ISTANBUL – Turkey on Thursday accused Israel of racism and becoming a statebased on apartheid after a new law was adopted by the Israeli parliamentdefining the country as the nation state of the Jewish people.

The legislation, adopted after a tumultuous Knesset session, makes Hebrewthe country s national language and defines the establishment of Jewishcommunities as being in the national interest.

Arabic, previously considered an official language, was granted onlyspecial status.

“We reject the Israeli government s efforts to establish an apartheidstate,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote onTwitter, referring to the segregation of blacks and whites in white-ruledSouth Africa.

He condemned the law as a “racist step”, describing it as an effort to”legally erase” the Palestinian people “from their homelands”.

“We call on the international community to respond to this injustice thattakes place in front of the eyes of the whole world,” Kalin wrote.

This law “tramples on the principles of universal law and disregards therights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel,” the Turkish foreign ministryadded in a statement.

“The fact that the law presents the right to auto-determination as a rightthat only applies to Jews is the product of a mentality that is outdatedand discriminatory,” it said.

Arab citizens account for some 17.5 percent of Israel s more than eightmillion population. They have long complained of discrimination.

The Turkish foreign ministry called for the “necessary response” from theinternational community to the law, which it said was aimed at eliminatingthe vision of a two-state solution.

The issue is the latest source of tension between Israel and Turkey, one ofthe Jewish state s few key Muslim partners.

Ankara ordered out Israel s ambassador in May over the killing ofprotestors along the border with the Gaza Strip.

The strains have threatened a 2016 deal on normalising ties after thecrisis sparked by the May 2010 deadly storming of a Turkish ship by Israelicommandos.

Erdogan regards himself as a champion of the Palestinians and has twiceheld summits in recent months of Muslim states to denounce the recognitionby the United States of Jerusalem as Israel s capital.

But analysts note that behind the rhetoric economic ties remain strong,with trade robust and both sides interested in the export of Israeli energyresources to Turkey. – APP/AFP