Book Review: The dynamics of exclusionary constitutionalism: Israel as a Jewish and democratic state by Mazen Masri

In July 2018, the Israeli parliament approved Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People. Dubbed the ‘nation state law’, it enshrines in legislation existing practices that privilege the rights of the Jewish people on the ‘Land of Israel’ over those of its Palestinian citizens and inhabitants. Critics have declared that the law represents the death of democracy, the infiltration of policies and tendencies from the occupied territory into Israel ‘proper’ and signals an important step towards the establishment of an apartheid system. But how should we understand Israel’s constitutional order prior to this law? Was Israel a flawed democracy until the ‘nation state law’, only now revealing its true nature as the critique implies? Masri’s book analyses the legally sanctioned position of Israel’s Jewish citizens as the most basic manifestation of Zionism as a settler-colonial project, aiming to settle Palestine with Jews, replacing and erasing its native Palestinian population. It is this settler colonial logic, he argues, which is enshrined in Israel’s constitutional order.