Proposed legislation in Israel to give legal status to its identity as the Jewish state has been roundly condemned as racist, undemocratic, and reactionary. Such criticisms are entirely unfounded, writes Eugene Kontorovich. In fact, many European constitutions include exactly such statements:
[The proposed] law is far from unusual by Western standards: it actually does far less to recognize Jewish nationhood or religion than provisions common in other democratic constitutions. . . . [Such] nation-state bills mostly constitutionalize the national anthem, symbols, holidays, and so forth. There is nothing racist, or even unusual, about having national or religious character reflected in constitutional commitments . . . Seven EU states have constitutional “nationhood” provisions, which typically speak of the state as being the national home and locus of self-determination for the country’s majority ethnic group. This is even the case in places like the Baltics, with large and alienated minority populations.
Read more on Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/12/09/the-legitimacy-of-israels-nation-state-bill-i-comparative-constitutionalism/