Nakba Law
2011 Israeli law
"Fundamentals of Finance – Amendment No. 40", sometimes referred to as the Nakba Law, is a 2011 Israeli law that authorizes the Minister of Finance to withhold a limited amount of state funds from any government-funded institution or body that commemorates "Israel's Independence Day or the day on which the state was established as a day of mourning", or that denies the existence of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state." The law affects organizations which are funded, in whole or in part, by the government. The amount of state funds withheld is related to the amount of money spent on the event, capped at three times the amount of money spent. The law has received criticism for limiting freedom of speech pertaining to the founding of Israel and the Nakba.
Background
The law was first proposed in 2008 by Alex Miller from the nationalistic party Yisrael Beiteinu, and preliminarily approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on May 24, 2009. The proposal was rejected and sent to the Committee for Constitution, Law, and Justice for revision, where the proposed fine of ten times of the cost of the event was reduced to three times of the amount at the suggestion of David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu).
Thirty-seven members of the Knesset voted in favor of the law, and twenty-five voted against at the third reading of the Law. 58 out of 120 MKs did not show up for the vote, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Provisions
The law affects organizations which are funded, in whole or in part, by the Israeli government.
It declares that the Minister of Finance is authorized to withhold transfer of state funds, if the primary goal of the funds spent was to do one of the following:
Denying the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State
Incitement of racism, violence, or terrorism
Supporting armed conflict or acts of terror, of an enemy state or a terror organization, against the State of Israel
Referring to the Israeli Independence Day or the founding day of the country as a day of mourning
An act of vandalism or physical debasement of the flag or symbols of the state
Effects
The decision of the law was criticised by the human rights organisation Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank William La Rue also by Israeli NGOs like the Israel Democracy Institute, as an infringement of freedom of expression.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q109237210. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011, 2008 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nakba Law” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.