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Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

reuters.com

461–470 of 735 posts

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#461
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it have to be? Does it operate a gas pipeline that heats Germany, or something? Is it an irreplaceable source of titanium? A major wheat exporter? Is the West planning to use it as a launchpad for a war of aggression in the region?

> Is the West planning to use it as a launchpad for a war of aggression in the region? Pretty sure this was the reason. It’s a tactical piece that they want to keep control over. Everyone else in the region hates them (and rightfully so).

Considering Israel does not, and never has allowed American forces to be stationed inside Israel, this seems pretty unlikely.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#462

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"?

>Or is support of cultural preservation only virtuous when the alternative is labeled "gentrification"?

Well yeah. "Cultural preservation" is only good when the NGO class supports it. When they don't like it, it's racism.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#463

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?

I believe that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are essentially stateless. It is similar to the South African Bantustans where you put an undesirable population so that they have a little bit of self-government so that you can justify excluding them from the electorate of the main nation, but not enough to actually be their own country, so you can essentially still manage that land.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#464
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's precisely because we stopped pulling this sort of crap in more and more places. 300 years ago, the number of religions and ethnicities currently existing in US or Western Europe would have meant a constant state of civil war.

That's not true. Look at India - it has many times more ethnicities, and many Indian kingdoms used to have good relations even between Hindus and Muslims before modern times. Also, empires like the Ottoman empire had Turks, Arabs, Greeks, Persians, Jews and many other nationalities; and Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians and other religions living in relative harmony - certainly not in a constant state of civil war. A…

And before monotheism took over... well polytheistic societies don't really have "a religion" that is separate from other polytheistic religions. There are lots of gods and people focus on different ones. The next town over seems to have similar gods, but some of the stories are a little different and one or two has a different name... or is that a different god altogether. That town really far away talks funny, every god has a different name and some of them have wildly different stories, but a lot of it is still recognizable...

In other words, religious tolerance with polytheistic societies looks a lot different than the "my god/prophet vs. yours" which is much more prominent with monotheistic religions.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#465
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then please enlighten us, what's the rationale?

There have been cases of Israeli citizens marrying terrorists to get them into the country. Though this law is an overreaction. It's one thing to do background checks and impose a waiting period on Palestinian spouses, but a total ban is ridiculous.

But one does not need citizenship to explode a bomb. How is the law going to help here?

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#466
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try diverting from the core issue at hand, using semantic sleights of hand, but it’s becoming apparent that Israel is indeed an apartheid state. By the laws it enacts and the oppression they enable, it is the definition of a racist state. The world is beginning to see it too, though very slowly.

I think in a conversation that's this divisive it's critical to be semantically very clear. I don't know that I'm using any sleights of hand, but if you want to agree to very specific definitions on the terms being discussed I always think that's useful. Regarding the apartheid analogy: I don't want to get into a semantic sleight of hand here, but the term apartheid comes from Dutch Afrikaans to describe their rule o…

Stop, just stop this nonsense! you know you are using strawman arguments to justify oppresion based on ethnicity, religion or whatever else in the 21st century for crying out loud. How is this supposed to be a well behaved representation of "democracy"? it clearly is not!

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#467
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a policy of apartheid, which is motivated by both immigration and security. Fortunately, as we have learned over the past few weeks, sanctions are an effective means of pushback against archaic 20-th century statesmanship.

Unfortunately, geopolitics all but guarantee this will never happen so long as Israel is a strong western ally

It will not happen as long as there exists a strong pro-Israel lobby in the US.

Israel passed on confidential US military technology to China and abstained in the Security Council resolution against Russia. That's not the behaviour of a strong ally.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#468

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…

'Israel is slowly losing its support' is a bit of a retelling... even in light of recent public and viral pro-Palestine support, Israel continues to maintain favorability among elected officials and people in America- in fact, favorability toward Israel has only increased since 2019[0]. And policies favoring Israel is not isolated to a federal level; many U.S. states force educators to sign agreements to not criticize Israel.[1] Indeed, I see Americans turn a blind eye to the horrors faced by Palestinians regardless of how many public figures correctly refer to Israel's actions as running the world's largest open-air prison.

[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/340331/americans-favor-israel-w...

[1] https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/israel-texas-anti-bds-la...

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#469

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

Nothing unusual about that. Many states have official religions (like the UK). And pretty much all of Israel's neighbors in the Middle East have official religions.

Re: Israel passes law denying naturalization to Palestinian spouses

#470
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

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