Israel president rejects Netanyahu comments about Arab citizens

UK Guardian ^ | March 11, 2019 | Oliver Holmes

[C19fan]

Israel’s president has hit back at Benjamin Netanyahu after the prime minister said in reference to the country’s Arab minority that Israel was “not a state for all its citizens”.

Less than a month before the 9 April election in which the prime minister hopes to win with the support of far-right politicians and voters, Netanyahu wrote on Instagram that: “Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it.”

While not mentioning the prime minister – a long-time political foe – by name, Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, criticised what he said were recent “entirely unacceptable remarks about the Arab citizens of Israel”.

[C19fan]

The darker side of Bibi comes out again. 20% of Israel's population are non-Jewish the majority being Arab Muslims but there are significant populations of Arab Christians and Druze.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Israel is the “Jewish state”. They let some arabs live there. They aren’t looking to become diverse. Bibi Netanyahu is absolutely correct.

[Jim Noble]

the prime minister said in reference to the country’s Arab minority that Israel was “not a state for all its citizens”.

What's wrong with stating the obvious truth?

Israel is the Jewish State. It's not the Christian State, it's not the Muslim State.

It's not for Arabs unless they are also Jews, which must be quite a small group.

[sockmonkey]

And to make sure, everyone “got the message”, Netanyahu said it in three languages. Sounds like the only democracy in the ME to me.