Sixty six years ago, David Ben Gurion declared Israel the independent state of the Jewish nation. Now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to enshrine that identity in law.

In the latest round of peace talks with the Palestinians, one of the so-called “sticking points” became Netanyahu’s insistence that the other side recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

“The core of this conflict has never been borders and settlements — it’s about one thing: the persistent refusal to accept the Jewish state in any border,” the prime minister said in December in a video statement to the Saban Forum in Washington.

He added: “We recognize that in peace there will be a nation-state for the Palestinian people. Surely we’re entitled to expect them to do the same.”

On Thursday, Netanyahu put his money where his mouth is, throwing his support behind a new Basic Law defining Israel as “the national home of the Jewish People, where they realize their aspiration for self-determination according to their cultural and historical legacy.”

Israel’s Basic Laws are the closest thing the state has to a constitution.  According to the current proposal, “the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People.”

Although several versions of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People have been pitched over the years, Netanyahu has opted to favor the current version as written by coalition chairman Yariv Levin (Likud Beytenu) and Bayit Yehudi faction chairwoman Ayelet Shaked, which defines the Land of Israel as “the historic homeland of the Jewish People and the place where the State of Israel is founded,” giving legal status to the historic Land of Israel.

The new law calls Israel a democratic state “based on the foundations of liberty, justice and peace according to the visions of the prophets of Israel, and committed to the personal rights of all its citizens as detailed in every Basic Law.”

The bill addresses the flag, anthem and symbol of Israel, but does not touch on the status of Arabic as an official language, something earlier drafts had done.  It reinforces the Right of Return, legislation that entitles all Jews to citizenship of Israel.

Its wording may also impact the status of the Temple Mount, today strictly controlled by the Islamic Waqf, since it says, “holy sites will be protected from desecration and from anything preventing free access for all religions who consider the sites holy.”  Currently, non-Muslim access to the Mount is restricted, as is any form of non-Muslim worship there.

While enshrining the right of Jews to self-determination in their land, critics claim the language of the bill undermines the democratic status of the state.  In fact, when Levin and Shaked first put forth their draft in 2013, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni opposed it for that very reason.  Although in favour of defining Israel more clearly in law as “the national home of the Jewish people and a democratic state”, she expressed opposition to “any law that gives superiority” to the Jewish nature of state over the country’s democratic values.

She said she could only support legislation where “Jewish and democratic would have the same weight, not more Jewish than democratic, nor more democratic than Jewish.”  At the time, she asked law professor Ruth Gavison to prepare an alternative proposal, but thus far, Gavison has not completed the task.

Netanyahu and his supporters insist that the rights of individuals living in the State of Israel will not be affected by the Basic Law.  According to the PM, Israel will always “ensure full equality in the personal and social rights of all its citizens – Jews and non-Jews alike – in a Jewish and democratic state.”

But speaking in the very hall where Israel’s character and independence were declared just over six decades ago today, he said, “The Declaration of Independence sets, as the cornerstone in the life of the state, the national Jewish identity of the State of Israel.

“To my great regret, as we have seen recently, there are those who do not recognize this natural right. They seek to undermine the historic, moral and legal justification for the existence of the State of Israel as the national state of our people.

“One of my main missions as Prime Minister of Israel is to bolster the status of the State of Israel as the national state of our people.”