Loyal Lifestyle

Yesterday, the government decided to promote a bill in the Knesset that would create the so-called Loyalty Law. This law would demand of non-Jews who wish to take Israeli citizenship to swear an oath of loyalty to the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

The decision had hardly been made before various pundits and intellectuals started to throw the good old F word around. There was, however, no lack of less hysterical critics. Several cabinet ministers voted against, including all Labor ministers.

One can’t help to ask how Avigdor Lieberman, who’s been clamoring for a Loyalty Law for ages, thought that the law would work in reality. Maybe he wants the Ministry of the Interior to draw up a list of non-Jewish citizens, and if – sometime in the future – the Jewish majority in the country is threatened, they will be asked to convert to safeguard “the Jewish character of the state.”

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