Palestinians married to Israelis lose battle

By Corinne Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s High Court on Sunday
narrowly upheld a law that denies Israeli residency to many
Palestinians who marry Israelis, rejecting appeals against a
statute critics say violates human rights and is racist.

The restrictions, an amendment to Israel’s Citizenship Law,
affect thousands of Palestinian and Israeli Arab couples.
Marriages between Palestinians and Israeli Jews are rare.

“The Palestinian Authority is an enemy government, a
government that wants to destroy the (Jewish) state and is not
willing to recognize Israel,” Justice Michel Cheshin said in
support of the 6-5 ruling against the appeals.

In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Aharon Barak said
the amendment violated civil rights.

“This is a very black day for Israel and also a black day
for my family and for the other families who are suffering like
us because they have been denied permission to live together,”
said Muad el-Sana, an Israeli Arab married to a Palestinian
woman from the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Israel grants citizenship to anyone who can prove that at
least one of his grandparents was Jewish.

A fifth of Israel’s citizens are Arabs. Some have family
ties with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip but
Israel bans most Palestinians from its territory on security
grounds. Critics call the restrictions collective punishment.

The amended Citizenship Law was passed in 2002 at the
height of a Palestinian uprising that began two years earlier.

It stated that only requests for residency by Palestinian
women over the age of 25 and men over age 35 were eligible for
approval for security reasons. Israeli authorities say Arabs
with residence have taken part in terrorist attacks.

Several thousand requests for Israeli residency by
Palestinians married to Israelis have been granted in the past
decade, but many are temporary.

Abeer Baker, a lawyer for the Adalah organization that
represents Palestinian-Israeli couples vying for Israeli
residency, said the law meant that thousands of “mixed”
families would either have to separate or live outside Israel.

“The country is basically saying: pack up your stuff and
get out of here,” she said. “That would mean they would give up
their rights in Israel and their historical rights to the
land.”

“INVOLVEMENT IN TERROR”

The government could point to only 25 such residents who
had been questioned for “alleged involvement in terror,” said a
statement by Abdalah.

The court said the number of residency permits granted to
Palestinians married to Israelis must be limited because many
who received them later took part in hostile activities.

“No one is denying (Palestinians) the right to raise a
family, but let them live in (the West Bank city of) Jenin
rather than the Israeli-Arab town of) Uhm al-Fahm,” Chesin
said.

Amnesty International has criticized the law saying it
institutionalizes racial discrimination.

Israelis wanting to join Palestinian spouses in the West
Bank and Gaza must get approval from Israeli authorities, who
have put strict limitations on access to the areas for Israeli
citizens, and the Palestinian Authority.

The appeals against the amendment were filed by Adalah, the
Association of Civil Rights in Israel, seven legislators and
several Israeli-Palestinian couples.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon defended the court’s decision.

“There is no country in the world that must grant entry to
thousands of citizens of a country or an entity that is in a
state of war with it,” Ramon told Army Radio.