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Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

reuters.com

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Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#521

Post by ngc248 »

credit_guy wrote: post #210

Is there a chance that the Israeli Supreme Court act as a check and balance in this matter? Edit: Because if it doesn’t, this puts a question mark over the whole idea of democracy all around the world.

>>> Because if it doesn’t, this puts a question mark over the whole idea of democracy all around the world.

When you say democracy, what exactly do you mean?

Most democratic countries have representative democracy, where they choose representatives who pass the laws. This was passed in the Israeli parliament. This is democracy at work isn't it?

There is no direct democracy in the world.

I am not supporting the law just discussing what you mean by democracy.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#522

Post by jmyeet »

Israel is an apartheid state, a claim now explicitly made by Amnesty International [1]. Pick any number of highlights:

- Denying citizenship to Palestinians (and other Muslims);

- The Palestinian residence card system. Families that cannot be reunited because of it;

- Population quotas in Jerusalem. Palestinians who have it and leave to, say, go to college will be deemed to have abandoned their residency to maintain this quota;

- Palestinians have separate roads to keep them away from Israelis;

- Palestinian settlements are then further separated by Jewish settlements. These were once deemed illegal but any pretense of removing them has long since disappeared. So it may now take hours to go a mile because of all the new security checkpoints;

- Denying Palestinians building permits and then demolishing anything they build because it's not permitted; and

- Rampant use of collective punishment by the IDF. From the video as one example, kids throwing rocks lead to IDF setting up checkpoints with the explicit purpose of inconveniencing and delaying everyone as a (collective) punishment.

Gaza is an open air prison [2].

Any criticism of these rampant human rights violation gets labelled as being anti-Semitic. It's anti-Israeli. There's a difference.

In the present Ukraine war many have criticized the (illegal) annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. Where is the outrage over, say, Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights? Worse, Russia's annexation has been repeatedly confirmed by Western NGOs as being widely popular with the actual Crimeans [3].

You can legitimately criticize Russia for the Crimean annexation. That's a completely reasonable position. But if you're going to do that, how is the Golan Heights different?

The same goes for any self-determination arguments, as an aside. If Ukraine has the right to self-determination with respect to, say, NATO membership, why don't Crimeans have the right to to join Russia?

[1]: https://vimeo.com/674482282?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&...

[2]: https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-o...

[3]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-a...

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#523

Post by amscanne »

cs702 wrote: 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."

If you apply to Egypt or Jordan and “Jewish”, it also serves as an interesting exercise and helps highlight the reason Israelis (many of which were expelled from those places) may feel the need to preserve a Jewish state. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but context is important. It’s crazy how easily people talk about Israel as an apartheid state, as if all their neighbors are less heinous because it’s not safe for any Jews to live there.

Egypt likely doesn’t have such immigration restrictions because there are basically zero Jews there. Of course there were for centuries, but they were constantly persecuted, and even jailed and tortured in an effective final mass deportation. I’m sure that far more heinous laws and restrictions on Jews than being able to grant residency to your spouse remain on the books.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#526

Post by hersko »

EvilSpark wrote: post #372
walkhour wrote: post #334

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…

[flagged]

You've got to be joking.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#527

Post by tut-urut-utut »

docdeek wrote: 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…

> 48 of 130,000 amounts to 0.037% being involved in terrorist activities which seems very low to be used as justification for a law around security.

... and yet, we have laws that cut basic human rights because of the similar percentage of people dying from it.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#529

Post by walkhour »

ambrozk wrote: post #451
walkhour wrote: post #334

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…

The situation is very much analogous to South African Apartheid. In both cases, an insecure population at the helm of an ethnostate sought to further deprive their state's already-disenfranchised co-residents of legal rights, in an effort to achieve security for themselves. White South Africans made the exact same arguments as Israelis, and in fact collaborated extensively with Israeli security services because they…

There are also differences between Israel and a South African Apartheid. Israel is in a constant state of war and danger of losing its sovereignty. No such justification existed in South African Apartheid.

> but I think it is deeply unwise and immoral to further entrench the current policy of legal apartheid. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will end in either ethnofascism and ethnic cleansing or some form of reconciliation, and this is a step towards ethnofascism.

I agree it's unwise. My point is that these policies should be gaged in terms of probabilities. I take you believe the probability of this ending in an ethnic cleansing instead of reconciliation has increased, I do as well. I also think the probability of Jews becoming a minority in Israel and being persecuted has decreased. Whether this was good/bad/worth it it's a different issue.

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