PLO official calls Jewish nation-state bill 'racist'

Jerusalem : Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Secretary General Saeb Erekat on Thursday denounced a controversial Jewish nation-state bill approved by the Israeli Parliament as "racist".

The legislation gives only Jewish people the right of self-determination in Israel and strips Arabic of its status as an official language to be left with a special status, Efe news reported.

Erekat tweeted that the law which was passed in a 62-55 vote "officially legalizes apartheid and legally defines Israel as an apartheid system".

Arab Knesset Member and the chairman of the Joint List Ayman Odeh, meanwhile, called it a "supremacist law" that would make the Arab-Israelis, 20 per cent of Israel's population, second-class citizens.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the bill was "a defining moment in the annals of Zionism and the history of the state of Israel".