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Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

reuters.com

481–490 of 735 posts

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#482

Look I always encourage people to read the Israeli constitution. Jewish state. Fact. Not multicultural, not secular. Jewish. That was the founders design.

I'm guessing you're fine with the several de facto Arab Islamic states out there.

No, they are awful. Does this exempt Israeli’s own actions?

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#483

We see more and more similar laws being passed in recent years, laws that are blatantly discriminatory. This may raise the indignation of many people, but in my opinion, Israel is shooting itself in the foot by passing these laws, because it reinforces the argument that it is an apartheid regime. Israel is slowly losing its support in the free democratic world where people believe in the inalienable universal rights…

I think this law will only hurt the Israeli image abroad a little bit. The 3 recent human rights reports (calling Israel out for practicing apartheid) are much more damaging.

This is really about the (internationally recognized) right of return of the Palestinians. To paraphrase Bill Clinton's advisor James Carville in 1992: "It's demographics, stupid".

The 2003 law explicitly did not apply to residents of Jewish settlements in the West Bank wanting to marry and live with their spouse inside Israel, making it, and the ongoing policy underpinning it, blatantly discriminatory.

The thing to realize about this new law is that while it makes no mention of religion, it doesn't need to in order to add to the fragmentation of the indigenous people of the area. Non-Jews in the West Bank cannot now gain citizenship in Israel, if that was an avenue they had before, nor can they return to their villages (granted, almost all these villages within Israel have been destroyed so there's nothing to return to) or gain compensation for their loss.

(For a film adaptation of the 1949 novel by S. Yizhar called Khirbet Khizeh, search for the youtube version produced by Israeli Television in 1970 (and immediately banned in 1978 when it was released.))

I'm not sure why this outrages people in the US. Since 2002, Israel has adopted a policy of prohibiting Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza from gaining status in Israel or East Jerusalem through marriage, thus preventing family unification.

The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law enshrined the policy in law between 2003 and its expiry in July 2021. The law barred thousands of Palestinians in Israel and East Jerusalem from living there with their Palestinian spouses from the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s then interior minister stated the law was needed because “it was felt that [family unification] would be exploited to achieve a creeping right of return...”

This recent law just formalized and made permanent what was always there: the demographics is what's important here. When you look at Zionism as a colonial settler project, it's just part of "purity" laws and an essential part of apartheid.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#484

Can we sanction Israel next, please?

USA just passed omnibus 2022 $1.5T spending bill which has $250 Million for Israel iron dome upgrades.. there is a POWERFUL Israeli lobby in the USA that won't let such sanctions get off the floor.

What are you proposing? Just let their enemies bomb all of them out of existence?

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#485

Look I always encourage people to read the Israeli constitution. Jewish state. Fact. Not multicultural, not secular. Jewish. That was the founders design.

Pretty tough to read the Israeli constitution when no such document exists.

https://knesset.gov.il/constitution/ConstIntro_eng.htm

Perhaps you mean the Declaration of Independence?

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence_(...

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#486
post #190

Here's an interesting exercise: 1. Substitute "Israel's Knesset" for ANY other legislative body anywhere. 2. Substitute "Palestinian" for ANY other nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or other adjective describing a group to which YOU belong. 3. See if you like how it feels: "[Legislative body] passes law barring spouses who are [like you] from becoming citizens."

I am fine with that. Actually most of my life I have lived by these restrictions. I am not saying this is ok, but we should stop pretending this is not everywhere. For example US immigration system. Based on your nationality there are restrictions. As non-US immigrant my wife could not work in the US based on our nationality.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so annoying. It’s not rocket science to understand that Arabic is a language and you are only an Arab if your cultural language is Arabic. Not all Arabs are Muslims and not all Muslims are Arabs. It’s like saying that all who speak English are Christians. And all who are Christians speak English.

There are also many Arabic speaking Christians who don’t consider themselves to be Arabs culturally, and who definitely reject the label “Arab”.

They can choose to label themselves however they see fit, however under the guise of israeli law they are no different and are treated the same way as "Arab muslims" which speaks to the enormity of the racist jewish laws.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#488
post #57

No shame, they don't even hide their racism. Where's the outcry.

I don't know if you've noticed but it's usually very difficult to criticize Israel outside of the darker corners of the internet.

Compared to what though? Reading some of the responses here, virtually no one has mentioned the fact that Israel's middle eastern neighbors, and more broadly, most of the Muslim world, are also oppressive ethnostates that treat Jews significantly worse. They don't need laws on the books to mistreat Jews, and we all know why.

e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jews_in_Syria#21st_...

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#489
post #27
post #7

I don't know the first thing about constitutional law in Israel but western basic sensibilities would be that this violates the principle of equality under the law.

This law has existed in different variations since 2002. This law is often challenged at Israel's Supreme Court, but the racist parties usually can get a majority vote in the Parliament to "tweak it" every time to get a few more months/years out of it before getting challenged again. Similarly to how several US states change abortion/voting/gun laws all the time, trying to see if they can beat SCOTUS. This law, by th…

>This law has existed in different variations since 2002. This law is often challenged at Israel's Supreme Court, but the racist parties usually can get a majority vote in the Parliament to "tweak it" every time to get a few more months/years out of it before getting challenged again.

This is the same exact tactic used by the Anti-BDS proponents in the US. On the face of it the anti-BDS laws enacted in 35 states are blatantly unconstitutional.

There are two issues that have allowed them to stick around. First is the fact that it is much easier to pass a new law (however unconstitutional) than to repeal it and secondly as you alluded to, the tricks that are employed after the law is struck down is to tweak and alter the law to keep it on the books for a bit longer until the second version gets challenged.

For example in Abby Martin v. the State of Georgia the original law stated that for any contract up to 1,000$ there is an exemption to the law. While she won the ruling, the end result became that the law was amended to raise the certification exemption from $1,000 to $100,000. I am not sure if they are appealing the original ruling.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#490

>Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character". What the fuck?

>>Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character".

>What the fuck?

Why all the outrage? Should France not maintain it's French character?

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