Israel-Palestine: The right to marriage

A spirit of intolerance toward non-Jews pervades the current government. Some of the ministers - and first and foremost, Ariel Sharon - are fearful about the loss of the Jewish majority and the state being inundated by Palestinians who will marry Arab Israelis. This fear is not supported by the figures because since 1967, no more than 55,000 Palestinians have immigrated to Israel through marriage. Some two years ago, the government decided to block completely these marriages. This emergency regulation is now under scrutiny by the High Court of Justice.

Another trend is to implement a more stringent immigration policy in the form of a law that would prevent the naturalization of foreign workers who have married Israelis and of spouses of Jewish Israelis who have fallen in love with non-Jews. This type of stringency would affect only a small percentage of the population. Its supporters take heart from a similar law legislated recently in Denmark.

While Sharon and the National Security Council are leading the demographic scare campaign, primarily for reason of security and demography, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni fears for a change in the Jewish character of Israeli society. Livni is worried about the hundreds and thousands of non-Jews who came in the wave of immigration from Russia and changed, as far as she sees it, the character of the state. She is seeking the adoption of more stringent conditions for the naturalization of non-Jews, and has no qualms either about making changes to the Law of Return.

The combination of these two trends could lead to legislation that would undermine civil rights.

The panel of jurists, comprising professors Amnon Rubinstein, Ariel Porat, Yafa Zilbershatz, Ariel Bendor and Shlomo Avineri, is supposed to recommend to the interior minister a new immigration law. Naming an Arab jurist to the panel would have been an appropriate move.

In a ruling of principle in 1999, Justice Mishael Cheshin wrote that every Israeli citizen has the right to freely choose his/her spouse, and that establishing a family in Israel with one's spouse is a fundamental right. One gets the impression that there are moves afoot to legislate a law that will completely uproot the High Court ruling.

The result may well be absurd and intolerable. While every Jew in America and the Ukraine who has never lived in Israel will be able to immigrate with his non-Jewish spouse in accordance with the Law of Return, an Israeli citizen, Jew or Arab, will be forced to emigrate from here if he/she chooses to marry a non-Jew.

The panel of jurists would do well to adopt the High Court ruling of 1999 and use it as the basis for determining the immigration laws. There can be a stringent and gradual naturalization process, and the phenomena of fictitious marriages and illegal residents can be combated; but you cannot force out of the country Israeli citizens who have chosen to marry non-Jews.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/600593.html