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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Ministers were to vote Sunday on a controversial proposal to anchor in law Israel's status as the national homeland of the Jewish people, at the expense of its democratic character.

The proposal would mean Israel would no longer be defined in its Basic Laws as "Jewish and democratic" but instead as "the national homeland of the Jewish people."

Critics, who include the government's top legal adviser, say the proposed change to the laws that act as Israel's effective constitution could institutionalize discrimination against its 1.7 million Arab citizens.

By giving preeminence to the "Jewish" character of Israel over its democratic nature, the law in its current format is "anti-democratic," they say.

Two versions of the proposed law, drafted by far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, are to be put to the vote during the cabinet meeting ahead of a preliminary vote in parliament on Wednesday.

The proposal has provoked uproar among MPs and ministers from the center and the left, who fear the text only institutionalizes discrimination.

Israel's Arab minority, who make up around 20 percent of the population, are descendants of the Palestinians who remained on their land after the establishment of Israel in 1948.

If the proposal becomes law, it would mean "the institutionalization of racism, which is already a reality on the street, in both law and at the heart of the political system," warned Majd Kayyal of Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

"Democracy guarantees that all citizens have the same rights and are equal before the state but this racist change introduces a distinction on the basis of religion," he said.

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, the government's legal adviser, has also criticized the proposal, saying it weakens the state's democratic character.

Last week, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni managed to postpone an earlier attempt to put the proposal to the vote.

The two versions of the bill which were to be put to ministers on Sunday represent a nod from Netanyahu to the most hardline elements of his party as talk grows of an early election.

But the final version of the text is likely to be more moderate, predicted Denis Charbit, a political scientist at Israel's Open University.

"This is a political charade. Netanyahu knows that voting on an unacceptable bill which has been criticized by the government's legal adviser is extremely problematic," he told AFP.

"The text proposed by Netanyahu is more moderate but it is still problematic because he disassociates the Jewish character from the democratic character of the state and this institutionalizes a hierarchy between them, to the detriment of democracy."

*AFP