FILE PHOTO: A Palestinian woman crosses the Kalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, on August 13, 2010
The law creates an array of difficulties for Palestinian families that span the war-drawn and largely invisible frontiers separating Israel from occupied east Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, territories it seized in the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for a future state. The citizenship law also applies to Jewish Israelis who marry Palestinians from the territories, but such unions are extremely rare.“You want your security, it’s no problem, you can check each case by itself,” said Taiseer Khatib. His wife of more than 15 years, from the West Bank city of Jenin, must regularly apply for permits to live with him and their three children in Israel.
“We want stability in this country, like anyone else,” said Maryam Abu Arar, from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, who requires a permit to live with her husband and four children in Israel.Israel is changing the demographics of Golan Heights tooThe Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law was enacted as a temporary measure in 2003, at the height of the second intifada, or uprising, when Palestinian groups launched attacks inside Israel.
Israel's Arab minority, which makes up 20 percent of the population, has close familial ties to Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and largely identifies with their cause. The Arab minority view the law as one of several forms of discrimination they face in a country that legally defines itself as a Jewish nation-state.
But even as Defense Minister Benny Gantz, a political centrist, recently urged the right-wing opposition to support the law on security grounds, he also evoked demographic concerns.