According to the 2003 law, Arab citizens of Israel who marry Palestinians will have to emigrate in order to live with their spouses.
Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi famously said that “Israel is indeed a Jewish-democratic state: it is democratic for Jews and Jewish for all the rest.”
This rings truer than ever after Israel’s High Court of Justice rejected yesterday (again) the petitions against the Citizenship Law, one of the first measures to make racial discrimination against the Arab minority not just common practice, but part of Israel’s legal codex.
The High Court rejected the petitions against the Citizenship Law in a split, 6-5 decision. The incoming head of the High Court, Justice Asher Grunis, wrote in the decision that “human rights shouldn’t be a recipe for national suicide.” You can read the full verdict here [Hebrew, PDF]. Justice Edmond Levy, a religious and somewhat conservative judge, harshly criticized Grunis for his language, claiming he misled the public as to the nature of the citizenship law.
The Citizenship Law, which technically is a temporary order, came into effect in 2003. It determines that Palestinian non-citizens who marry Israeli citizens will not be eligible for Israeli residency or citizenship. The couple will only be able to unite outside the borders of Israel.
The practical meaning of the law is that Arab citizens of Israel who marry Palestinian non-citizens – something that happens quite often, since these are members of the same nation, and sometimes of the same communities – won’t be able to live with their wives or husbands. If they want to unite, they will have to leave the country. By doing so, the law achieves two (racist) objectives against members of the Arab minority: (a) it prevents non-Jews from entering the country and applying for permanent residency or citizenship and (b) it makes it harder for Israeli Arab citizens to build families in their own community or in their own country, thus encouraging them to leave Israel. Arab Palestinians comprise roughly 20 percent of Israel’s population.
It is important to note that it is not the right of the non-citizen wife or husband that is being violated (since the state has no legal obligation towards them), but that of the citizen, who should enjoy the possibility to form a family and live with his loved one in his own community.
When the citizenship law came into effect, during the second Intifada, a security pretext was used to justify it, claiming that Palestinian terrorists could use marriage to become Israeli citizens. Yet this argument doesn’t hold: even without the law, the security establishment can veto any demand for citizenship or residency. It’s clear – and the public debate around the law doesn’t even try to conceal this fact – that “demographic” issues were the real motive for the legislation, and more specifically, the desire to limit, and ultimately even reduce, the number of non-Jewish citizens in the state.
Until the citizenship order, the only major piece of Israeli legislation that made a clear distinction between Arabs and Jews was the Law of Return, which makes it possible for Jews to immigrate to Israel and become citizens instantly, while non-Jews aren’t allowed to do so, even if their families originally hailed from this land. The 2003 law marks perhaps a new era, in which discrimination against the Arab minority is not only a common practice – for example, in the prevention of Palestinians from buying or building on state land, through the use of state agencies such as the JNF – but an explicit part of the body of laws that apply to the citizens of the state.
The new Nakba Law, which allows the state to penalize institutions that commemorate the Palestinian national disaster of 1948, is further evidence of this fact. The High Court also rejected petitions against the Nakab bill, just last week.
Read also:
High Court ruling on ‘Nakba Law’ reveals its waning power
2012: The year democracy ends
January 13, 2012
2:11 pm
You know Bosko, I am currently studying Israeli politics, including issues of identity, zionism, ethnic politics and so on. What I find ironic is that your posts almost embody the typical paranoia psyche, especially when you bring in security concerns, WW2 and so on.
I will leave you with Ahad Haam’s quote:
“We must surely learn, from both our past and present history, how careful we must be not to provoke the anger of the native people by doing them wrong, how we should be cautious in out dealings with a foreign people among whom we returned to live, to handle these people with love and respect and, needless to say, with justice and good judgment. And what do our brothers do? Exactly the opposite! They were slaves in their Diasporas, and suddenly they find themselves with unlimited freedom, wild freedom that only a country like Turkey [the Ottoman Empire] can offer. This sudden change has planted despotic tendencies in their hearts, as always happens to former slaves [’eved ki yimlokh – when a slave becomes king – Proverbs 30:22]. They deal with the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly, beat them shamefully for no sufficient reason, and even boast about their actions. There is no one to stop the flood and put an end to this despicable and dangerous tendency. Our brothers indeed were right when they said that the Arab only respects he who exhibits bravery and courage. But when these people feel that the law is on their rival’s side and, even more so, if they are right to think their rival’s actions are unjust and oppressive, then, even if they are silent and endlessly reserved, they keep their anger in their hearts. And these people will be revengeful like no other. […]”
January 13, 2012
2:20 pm
Richard Witty
“I’m going to die anyway (not soon, hopefully), so making someone else’s life miserable for my life extension or slightly more comfort, doesn’t seem like what I’m here for”
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Those who make it their life mission to make Israel’s life miserable should not be surprised if gheir life gets miserable too.
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And you are wrong for intimating that Israel has not attempted to make peace with the Palestinian Arabs. Even if you blame THIS particular government for not bending over backwards far enough. Earlier Israeli governments did but they could not make peace with the Palestinians. Why? Because they don’t want a peace that would leave a viable Jewish state along side a viable Palestinian state. They want a crippled Israel which they could finish off. They don’t act like a peace partner. They act like conquerors who have the right to dictate terms. They figure if Israel accepts those terms, then israel would be easier to finish off. Or if they don’t then they would turn the whole world against Israel and that would finish Israel off. And they have sites like this as accomplices.
January 13, 2012
2:32 pm
Leen
Spare me I heard it all before. Everything is always the Jewish people’s fault. And we deserve what we get. Happy now?
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I better stop here before I say something that I regret. But I’ll say this: I am sick of you people. I am sick of this site.
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My fear is that this will end badly between left (extreme left) Israelis and the rest of Israel. I came here to try and find a semblance of good will that would bridge the gap between the two sides but all I find is hatred towards other Israeli Jews, revisionist historians and defeatism. You are a sad lot.
January 13, 2012
3:01 pm
Vicky:
“Prior to 1948, such events were rare and spatially limited; they didn’t sweep the country”
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Really? You are just another revisionist historian. Here, read this:
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“Arab violence against Jews is often alleged to have begun with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 or as a result of Israel’s capture in 1967 of territories occupied by Jordan. But even before the Mandate for Palestine was assigned to Great Britain by the Allies at the San Remo Conference (April 1920) and endorsed by the League of Nations (July 1922), Palestinian Arabs were carrying out organized attacks against Jewish communities in Palestine. Systematic violence began in early 1920 with murderous assaults by groups of local Arabs against settlements in the north and by Muslim pilgrims against Jerusalem’s Jews. Again in 1921, Arab rioters attacked Jews in Jaffa and its environs. The primary agitator behind these attacks was Haj Amin al Husseini, who marshalled Arab discontent over Jewish immigration into violent riots.
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In 1929, Husseini and his associates fomented a violent jihad as they called upon Muslims to “defend” their holy places from the Jews. As a result, pogroms were carried out across Palestine. Arab villagers sympathetic to Jews were often targets of murderous attacks by their Arab brethren as well. British forces were sharply criticized for not policing the territory adequately, for sympathizing with the Arabs, and for standing by and allowing havoc to be wreaked upon Jewish communities in Palestine.
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In 1936, the Arab Higher Committee, led by Grand Mufti Husseini, launched a campaign of anti-Jewish violence across Palestine. Accompanied by a six-month-long strike, the campaign became known as “The Arab Revolt.” As the British increasingly became targets of Arab violence, they used massive force to suppress the aggression. The revolt was finally quashed in 1939. The resulting White Paper of 1939 reversed British commitment to a Jewish State (the raison d’etre of the Mandate) and drastically limited Jewish immigration into Palestine”
January 13, 2012
3:15 pm
Vicky:
” I offered to direct you to some relevant resources and organisations if you wanted to find out more”
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Don’t just offer, present your sources. Obviously if I bring up the topic then I am interested. Maybe you could tell me how many UN resolutions were passed condemning the treatment of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries. How many complaints about that treatment were presented by NGOs the UN? How many times were news articles presented about it to the western press? How many to radios and TV stations? Heck – how many times have sites like this ever mention this topic? Other than when “Fascists” like me bring it up? And even then, instead of picking up and running with it, you accuse me of mentioning the topic for self interest only. WHO CARES Vicky, why I bring it up?!!!! The fact is that this apartheid against Palestinians in Arab countries is REAL yet all you care about is telling me off for bringing it up. That alone tells the story.
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As I said, as far as you people are concerned, “no Israel”, “no story”!!!!
January 13, 2012
3:18 pm
‘conquerors who have the right to dictate terms’? Weren’t israelis the ones to invade palestine? And i just want to emphasis the fact that there are jewish arabs meaning those who have been living in peace and harmony with non. Jewish arabs for so long many of which disagree with the presence of the current israeli state. Just wondering how a nation is supposed to accept another that invades, kills and tries to destroy them easily? Try to imagine having your country torn apart by an invader who gives himself the right to take your house and land and throw you out because ‘that’s what their book says’, saying that there are dozens of jewish people who do NOT believe that israel that Torah talks about is palestine. It’s good to study the story from all sides, taking israel’s side because they are supporters of the west shouldn’t blind people from seeing the truth. We can expect that from politicians cuz that’s how things but those who seek the truth should be able to see the real situation before judging and taking sides blindly.
January 13, 2012
3:23 pm
Bosko,
Never said it was the Jews’ fault, neither did Ahad Haam who is a religious zionist, and advocates the return of the Jews to Eretz Israel.
If you are sick of the site, then why are on earth are you still here?
January 13, 2012
3:44 pm
Leen
Yea, I ask myself the same question. It seems to me that people like you are more upset by people like me being on this site than people like Lina. Did you read what she wrote above? Do you agree with her simple story?
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Maybe that’s what keeps me on this site (for now) the hope against hope of seeing a semblance of sanity return to you guys.
January 13, 2012
4:24 pm
First of all bosko, I would like to get something straight. I would appreciate it if you don’t make assumptions of what I’m upset with, who I am upset, what my viewpoints and so on. I merely made simple observations about your posts based on my extensive research on Israeli politics and identity.
You and Lina are both allowed to express your opinion, your observations and even your emotional investment in this conflict and complex situation. Believe me, I have spent a very good deal researching from the Israeli perspective (and I am talking about Revisionist Zionism, religious Zionism, Settlers’ ideological convictions and so on). Unfortunately, I am not convinced simply because I allow facts speak for themselves and their ideological convictions does not fall in my spectrum of morality.
January 13, 2012
4:24 pm
Edit, woops, I put your name in my name field. Sorry about that.
First of all bosko, I would like to get something straight. I would appreciate it if you don’t make assumptions of what I’m upset with, who I am upset, what my viewpoints and so on. I merely made simple observations about your posts based on my extensive research on Israeli politics and identity.
You and Lina are both allowed to express your opinion, your observations and even your emotional investment in this conflict and complex situation. Believe me, I have spent a very good deal researching from the Israeli perspective (and I am talking about Revisionist Zionism, religious Zionism, Settlers’ ideological convictions and so on). Unfortunately, I am not convinced simply because I allow facts speak for themselves and their ideological convictions does not fall in my spectrum of morality.
January 13, 2012
6:21 pm
Bosko,
Do you realize what you wrote on Friday evening and how your ‘Shabbat Blessings’ are abnormally filled with insane self-hatred?
What does that mean, these words, Bosko?
“I better stop here before I say something that I regret. But I’ll say this: I am sick of you people. I am sick of this site.
My fear is that this will end badly between left (extreme left) Israelis and the rest of Israel. I came here to try and find a semblance of good will that would bridge the gap between the two sides but all I find is hatred towards other Israeli Jews, revisionist historians and defeatism. You are a sad lot”.
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Do you realize that when you wrote this, you are dangerously close to Anders Behring Breivik, the Anti-’Arabs’ neo-Nazi militant who killed 77 Norvegian young liberal people on July 22 2011, because he hates ‘multiculturalism’?
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In late November, two Norvegian psychiatrists concluded that Breivik was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and living in his own delusional universe – and I agree and disagree with them, because he is not the only one to live in such a hatred delusional universe, Post-Fascism and Post-Nazism delirium. And for your information, Bosko, most of my (Persian) friends consider they are living under the rule of “Islamo-Nazi”.
These two psychiatrists recommanded Breivik should be sent for compulsory psychiatric treatment rather than prison, and their report was criticised by other experts, and came as a shock for many Norvegians who stated – like me – that Breivik shared his political madness with many other extremists – and on the Web, this hatred sickness is quite visible.
As a result Anders Behring Breivik will undergo new psychiatric test.
And I wonder: how to cure the other psycho-killers, whether they are Neo-Nazi, Islamo-Nazi, and guess at whom I’m thinking right now?
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/anders-behring-breivik
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Bosko, you know it would have been easy for me to slash your words, and you must understand that I took a lot on me to write this answer, being who I am coming from where I come from.
What I write here without any vanity is to call you to take care of your Self before it’s too late: psychopaths – and Germany was ruled by psychopaths in the 1930-40s – have no trouble reading other people’s thoughts, but actually what they read is their own FEAR of cognitive and affective empathy with others.
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Only the stronger are capable of love, hatred is the ultimate weakness
January 13, 2012
7:25 pm
Henry Weinstein
LOL. I think your post is the last straw. I am outa here. Now I am a psychopath LOL and Good bye …
January 13, 2012
10:15 pm
There is the 614th Commandment. Well, there are 613, I’ve read; but a man who when very young moved to Canada, thereby missing the War, made another when adult: “Give Hilter no posthumous victories.” The commandment is contested within Judaism, partly because it comes not from time, tradition. One way to read the commandment would fit the energetic, history laden views of Bosko, who does a great service to his own and others like myself (not like his own) by fighting so hard for them. There is another way, though, of reading the commandment, which would put this High Court opinion in its violation. By affirming a racial category for its own sake, one advances the logic of race conflict–and that is a posthumous victory for you-know-who, who said humans can ONLY be that way. Bosko put it well: if 20% or all Arab Israelis married nonresident Palestinians, think of the racial flood! This is the logic winning the momment.
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Congratulations to Vicky for marvelous, patient replies; keep adding to your own blog, I say in hope.
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Israel has entered its dark time in law. But remember, this vote was 6-5. Some in dissent will fight in their own way. My useless recomendations remain as always:
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1) Ever use the Declaration of Indpendence in argument.
2) Advocate it as constitutional document.
3) Note that the first Knesset, elected to write a constitution, instead turned itself in a unchecked legislature, thereby usurping soverignty.
4) Call for a constitutional convention to fulfill your founding document.
5) Assert that sitting Justices could use the Declaration as constitutional document now.
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Any Justice could use these points in concurrence or dissent. US Justice Harlan did essentially that, in American grain, and won, years after his death. No solace, I know; but one should have ideas that outlive you, not anger and hate–and fear. Ideas can keep you from becoming a hater; maybe there’s some immediate benefit in that.
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“Oh you people of power
your hour is now
you may plan to rule forever
but you never do somehow.”
–Leonard Berstein
Mass
(My God!, He’s Jewish)
January 14, 2012
7:48 am
Here’s another Ahad Ha’am quote, pertinent today as much as it was in 1897, when Ha’am clearly saw the nature of Zionism and the Jewish State:
“The secret of our people’s persistence is — as I have tried to show elsewhere–that at a very early period the Prophets taught it to respect only spiritual power, and not to worship material power. For this reason the clash with enemies stronger than itself never brought the Jewish nation, as it did the other nations of antiquity, to the point of self-effacement. So long as we are faithful to this principle, our existence has a secure basis: for in spiritual power we are not inferior to other nations, and we have no reason to efface ourselves. But a political ideal which does not rest on the national culture is apt to seduce us from our loyalty to spiritual greatness, and to beget in us a tendency to find the path of glory in the attainment of material power and political dominion, thus breaking the thread that unites us with the past, and undermining our historical basis. Needless to say, if the political ideal is not attained, it will have disastrous consequences, because we shall have lost the old basis without finding a new one.”
and another:
” It may suffice to mention the unpleasant incident at Vienna recently, when the young “Zionists” went out to spread the gospel of “Zionism” with sticks and fisticuffs, in German fashion. And the Zionist organ regarded this incident sympathetically, and, for all its carefulness, could not conceal its satisfaction at the success of the Zionist fist.”
With Israel, it’s all ideology, reality be damned. Jews be damned too, because Zionism is the state religion.
January 14, 2012
9:39 am
@Bosko – “Don’t just offer, present your sources.”
You seem to have abandoned ship, but it would have been nice if you’d presented yours. Just in case you change your mind, could we have a source for the long historical quote you posted that begins: “Arab violence against Jews is often alleged to have begun with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 or as a result of Israel’s capture in 1967 of territories occupied by Jordan.”? – Thanks.
January 14, 2012
10:58 am
@Vicky–I don’t know if you’re still here, but I wanted to thank you for your presence and contribution.
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How can we pool all this energy toward making a difference against clear-cut injustice and blows to democracy such as this?