Israel has passed into law a highly controversial bill that serves to define the nature of the state of Israel, with critics slamming it as the "nail in the coffin" of Israeli democracy.

The nation-state bill passed in its second and third readings following an hours-long debate in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. The law establishes Israel as the historic home of the Jewish people with a “united” Jerusalem as its capital.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had advocated for the nation-state bill, hailed its passage and called it a “defining moment” in Israel’s history.

“We engraved in the stone of law our language, our anthem, and our flag. We have enshrined the fact that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said.

The law fails to mention either equality or minority rights – both of which were integral parts of Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948, which explicitly states that Israel “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.”

The omission has baffled many, including Amir Fuchs, who heads the Defending Democratic Values program at the Israel Democracy Institute.

“There is no country in the world that has not specifically enumerated the right of equality in its constitution – therefore, it is difficult to understand why the authors of this bill insist not to include this important value,” said Fuchs.

“The right to equality is embedded in the values mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, which has been the definitive document framing the character of the State of Israel for the past 70 years.”

Israel is one of the only Western-style democracies in the world that does not have a constitution anchoring the rights of its citizens. Instead, Israel has Basic Laws, which serve as guiding principles for the state and the legal system. These laws, passed with an absolute majority of the 120 members of Knesset, are difficult to change or overturn.

The law also downgrades the status of Arabic, until now an official language of the State of Israel along with Hebrew. The law sets Arabic as a language with “special status.” Arabs make up approximately 20 percent of Israel’s population and about 36 percent of the population of Jerusalem.

Though the law is fraught with controversy and highly symbolic, much of it has little practical impact. For example, section 2 establishes the name of the country as Israel and describes its flag in detail, while section 8 sets the Jewish calendar as the official state calendar.

In an attempt to delay the bill’s final passage, opposition parties introduced a number of amendments – all of which were struck down – to extend debate about the nation-state bill.

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