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Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

reuters.com

501–510 of 735 posts

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but these are the arguments used to justify a Western nation not being able to exist in the Middle East because of having too inclusive values. What I'm looking for is an argument of why the two probabilities that I mentioned are small enough so that persecution is not a concern. If persecution is a concern, why should Israel care about being inconsistent? Being inconsistent in how Israel displays itself would…

Israel seems to care quite a bit about its image in the west, which is why every time news such as this comes out you see the same arguments trotted out over and over about how this is what’s necessary. Is western oriented propaganda and it’s important that it is seen for what it is. Now, as to your point about persecution. I do care about the safety and well-being of all involved in this. But your argument boils dow…

>The Middle East has been a melting pot for centuries

No it hasn't. It's been an explicitly Islamist supremacist (sometimes under Arab dynasties, sometimes Persian or Turkish ones, but certainly never Jewish ones) imperial dominion for centuries, and was until 1924. Do you not know what dhimmi status was?

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Whether or not Israel's actions need excused ("exempt") is a matter of opinion. And an unbiased opinion can't be developed when we're only willing to criticize, or even look at, one facet of the issue.

Or to put it another way, similar and "worse" things are happening elsewhere, but it's not PC to bring them up.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#503

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

This doesn't make it immune from criticism. What if the United States added "Caucasian state" to the constitution and started discriminating against other ethnicities. Would that be okay for you?

A better example would be adding a non-Jew requirement to the US constitution. I find it interesting that a people who faced such deadly consequences from discrimination based on Jewishness choose to discriminate based on Jewishness as their response.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#504

Most comments here are attacking the decision, or just quoting the decision, and following it up by a "wtf". Just being shocked is not an argument. Jews are or have been persecuted in all middle eastern countries. What would happen if they were a minority in a democratic state in the Middle East? Why would it be different than in the other democracies in the Middle East? Laws like these lower the probability of Jews…

Serious question coming from a place of relative ignorance- are Jewish people today more persecuted in western democracies like the US than in Israel? There are certainly attacks, but I don't know how that compares to the sustained state of quasi-war that Israel exists in. > Laws like these lower the probability of Jews becoming a minority in Israel. Do you think the probability of them becoming a minority is zero? A…

> Serious question coming from a place of relative ignorance- are Jewish people today more persecuted in western democracies like the US than in Israel? There are certainly attacks, but I don't know how that compares to the sustained state of quasi-war that Israel exists in.

Just by the numbers, Jews are better off in Israel, because baseline violent crime rates are actually lower in Israel. This is made starker by the next largest Jewish population being in the United States, which has an unusually high rate of baseline violent crime. It's actually a question of "do you want fewer but more horrifying terrorist attacks, or more and more normalized mass shootings?"

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#505

So, 21% of Israel's population has restrictions on who they could marry all so that they can maintain a majority of the favored demographic. This is apartheid.

Israel is surrounded by Arab Muslims who outnumber Jews 100:1 and are overtly hostile to Judaism, as prescribed by their religion. I ask honestly, is it really so wrong for a nation to implement laws to preserve its culture, particularly when it's people constitute a tiny fraction of the global population? Or is support of cultural preservation only virtuous when the alternative is labeled "gentrification"?

> and are overtly hostile to Judaism, as prescribed by their religion

As a biracial Jew from Pakistan I can assure you this is false. The modern enmity between Jews and Muslims began around the time of Israel's creation [1].

As far as 'preserving culture', this sounds a little to close to the Fourteen Words for my comfort. You can celebrate and keep alive one's own culture without the exclusion and denial of rights to others. I think the idea of ethnostates run counter to the core values of most modern, liberal democracies.

[1] https://dailytimes.com.pk/97778/the-jews-of-pakistan/

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character". > What the fuck? Israel was founded as a state for the Jewish people, so they could have some political self-determination, which given their history, doesn't seem like a such bad thing. It would entirely subvert that if it became a state controlled by other kinds of people, like all other states in the world . Let's say Mu…

> Let's say Muslim Arabs become the majority in Israel, wouldn't it then become the kind of place that the ancestors of the Jewish Israelis fled from (for good reason)? The Jews didn't exactly jump from Judea as opposed to getting pushed: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish–Roman_wars * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_Palaestina Certainly there was a diaspora b…

>> Let's say Muslim Arabs become the majority in Israel, wouldn't it then become the kind of place that the ancestors of the Jewish Israelis fled from (for good reason)?

> The Jews didn't exactly jump from Judea as opposed to getting pushed:

That's not what I had in mind. I was thinking of more recent history, like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/opinion/last-jew-afghanis...

> Dozens of countries around the world have had their Last Jews. The Libyan city of Tripoli was, astonishingly, one-quarter Jewish in 1941; today the entire country is Jew-free. After the fall of Muammar el-Qaddafi, who banished the country’s lingering Jews during his reign, a lone Libyan Jew came back to Tripoli and took down a concrete wall sealing the city’s one remaining synagogue. But he was soon forced to flee, having been warned that an antisemitic mob was coming for his head.

----

> Certainly there were always Jews (and Christians, and later Muslims) in that geographic area, but to say that Jews particularly 'deserve' exclusive governing of that area may be stretching it given the two thousand years of history since they last had 'exclusivity' to it.

I don't think it's a stretch. There's more to it than just historical tenancy.

> Palestinians also want a state of their own, but Israel is (according to some) squatting on their land:

Sure, but it would be yet another Middle Eastern Arab Muslim state. Why erase something unique for that?

> Palestinians also want a state of their own, but Israel is (according to some) squatting on their land:

> Don't both have a right (?) to exist? Why does Israel deny to others what it wants for itself?

Unfortunately, the world doesn't divide into nice neat categories that don't conflict.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#507
post #84

This article doesn’t really provide much in the way of explanation for why this law is being enacted. Here [0] is a better article that quotes supporters and objectors to the law. It includes the (IMHO not very convincing) figures that "Between 1993 and 2003, around 130,000 Palestinians were given Israeli citizenship or residency through family unification, including children, according to court filings. The Shin Bet…

.037% terrorism sounds high to me

1. Are Israeli figures to be trusted? There are countless - literally countless - of examples of abuses and arbitrary detention from the state. Including detention for “terrorism”.

2. What qualifies as “terrorism” in their book? Does throwing a rock at the IDF qualify as terrorism?

3. Why is Israel providing citizenship in the first place? What brought them to such an authoritative position? Who are the people they are giving citizenship to, where are they coming from, what were they subjugated to, why are they seeking citizenship in this place? The answers to these questions lie somewhere between Israeli far-right governance, oppression, human rights abuse and land imprisonment of a population who were kicked out of their homes and left stateless, passportless, and immobile, unable to cross their borders and travel, left to take long treks through abusive barriers and routes just to make it 5 miles from one place to another. Whose water is shut off, food supplies are limited, and have no economic prosperity. So why are these people the way they are, and seeking citizenship in such a place?

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#509

What citizenship status do Palestianians have by default, if not Israeli? Given that Israel doesn't recognise Palestine as a state, doesn't that obligate them to confer Israeli citizenship to the residents, as they would otherwise be stateless?

Palestinians have a Palestinian Authority passport that is used for international travel. Per the Oslo accords in the 90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_passport...

Though many hold Jordanian passports.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#510
post #497

Just to be clear: the law bans citizenship for Palestinians on the basis of marriage to an Israeli citizen, but does not ban marriages or naturalization in other ways that aren’t marriage, right? Or am I missing something here?

Basically marriage doesn't grant one Israeli citizenship. That is all. You can still marry whomever you want.
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