As politics have been increasingly paranoid around the world, the newest proposal in Israel amp up tensions.

I have been thinking about the ubiquity of paranoid politics, as I wonder whether the Israeli – Palestinian peace process has any chance for success, and as I read the news from Israel concerning a bill that would require non -Jewish immigrants to take an oath of allegiance to “Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”

If we aren’t paying close attention, this amendment may seem to be no big deal. After all, hasn’t Israel all along been the Jewish homeland and a democratic state? But a loyalty oath that commits to the official formulation of Israel as a Jewish state is clearly directed at the rights and citizenship status of Israeli citizens of Palestinian origins. Although they are twenty per cent of the population, they are being asked to demonstrate their loyalty, publicly confirming their second class status facing this symbolic act and a variety of other oaths of allegiance.

There is a sense that they are being assumed to be guilty until proven innocent, and they have to demonstrate their innocence repeatedly. Many Israelis and friends of Israel, elected officials, including those inside the ruling coalition, are deeply worried.

The same politicians who came up with this oath have additional proposals, as Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz, puts it “a loyalty law for Knesset members; a loyalty law for film production; a loyalty law for non-profits; putting the Palestinian catastrophe, the Nakba, beyond the scope of the law; a ban on calls for a boycott; and a bill for the revocation of citizenship.”

Some might suggest that Levy is a left wing critic who exaggerates. But Eli Yishai, the Interior Minister, has apparently been working to show that Levy’s worst fears are a reality, bringing paranoid politics to its logical extension, proposing to strip Israelis of citizenship for disloyalty. “’Declarations are not enough in fact against incidents such as [MKs] Azmi Bishara and Hanin Zoabi,’ Yishai said in reference to . . .

Read more: In Israel: Road Blocks to Peace