Haaretz
Adar2 28, 5765
It was announced this week that
the government plans to stiffen the rules for granting citizenship to
non-Jews, through amendments to the law that make it difficult to grant
legal status to Palestinians and other foreigners married to Israeli
citizens. The prime minister held a special discussion of the issue and
decided to establish a committee headed by the interior minister. The
Interior Ministry claims that some 55,000 applications for Palestinian
family reunification through marriages to Israeli Arabs have been
submitted since 1968, and that natural growth increased the "naturalized"
population to some 137,000 Arabs - about one-tenth of the Arab minority in
Israel.
Meanwhile, an "emergency regulation" passed in 2003 limits
the right of Arab citizens of Israel - a right that belongs to not only
every Jew in Israel but every Jew in the world - to have their spouse and
children naturalized. That distinction is expressed in the classifications
of the Central Bureau of Statistics, which formally divides the citizens
of Israel into two categories: "Jews and others" (Jews, Christians who are
not Arabs, and people without religious classification); and "the Arab
population" (Muslims, Druze, Christian Arabs). That is the language of the
separation.
One must ask the sages of the National Security Council
headed by Giora Eiland - who took part in the special discussion of the
issue and presented the opinions of senior jurists like Ruth Gavison -
what would happen to the natural growth of the Arab population in Israel
(and that, after all is the "danger," not the immigration but their
natural growth) without the "family unifications" if those are prevented
by the proposed law. Perhaps there is a need for a special plan for Arabs?
Maybe cuts in the welfare budgets, the education budgets, the budgets for
local authorities? Perhaps tougher sentences for criminal offenses?
Perhaps prohibition of the establishment of new communities, or
construction beyond the limits of their villages since 1948? All that
already exists. According to the racist logic of the campaign against the
natural growth, we will also reach limits on childbirths. The name of the
game is no longer security, nor "existence," but turning the national
existence into the very purpose of human existence.
Less than two
years ago, when the government backed down from its intention to make it
difficult to grant legal status to Palestinians who married Israeli
citizens, because of opposition from the legal advisor to the Knesset, the
Knesset Interior Committee held a closed door session. The head of the
Shin Bet provided "data about the scope of involvement in terror activity
by people who have blue identity cards because of family unification,"
said Haaretz on July 30, 2003. Then, too, the entire matter sounded
dubious. But the discussion was framed in the context of "security" to
pass the High Court of Justice. Now they are channeling it into a
"discussion of immigration," once again framing it for the High Court's
ears. In the background is the constant equation, "what's bad for the
Arabs is good for the Jews." Betar Jerusalem's fans screaming their "death
to Arabs" slogans are less dangerous than Eiland and
Gavison.
Nonetheless, this has nothing to do with immigration, even
if that's where the rhetorical effort is concentrated. It is first about
the ongoing attitude of the state of Israel to the Palestinian people.
Israel never has truly recognized their equal right to exist, neither
inside Israel's borders nor outside them. There is nothing like the latest
statistical campaign, with its nightmare predictions, to prove
that.
Not only are the subjects of the occupation for more than a
generation, 38 years, not allowed inside the country without a regime of
special permits, and for the last 15 years prevented from working; and not
only, when they leave their defined territories to spend a period of time
overseas, can they lose their homes and property forever, as if they were
foreigners; but the Arabs who are the citizens of Israel lose more and
more of their civil rights, like the right to grant their children minimum
conditions to live with dignity, a public library, a cultural center,
enough nutrition. Those who think there was a big difference between
Kahane and Rehavam Ze'evi will not find big differences between their
common spiritual world and the spiritual world behind this legislation, in
its new campaign.