Israeli ministers approved a controversial bill on Sunday that would ultimately dismiss Arabic as one of the official languages of Israel.
The new bill defines the country as "unique to the Jewish people," according to The Guardian.
If the new bill is ratified, Hebrew would ultimately become the country's lone national language, placing the Arabic language in a "special status in the state."
This means Arabic speakers would "have the right to language-accessible state services" but it would no longer be an official language.
The legislation still needs to go through further drafting processes by the justice ministry and pass several votes in the Knesset, Israel's parliament.
Currently, both Arabic and Hebrew are the country's national languages
Israel is home to a sizeable non-Jewish minority - 17.5 percent Arab - a majority of whose mother-tongue is Arabic.
In fact, Arabic is the mother-tongue of Israel's 1.7 million Palestinian citizens, according to Al Jazeera.
Ayman Odeh, head of the Joint List alliance, representing Arab-Israeli parties, called the bill a “declaration of war” on Israel’s Arab citizens.
"Discrimination has received a legal stamp. The danger in this law in that it establishes two classes of citizen – Jewish and Arab," he said, according to The Guardian.
He added that if the bill becomes a law, it will "legally transform us into second-class citizens."
The bill was sponsored by Avi Dichter, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right wing Likud party who emphasized the importance of passing the controversial bill.
"This is a small step for the Jewish state bill, which establishes that Israel is and will be a Jewish and democratic state, and it's a big step towards defining our identity, not only in the eyes of the world but primarily for ourselves, Israelis – to be a free people in our land,” said Avi Dichter, an MP from Benjamin Netanyahu's right wing party, Likud.