Ministers were to vote on Sunday on a controversial proposal to anchor in law Israel's status as the national homeland of the Jewish people, at its democratic character’s expense.
The proposal would mean Israel would no longer be defined in its Basic laws as "Jewish and democratic" but instead as "the national homeland of the Jewish people."
Critics, who include the government's top legal adviser, say the proposed change to the laws that act as Israel's effective constitution could institutionalise discrimination against its 1.7 million Arab citizens.
By giving preeminence to the "Jewish" character of Israel over its democratic nature, the law in its current format is "anti-democratic," they say. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted the law would give equal weight to both characteristics.
"There are those who would like the democratic to prevail over the Jewish and there are those who would like the Jewish to prevail over the democratic. And in the principles of the law that I will submit today, both of these values are equal and both must be considered to the same degree," he said.
As well as Netanyahu presenting his own vision of the bill to the cabinet, ministers were to be asked to vote on two other more extreme versions of the proposed law, drafted by far-right members of his likud party.
The proposal has provoked uproar among MPs and ministers from the centre and the left, who fear the text only institutionalises discrimination.