In approving an effective ban on marriages between Israelis and Palestinians this week, Israel’s Supreme Court has shut tighter the gates of the Jewish fortress the state of Israel is rapidly becoming. The judges’ decision, in the words of the country’s normally restrained Haaretz daily, was “shameful”. By a wafer-thin majority, the highest court in the land ruled that an amendment passed in 2003 to the Nationality Law barring Palestinians from living with an Israeli spouse inside Israel — what in legal parlance is termed “family unification” — did not violate rights enshrined in the country’s Basic Laws. Read more about Israel’s marriage ban closes the gates to Palestinians 

Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) party, has twice called in less than a week for Arabs MKs to be put on trial for treason and executed if found guilty. Lieberman, who surprised observers by winning 11 seats in the March elections, was recently courted by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for a seat in his new cabinet. On 8 May, Lieberman presented a speech to the Knesset in which he proposed that any Arab politicians who were disloyal to the state should be punished. He added: “How is it that no Arab MK sings the national anthem or raises the flag on Independence Day?” Read more about Israeli party leader Avigdor Lieberman calls for Arab MKs to be executed  

In its latest poll, the Israel Democracy Institute found that 62 per cent of Israelis support the government encouraging the country’s more than one million Arab citizens to emigrate. The Democracy Index survey, published on 9 May, contrasts with another recent poll, by the Geocartography Institute, which found that 40 per cent of Israelis favoured the emigration of Arab citizens. Recent polls have shown that, while on average 40 per cent of Israelis want Arab citizens forced to leave the country, that figure rises close to 60 per cent when respondents are asked, more ambiguously, if they want the Arab population “encouraged” to emigrate. Read more about Poll shows 62% of Israelis favour emigration of Arab citizens  

Michael Neumann’s “The Case Against Israel” is “the most comprehensive and devastating critique of Israel in print,” writes EI reviewer Raymond Deane. Yet it will make uncomfortable reading not only for Israel’s apologists but also pro-Palestinian activists. Neumann argues that although “Israel is the illegitimate child of ethnic nationalism,” its existence is “protected by the same useful international conventions that allow others” to retain “their ill-gotten gains.” Seeing that Palestinians have no true options to resist save violence, Neumann nevertheless advocates “the most extensive international sanctions possible”, undeterred “by the horrors of the Jewish past.” Read more about Book Review: The Case Against Israel