Israel renewed an old legal practice to proceed with compulsory family division against the Palestinians in its territories. Palestinian residents of Israel will face serious familial issues following the move.
A few days ago, Israeli authorizes renewed the “Citizenship and Entry into Israel” Law. Tens of thousands of spouses and families had their basic ability to live with each other violated by this law.
For over twenty years, the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law has controlled the family life in Palestine. The Israeli administration failed to extend it in less than a year ago. Nonetheless, it actually kept separating Palestinian families during the recent months.
Palestinian people with Israeli identity registrations or residence have no authorization to extend their legal rights to partners who have Palestinian Authority identities, according to the law. The so-called “family reunification law” also prevents them from living with each other in a location of their choice.
The law also covers couples from countries defined as hostile by Israel, including such Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, and Syria. The family division, nevertheless, will not bother members fro, the Jewish community or other foreign nationals from ally states.
In the meantime, Jewish non-Israeli husbands or wives of Israeli Jewish community possess the routine privilege for Israeli citizenship. Non-Jewish partners, on the other hand, can get Israeli nationality after before a duration of five years. Families in this condition have the permission to stay in Israeli lands or Israeli settlement regions. East Jerusalem and the West bank are the regions Israel occupied against international conventions to expand the settlement project.
A legal center in Israel launched a legal challenge against the law’s re-imposing before the Supreme Court a few days ago. According to the Adalah Institute, it is a rare fascist and discriminating legislation in the world.
Family Division; An Oriented Segregation
Inside the so-called “Green Line,” 1.8 million Palestinian people reside under Israeli citizenship. With Palestinian Authority IDs, another 4.5m Palestinian nationals live in the Palestinian areas under Israeli occupation after 1967.
Palestinian people in the West Bank are blocked entrance to Israel unless they have a difficult-to-get military permission. Palestinian citizens holding Israeli passports, on the other hand, can easily access West Bank and maintain family and community relationships.
In addition to studying in Israeli colleges, large part of this group in Israel attend Palestinian institutions in West Bank. These are, nevertheless, prohibited from residing in the West Bank downtown under Israeli administrative directives.
Inhabitants of East Jerusalem are also disproportionately affected by the family division practice. Marriage rates between this group and Palestinian people in West Bank are high, owing to physical proximity and other factors.
Over 350 thousand people from Jerusalem live in Israel but are not Israeli official citizens. They lack the permission to apply their residence to a potential West Bank partner and live in the city together. Inhabitants of Jerusalem may even lose their residence, medical insurance, and permission to return to the city if they go to the West Bank.
Less than a week ago, the latest version of the legislation returned to work in force. The new enforcement, Israeli officials said openly that the government’s main purpose is to preserve Jewish population dominance. The device en route is to block Palestinian people from Jerusalem and West Bank from having citizenship.
This is the very fact that activists and human rights organizations referred to during the past years. Israel enforces family division as a tool to disintegrate family condition for Palestinians. The segregations may take deeper dimensions if it is not met with appropriate response by international community.
