Adalah Calls on Members of Knesset to Vote Against Extending the Law Banning Family Unification

Following today's decision by the Israeli cabinet to extend the law banning family unification, Adalah calls on Members of Knesset (MKs) to vote against the six-month extension of the “Nationality and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) – 2003” (the law) which prohibits the granting of any residency or citizenship status to Palestinians from the Occupied Territories who are married to Israeli citizens, thereby banning family unification. The law was enacted by the Knesset (Israeli parliament), as a temporary order for one year on 31 July 2003. In accordance with Article 5 of the law, the Israeli Knesset must approve any extension of the law. The Israeli government is expected to ask the Knesset to renew the law within the very near future.

The law bars Palestinians from the Occupied Territories from obtaining any residency status or citizenship in Israel by marrying an Israeli citizen, thus prohibiting them from living in Israel with their spouses. It has affected thousands of married couples and their children living in Israel, as well as newly married couples, and has forced families to separate or to emigrate. The law has primarily affected Palestinian citizens of Israel, as they are the Israeli citizens who marry Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. It exclusively and solely targets Palestinians; the general policy for residency and citizenship status in Israel for all other "foreign spouses" has remained unchanged. It is also retroactive, as it prohibits the granting of legal status in Israel to anyone who did not submit such a request before 12 May 2002. The law contravenes international law, which prohibits discrimination based on national belonging specifically with regards to the right to citizenship, as well as international treaties to which Israel is a party.

In the letter sent to current MKs, Adalah attorney Orna Kohn argues that the law is severely unconstitutional, since it violates individuals' fundamental constitutional rights to family life, dignity, privacy, and equality, in accordance with Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty (1992). Adalah further argued that the law totally overrides any discretion granted to the Minister of Interior in conferring legal status on Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens. “The law is grossly unconstitutional, racist and discriminatory, and, as it denies basic rights based on national belonging, its legislation was illegal to begin with,” Adalah further asserted. Adalah stressed that extending the law will further exacerbate the existing infringement on basic constitutional rights, owing to the fact that, “the longer the infringement goes on, the harsher the damage inflicted, since forced separation between a parent and child, man and wife, becomes harder to bear the longer it continues.” Adalah further asserts in the letter that the law violates the right to family life, by precluding the submission of any requests for legal status in Israel, resulting in the forced separation of families. The right to family life places a prohibition on the state against arbitrary interference with the family, as well as an obligation on the state to protect the family and the right of parents to raise their children. Furthermore, the retroactive character of the law leads to a further breach of the constitutionally-protected rights of families.

United Nations (UN) committees, The European Union, Israeli and international human rights organizations and legal academics have all called on Israel to revoke the ban on family unification. For example, in August 2003 UN Committee to End Racial Discrimination urged Israel to revoke the ban, and the UN Human Rights Committee in its final concluding observations on Israel similarly urged Israel to, "revoke the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law ... and reconsider its policy with a view to facilitating family reunification of all citizens and permanent residents." In its most recent report on Israel and the Occupied Territories, entitled Torn Apart: Families Split by Discriminatory Policies, Amnesty International states that, “the law formally institutionalized a form of racial discrimination based on ethnicity or nationality.”

Upon the passing of the law in July 2003, Adalah filed a petition to the Supreme Court in its own name and on behalf of two families, the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens in Israel, and Arab MKs; additional petitions were filed by the Meretz political party, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and by private lawyers on behalf of individual families. The petitions were filed against the Interior Minister and the Attorney General. The Supreme Court has joined these petitions for hearings and decision. In its petition, Adalah challenges the constitutionality of the law and demands its nullification, and the instatement of an alternative naturalization process. A three-judge panel of the Supreme Court held a hearing on the petitions in November 2003. A second hearing on the petitions was held in January 2004, before an enlarged panel of 13 justices. The Court has issued an order nisi and injunctions preventing the deportation of three Palestinian spouses married to Arab citizens of Israel, until a final judgment is delivered. The Court rejected the petitioners' request for an injunction to freeze the implementation of the law while the case is pending. The petitions are currently pending a final ruling. Adalah argues that security concerns, used by the state to justify the need for the law, cannot justify such sweeping measures. While the state blames increasing involvement in terror activity by residents of the West Bank and Gaza who were granted status in Israel through family unification, it could identify only 23 people from a group of thousands of status-receivers who were suspected of indirect involvement, none of whom was involved in any actual terror activity. Even if this data is reliable, Adalah contends, the figures presented constitute a minute number of people, and therefore Adalah argues that the law is completely disproportionate. Adalah further states that the law and the Attorney General's position that three million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza all constitute a danger to the state, are racist and indefensible. To assert that all Palestinians are potential terrorists is to defame and vilify the entire Palestinian nation. Adalah has repeatedly drawn attention to the racist character of this law, differentiating it from a discriminatory law, and likening it to apartheid-era laws in South Africa.

For more information, see Adalah's Special Report on Family Unification.

 The Letter (Hebrew)