human rights. The national\u00a0identification of Israel is also anchored in a great deal of legislation as well\u00a0as in common practices in many fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this chapter, we shall describe the attitude of the Supreme Court over the past twenty years toward various components of national identity rooted in Israeli law. We examine rulings on the right of return; review rulings on political participation; examine the findings of the court over the question of the status of the Hebrew language, and deal with its attitude toward allotting land for Jewish settlement and its approach to the provision of economic incentives for such settlement; describe rulings concerning the institutions of the Jewish people; and, finally, examine decisions regarding the naturalization of non-Jews. From the review, a judicial approach is depicted that erodes many of the components of national identity that were customary in Israel before the intervention of the court. The purpose of this chapter is positivist and not normative, we shall thus provide a description of the court\u2019s activity on this issue without evaluating it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n