The Times and The Telegraph report on the nation-state law passed by Israeli MPs. Despite widespread backlash against the bill, right-wing Israeli politicians have promoted the law as “guaranteeing the foundational principle of Israel as a home for the Jewish people”. The Times reports that critics say it effectively makes Israeli Arabs, who make up a fifth of the population, second-class citizens. The bill also downgrades Arabic from an official language to “special status”. The Telegraph reports that the Nation-State bill will become one of Israel’s Basic Laws, legislation that essentially forms the country’s constitution. Prime Minister Netanyahu praised the law’s passage as a “pivotal moment in the annals of Zionism and the State of Israel”. The Telegraph comments that supporters of the Bill have compared it to Slovenia’s constitution, which declares the country to be “a state of all its citizens” but is founded on “the permanent right” of the Slovene majority “to self-determination”.

The BBC, Sky News and the Guardian also report on the Nation-State law. The BBC says the law was created to anchor the Jewishness of Israel in law for fears over the high birth-rate of Israeli Arabs, as well as possible alternatives to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which could challenge Israel’s Jewish majority. Sky News reports that for Arab Israelis, the law simply confirms what they have always claimed – that in Israel they are second class citizens; the only difference now is the inferior status. However, the story also mentions that many Jewish Israelis are also angry claiming that the law is pushing Israel towards an extreme ethnic nationalism and away from the ideal of universal human values. The Guardian story provides an account from Suhad Banna, an English teacher who is also from Nazareth but lives in Tel Aviv, stating that the legislation made her feel like a “class B citizen”.

The Independent reports on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to Israel. Mr Orbán, who landed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday evening, met Israeli president Reuven Rivlin and one of Israel’s chief rabbis, and later took a tour of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. The newspaper says that Netanyahu thanked Mr Orbán for “defending Israel” and speaking of the “need to combat antisemitism”. However, opposition leader MP Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, labelled Mr Orbán’s visit a “disgrace”, commenting that Orbán “praised the antisemitic ruler [Horthy] who collaborated with the Nazis in the extermination of Hungarian Jewry”.

Business Insider reports on a Supreme Court hearing in Israel that erupted into a brawl between Israeli and Palestinian families following an appeal over whether the State should have the ability to hold the bodies of deceased Palestinians as “bargaining chips”. The report says that Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in December that Israel could no longer hold the bodies of assailants without legislation due to “the basic right for human dignity”. However, the government requested an additional hearing to challenge the ruling. Attending the hearing was Israeli NGO Im Tirtzu, an organisation accused of having fascist characteristics.

The Daily Mail reports on the life sentencing of two Palestinian men for murdering their Jewish employer in the Arab Israeli city of Kafr Qasem on October 4, 2017. The two men, Yousef Kamil and Mohammed Abu Elrob, were found guilty of stabbing to death 70 year old Reuven Schmerling at their workplace. The story notes that judges from Lod district court sentenced the pair to life in prison, and ordered each to pay Schmerling’s widow 258,000 shekels (US$70,719 or 60,906 euros). According to prosecutors, the two men were seeking revenge over the death of a friend in 2015, who was shot dead while attempting an attack.

Yediot Ahronot leads with a range of opinions on the Nation-State Law passed in the Knesset this week. In a n opinion piece, Nahum Barnea connects the law to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is visiting Israel this week.  He describes Israel “undergoing a rapid process of Orbanisation”. He adds: “Under Orban’s leadership, Hungary was liberated from the bonds of democracy. She is nationalist, racist, proud of her fascist past and infected with antisemitism. There is no free press, no free academy. In short, it is all that we are going through during this term, which is the wish of the majority in the Knesset. ‘Long live the alliance between Hungary and Israel,’ Knesset members could sing at the end of the vote. There is no difference between us.” For Barnea: “Two minority parties, the Jewish Home and United Torah Judaism, are pushing the current coalition away from the mainstream. Their advantage over the majority is that they know what they want. They’re hungry. They have a vision. Netanyahu is dragged after them, one day wants a crisis and elections, the next day abandons everything for a few more months in power.”  However, another commentator in Yediot Ahronot, Shlomo Pyuterkovsky calls the law “a formative moment in the State of Israel’s history”. He goes on to say:  “In the 70^th year of the state, we finally enacted what should be the first chapter of the future constitution that we will have one day. This chapter grounds the identity of the Jewish state that was founded after 2,000 years of exile, and if that sounds a bit too full of pathos to you, it is because this is indeed a very important moment.”  He adds: “When the State of Israel was founded, the goal of its founding was very clear: To fulfil the Jewish people’s national aspirations. As a democratic state, it is clear that individual rights are granted in it equally to all citizens, but when it comes to collective rights, it is clear that these are granted only to the Jewish people, as it is their one and only land.”  Maariv reports that MKs from the Joint List and Adalah’s legal department are weighing the option of petitioning the High Court of Justice against the law. MK Yousef Jabareen said: “As a jurist, I cannot see how the section for encouraging Jewish community could pass the judicial review of the High Court of Justice.” In the commentary in Maariv, Ben Caspit calls the new law, ”nonsense, substance-wise, there’s nothing to it. It is not about to change or affect our lives in any way.” He adds: “Politically speaking, the Nation-State law is genius. A law that illustrates excellently why Benjamin Netanyahu is still Prime Minister and no one is capable of challenging him. This law will allow him, again, to ‘prove’ to his captive audience of fans in the next election that only he loves Israel and that all his competitors are post-Zionist traitorous leftists… Go tell the millions of voters that there’s nothing in this law. That we don’t need this law. That the Declaration of Independence is the state’s founding document and it has all the right balances included in the vision of its founding.”

Kan radio news reveals that last night a gag order was lifted on a report that the Mossad took part in preventing a terror attack that Iran planned to commit on French soil last month. An Israeli official said that the Mossad had relayed intelligence to European security authorities that prevented the terror attack. Members of the cell, which was led by an Iranian diplomat, had planned to commit a terror attack at the convention of the Iranian opposition, attended by former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, who is a close associate of US President Donald Trump. Prime Minister Netanyahu implied about two weeks ago that Israel had been involved in preventing the attack and said that it was no coincidence that it was foiled.

Maariv continues to focus on the tension on the Gaza border with Israeli citizens in the Eshkol region again having to rush to shelters with four ‘Red Colour’ alerts.  Two mortars fell near the cowshed on one of the Kibbutzim. On a political level, they note Arab media sources saying “Israel and Hamas had reached understandings with the help of a mediator and would not go to war”. The sources told the paper: “Hamas told the mediator that it would take steps to stop the incendiary kites and balloons. Concurrently, Israel pledged not to go to war with the Hamas.”  The sources said that Hamas in Gaza told the mediator that it could not keep adhering to the status quo in which it “guards”  the border while the siege on Gaza continues.  “Hamas agreed to prevent incendiary balloons and kites from being flown temporarily, until the possibility of lifting the siege is examined,” said the source. It was further reported that the Israeli side understood that it could not expect Hamas to maintain security forever while the siege continued. Meanwhile 15 fires were caused by the incendiary kites and balloons yesterday. Yediot Ahronot reports on the air strike targeting a cell of people flying kites and balloons, saying this was the IDF’s 42^nd strike since the incendiary kite and balloon terrorism began, but the first time it resulted in a Hamas fatality.

All the papers cover the anger generated by the new Surrogacy Law, Yediot Ahronot explains, the new law states that women without a partner, who suffer from a medical problem that does not enable them to carry a pregnancy to term, are entitled to carry out a surrogacy procedure in Israel.  An amendment was proposed to the Bill, which would also permit gay couples to carry out a surrogacy procedure in Israel. Despite the promises of Prime Minister Netanyahu to support the requested change,  he withdrew support at the last minute and the amendment did not pass.  The gay community did not remain indifferent to the discrimination against it, and launched a protest that has been steadily gaining momentum.  Israel Hayom and Haaretz notes hundreds of people demonstrated yesterday in Tel Aviv against this new Surrogacy Law that discriminates again gay couples.  As well as the protest, they have declared a strike for this coming Sunday. Large companies from various industries, including high-tech companies, banks, universities, communications companies and the Israel Airports Authority have announced that they will permit their workers to be absent from work on Sunday