Israel is in the spotlight in several ways this week, just before President Barack Obama heads to the Middle East to give a speech that will lay out his plans for promoting stabilization in the region.

Last week, members of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, introduced two bills intended to promote unity within the state. The first, called the Loyalty Oath Law, would require Arab- and Palestinian-Israelis to pledge allegiance to Israel’s Jewish identity. The second, the Nakba Law, would ban yearly Nakba (“catastrophe”) protests, in which Arab-Israelis march to villages destroyed during the 1948 Palestinian diaspora, which displaced 700,000 Palestinians.

“They’re welcome to jail us,” Suleiman Fahmawi told BBC News. Fahmawi is in the process of planning next year’s Nakba march to the town his parents fled from in the Nakba, despite the fact that it could result in prison time for him and his fellow marchers.

One portion of these two laws, which criminalizes speaking against Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, has already been voted on. The Knesset, which was divided regarding the issue going into the debate, passed it by a margin of 47-34 Monday.

Even though the Knesset passed the bill, it still needs to undergo two more votes and a committee review before becoming law. According to Al-Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros, it is also likely the Israeli Supreme Court could strike the bills down as unconstitutional.

As hot-button legislation is debated in Givat Ram, the central Jerusalem neighborhood where the Knesset and Israeli government offices are located, a 15-member team sent by the United Nations to Gaza to investigate the killing of Palestinian civilians during a conflict earlier this year is experiencing difficulty and resistance from the Israeli government.

The team, led by the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, had to enter the Gaza Strip from Egypt after having its visas rejected by Israel. The Israeli government has accused the U.N. team of bias and investigating a foregone conclusion; the government has no plans to cooperate.

Instead, the investigators were met at the border by a representative from Hamas and other U.N. officials before going on to meet with members of Gaza’s local government.

The team will be fact-finding in the area for a week and will return to the United Nations before the end of the month to prepare the statement it is to present in August.

Reach columnist Morgan Gard at news@dailyuw.com.