I've noticed that a not insignificant number of commenters on websites like the Guardian's Comment is Free like to persistently pedal the nasty allegation that Israel's law of return is racist. This law, which was created in 1950, states that "Every Jew has the right to come to the country as an oleh." As a result, it has aroused much controversy. Some have argued that it is the "jewel in the crown" of the institutional apartheid faced by Israel's Arab citizens, and that it runs counter to democracy.

Before answering these ludicrous charges, let's look at the context. The law of return was formulated just five years after the Holocaust, and was partly designed in order to provide a sanctuary for persecuted Jews worldwide. The necessity of this law has been proven by the various waves of immigration which have followed its creation. In the 1950s, Sephardi Jews came from all over the Middle East in response to persecution following the war of independence (Nakhba). In the 1980s, Jews emigrated from Ethiopia. And in the 1990s, Jews were finally allowed to leave the old Soviet Union.

The law of return is undoubtedly discriminatory (Israeli-Arabs, for example, do not have the same immigration privileges), but this does not make it racist. In fact, it is entirely consistent with the convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination:

"Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as affecting in any way the legal provisions of State Parties concerning nationality, citizenship or naturalisation, provided that such provisions do not discriminate against any particular nationality."

In other words, the international community realised that a pure form of universalism would destroy the nation-state - that the system could only survive on the basis of discrimination. Particularly in the sphere of immigration, a state has the absolute right to favour those with prior links to its dominant culture.