Some days ago in the occupied (against basic international law but unlike Ukraine, Israel remain “untouchable”, especially by a lot of hypocritical countries from the western world’s double standards) East Jerusalem, Israel passed a law, nah re-enacted an apartheid piece of legislation which in effect deprives Palestinian married couples and families of being together as a family.
The Israeli Interior Minister, Ayelet Shaked, says that the passing of the law led to an important result for the security of Israel and its fortification as a Jewish state. The Israeli legislators approve a law denying any right of naturalisation of Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza who are married to Israeli citizens. What is the direct consequence of that law? Thousands of Palestinians families will have to live apart or if they are lucky enough, to emigrate.
The Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett’s Yamina Party, stated that the law is important to protect the integrity of the Jewish state. How many times have I said and written that there is no difference between the actual Prime Minister and the former Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Don’t be deceived by the tone of Bennett or the beauty of the Interior Minister, Miss Ayelet Shaked.
The new law replaced a similar sunset law which was first passed during the height of a Palestinian uprising in 2003. It was renewed annually until it’s expiration in July last year when the National Assembly of Israel (the Knesset) failed to secure a simple majority needed to extend the duration of same.
- The Apartheid citizenship law was voted by a 45-15 majority vote that crossed coalition-opposition lines. Yes, 45-15 out of the 120 members of the KNESSET. How come? Simply because the remaining did not cast votes on the highly divisive legislation.
- The Palestinian spouses of Israelis can obtain temporary two-year residence permits which can be revoked on flimsy security grounds.
Some Knesset members said the law is primarily intended to prevent a gradual right of return for Palestinian refugees driven from their homes or who fled during the Nakbah. The hypocrisy is that the law is passed at a time when Israel prepares to take in thousands of Ukrainian refugees. Hope that one day, these Ukrainian refugees will raise up in favour of the Palestinians as they have experienced for a short while what the Palestinians have been experiencing since the creation of Israel, the 1948 war and the Nakbah.
Who brought the law?Simcha Rothman, member of the far-right religious Zionist party, together with Miss Shaked.
The law seeks to punish the Palestinians collectively. The law discriminates against Israeli’s 21% Palestinian minority, who are Palestinians by heritage & Israeli by citizenship.
Reut Shaer, a lawyer, encapsulates the whole rationale behind the law: “It comes off as more xenophobic or racist (than other laws) because it is not only giving extra rights & privileges to Jewish people. But also preventing certain basic rights only from the Arab population.”
Is that all? The law also bars the unification of spouses from “enemy states” such as Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
Shaer, from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, also said: “It is a collective punishment because it infringes on the rights of an entire population based on assumption that they are all prone to “Terrorism”.
The ‘Adalah Advocacy Group’ said that they will challenge the law in Israel’s Supreme Court : “The justices will now have to decide whether, when faced with the law’s explicit language, they will continue to allow this racist law to be protected under the eternal pretext of temporality”.
I wish them good luck, but I fear that the Supreme Court of Israel will “endorse” the law on the ground of “temporality”.
RAMA VALAYDEN
NOTE : Les points de vue exprimés dans cette rubrique ne reflètent pas nécessairement ceux de la rédaction et n’engagent que les auteurs eux-mêmes.
