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Comment by pavelrub | Hacker News Reader

The restriction applies to everybody, not just Israeli Arabs. However it is true that Israeli Arabs are the ones most affected by it.

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Laws that make it illegal to sleep under bridges apply to everybody, not just the homeless. Does that mean a law against sleeping under bridges is not targeting the homeless?

The law also affects Israeli Jews, Christians, atheists, etc that want to marry Palestinians.

and palestinian is considered an ethnicity in israel. as opposed to "people coming from the country Palestine". so it's an openly racist law

It targets people who sleep under bridges. If, for example, there is a major safety hazard associated with sleeping under bridges, it would make sense to prohibit it, and it would be bizarre to criticize the law just because it affects mostly homeless people. If, on the other hand, the law prohibits only homeless people from sleeping under bridges, it becomes clear that the intent is discriminatory, and this becomes a valid criticism.

“There’s no need to shirk from the essence of this law. It is one of the tools to ensure a Jewish majority in Israel, which is the nation-state of the Jewish people. Our goal is for there to be a Jewish majority,” Lapid tweeted shortly before the law lapsed in early July. [0]

[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/months-after-citizenship-law-f...

Yes — discussing the actual motivations for the law, as provided to us by Israeli politicians and previous Supreme Court decisions, is a good and valid starting point for discussion. Claiming that the law is bad simply because it disproportionally affects some subset of the Israeli population, is not. The argument I was addressing in this particular subthread is the latter, not the former.

Unfortunately politicians don't always tell you their true motivations.

These days I live in the Southeastern US. Since 2020 was a census year, states have been redrawing their electoral maps. Several states have made changes that reduce the voting power of non-white voters. If politicians say this had nothing to do with race does that make it true? Even if it is true that they didn't consider race at all in the decision making process, does that make it acceptable when the end result impacts people in a noticeable way based on their race?

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread."

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