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The decision by the Israeli High Court of
Justice on 14 May to uphold a law which explicitly denies family
rights on the basis of ethnicity or national origins is a step
further in the institutionalization of racial discrimination in
Israel.
The “Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law” bars family
reunification for Israelis married to Palestinians from the Occupied
Territories. It specifically targets Israeli Arabs (Palestinian
citizens of Israel), who make up a fifth of Israel’s population, and
Palestinian Jerusalemites, (1) for it is they who marry Palestinians
from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Thousands of couples are affected by this discriminatory law, which
forces Israeli Arabs married to Palestinians to leave their country
or to be separated from their spouses and children. Israeli military
law forbids Israelis from entering the main population centres in
the Occupied Territories and Israeli citizens cannot join their
Palestinian spouses there, and at the same time Palestinian spouses
staying in Israel without a permit are constantly at risk
of being deported and separated from their families. Thus,
Israeli-Palestinian couples would ultimately be forced to move to
another country in order to live together – an option which is
neither feasible nor desirable for those concerned. In addition,
Palestinian Jerusalemites would lose their residency and their
right to ever live in Jerusalem again if they move out of the
city.
Five of the 11 High Court of Justice’s judges who ruled on this law
on 14 May, including the Court’s President, voted against upholding
the law, recognizing that it infringes human rights. The Court’s
President, Aharon Barak, stated that the law violates the right of
Israeli Arabs to equality.
Indeed, the law violates the absolute prohibition on discrimination
contained in international human rights law, notably several
treaties which Israel has ratified and is obliged to uphold,
including the International Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the Convention on
the Rights of the Child (CRC).
The provision in the law which allows for the discretionary granting
of temporary residence permits for Palestinian male spouses over 35
and female spouses over 25 is arbitrary in nature and does not
alter the discriminatory character of the law. It will also not
benefit the majority of Israeli-Palestinian couples, who marry at a
younger age. Moreover, the permit applications of spouses who meet
the age criteria can be rejected on the grounds that a member of
his/her extended family is considered a “security risk” by Israeli
security services. Thousands of Palestinians seeking family
reunification prior to the passing of this law were rejected on
unspecified “security” grounds in circumstances where the failure to
provide detailed reasons for each rejection made it impossible for
those rejected to mount an effective legal challenge to the
decision.
The Israeli authorities have sought to justify the law on security
grounds but have brought no convincing evidence to substantiate such
claims. Even claims that some 25 people, some of whom were born to
Israeli parents and were not in Israel as a result of family
reunification, have been involved in attacks in security-related
offences, cannot justify denying family reunification to every
Palestinian. Doing so is discriminatory and disproportionate and
would constitute a form of collective punishment, prohibited under
international law. Moreover, statements by Israeli officials and
legislators who support the new law indicate that it is primarily
motivated by demographic, rather than security, considerations -
that is, a determination to reduce the percentage of Israeli Arabs
among the country's population.
The ban on family unification for Israeli-Palestinian couples,
initially introduced by an administrative decision of the Interior
Minister in 2002 and subsequently passed into law by the Israeli
Knesset in July 2003, is due to be reviewed by the Israeli Knesset
next July. Amnesty International reiterates its call on the Israeli
government and on Members of the Knesset to repeal this law and to
ensure that any steps taken to address security concerns, including
any amendments to the citizenship law, comply with international
human rights law – notably the principle of non-discrimination.
(1) Palestinians who remained in Israel after the establishment of
the state in 1948 became Israeli citizens, whereas the Palestinian
inhabitants of Jerusalem received a special status as permanent
residents after Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 and
its subsequent annexation. Today, there are about 230,000
Palestinian permanent residents of Jerusalem.
Source:
Amnesty International, 17 May.
2006
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