Druze minister threatened over Nation-State Law vote
the rights of the Druze were already guaranteed by other Basic Laws.
By GIL HOFFMANUpdated: JULY 24, 2018 03:06Communications Minister Ayoub Kara(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Communications Minister Ayoub Kara (Likud) will receive extra security protection after he received many threats due to his vote in favor of the Jewish Nation-State Law on Thursday.Kara, who is Druze, said he received the threat from Arabs and leftist Jews but mostly from his own Druze community. He and his family were also forced to leave an event in a Druze village over the weekend after they were threatened.But Kara said he was unfazed by the threats and did not for a moment regret his vote.“I am still proud and happy the bill passed,” Kara told Israel Radio. “But I am unhappy that there is disinformation and an atmosphere in which black is made white and white, black.”Kara said the rights of the Druze were already guaranteed by other Basic Laws.“Our democracy [includes] those who don’t know how to accept other views,” Kara said. “Nothing will deter me. I am a man of ideology and values. They are writing to me that I will be erased and that the bill wouldn’t have passed without me. Even if they take off my head, I will continue to support the bill.”He said the Druze and Arabs who threatened him were incited by Leftist Jews. He said that those Jews misled them to mistakenly believe the bill would harm them.“The truth is the bill guarantees we won’t be like Syria,” he said.Kulanu MK Akram Hasson and other top Druze officials filed a petition on Sunday asking the High Court of Justice to strike down all or part of the Jewish Nation-State Law as unconstitutional.Hasson said the law transforms the country’s Druze population and other minorities, including Arabs, into second-class citizens.
The petition called the law “a terrible blow to the Druze sector, a terrible blow to democracy and a terrible blow to Zionism. The Jewish Nation-State Law disproportionately and unreasonably harms [all minorities, turning them] into exiled people in their own homeland.”Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.
