Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday that he supports any Israeli Knesset Members who oppose the controversial Jewish State Law, reports The Associated Press (AP).

Speaking in the South African capital, Pretoria, where he met South African president Jacob Zuma, Abbas said it is important that Israel consider what the proposed law may mean for the region.

“We need to ask this question to the Israeli people and to ask this to the Israeli government: What does this bill mean for peace?” Abbas said, speaking through a translator.

The comments were made a day after the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, headed by Abbas, criticized the Jewish State Law, saying it “will put an end to the two state solution in that it imposes the plan of greater Israel and the Jewish nature of the state on the historical land of Palestine, and it serves as a unilateral Israeli cancellation of the mutual recognition document from 1993.”

The PLO statement continued, “The Jewish State Law is a racist political decision that is built to negate the Palestinian rights and to control the land, and it contradicts international law…and the law institutionalizes racism and discrimination in all fields of life, by implementing (Prime Minister Binyamin) Netanyahu’s plan to turn Israel into a country based on racism by law.”

“What is called the historic national homeland of the Jewish people is an ideological racist exclusive expression, and an attempt to warp and twist the Palestinian historical narrative,” claimed the statement. “It creates legitimacy against them (Arab residents of Israel) and prepares the groundwork to expel them and uproot them under the pretext of the law, as they aren’t part of the Jewish people.”

The bill passed a crucial cabinet vote on Sunday, which cleared the way for it to be put to a vote in the Knesset, and stipulates, “The state of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people in which it realizes its aspiration for self determination in accordance with its cultural and historic heritage…the right to realization of national self determination in Israel is exclusive to the Jewish people.”

Netanyahu has said he will amend the bill to make it more “moderate,” equalizing Israel’s Jewish and democratic status as opposed to the current version that highlights the Jewish nature of the state, even as it defines Israel as a democracy respecting the rights of all citizens.

The original bill would have Arabic moved from being an official language of the state to having “special status” instead, although Netanyahu would keep Arabic as an official language, leading many to warn the new version will be watered down enough not to have many practical effects.

Speaking about the bill on Tuesday, Netanyahu said Israel’s “democracy is guaranteed. What is being challenged is Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and therefore we are updating via the law this national right of the Jewish people, side-by-side with a guarantee of the personal rights of all of its citizens.”