To the editor:
As an Israeli Jew as well as an American, I think it was foolish for the Knesset to adopt the new Nation-State Basic Law, but I have found almost all the criticism published in The New York Times to be misguided, misleading and often factually wrong.
The new legislation actually makes no tangible changes, as even Sayed Kashua implicitly acknowledges in his misguided op-ed, "Israel's Unequal Citizens," when he says he answered a question from his daughter with the words, "Yes. Bottom line, it's always been that way."
There's nothing in Israel's new legislation that isn't in the laws of dozens of other states, including fellow democracies, without any of them receiving the criticism Israel is getting. (Of course, as the Jew among nations, Israel is used to being subjected to double standards.) As far as "unequal citizens," Israel's Declaration of Independence and existing Basic Laws already provide for equal rights for all citizens. That hasn't changed and isn't going to change.
Kashua misled his own son when he told him he couldn't be Jewish because he didn't have a Jewish mother. Although there's nothing I could do to become Arab, Kashua's whole family could become Jewish simply by converting. I suspect he wouldn't be all that happy if he did so, however, since there is a way in which Arabs and Jews are treated differently in Israel: Arabs don't have the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate using the authority of the government to interfere in their personal, religious affairs.
Sincerely,
Alan Stein