Israel’s New Government Fails To Renew Disputed Citizenship Law

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Israel’s parliament failed on Tuesday to renew a disputed law that bars granting citizenship or residency to Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza who are married to Israeli citizens, dealing a setback to the new coalition government.

An early-morning vote in the Knesset (parliament) tied at 59-59, short of a simple majority needed to extend the 2003 law, which expires at midnight. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called the vote “a premeditated, direct blow to national security.”

The vote highlights challenges Bennett has already begun to face managing his ideologically diverse coalition, which was sworn in last month and includes left-wing parties and an Arab Islamist faction.

Two members of the United Arab List abstained from the vote. And, in a bid to embarrass Bennett, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his right-wing Likud party, who had supported the bill in the past, voted against it, joined by one lawmaker from Bennett’s own Yamina faction.

Israel passed the law, a temporary ordinance, during the height of a Palestinian uprising. Most proponents say it helps ensure Israel’s security, while others say it maintains Israel’s “Jewish character.” It had been extended annually since 2003.

However, critics say it discriminates against Israel’s 21% Arab minority — who are Palestinian by heritage, Israeli by citizenship — by barring them from extending citizenship and permanent residency rights to Palestinian spouses. Exceptions are made on a case-by-case basis.

“I have been married for 26 years and have had to renew my temporary residency annually,” said Asmahan Jabali, a Palestinian married to a man from Taybeh, an Arab village in central Israel.

Jabali, who has coordinated advocacy against the law, estimates that tens of thousands of families are in similar situations.

“This is a temporary victory, but it is only the beginning,” she said.

Vowing to “fix” the situation, Bennett said on Tuesday that Netanyahu and others had chosen “petty politics over the good of the citizens of Israel, and they will owe a long reckoning to the citizens of Israel for their actions.”

The Knesset could vote again at a future date on extending the citizenship law, though it is unclear when that might happen.

Urging legislators to support the law on Monday, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said: “It is one of the tools designed to ensure a Jewish majority in the State of Israel.

“Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, and our goal is to have a Jewish majority,” he said on Twitter, adding that without the law “there would be an increase in Palestinian terrorism”.

Lapid, a centrist, reached a power-sharing deal with Bennett in June to unseat longtime premier Netanyahu. Their 61-member coalition in the 120-seat parliament pledged to focus on socioeconomic issues and avoid sensitive policy choices towards the Palestinians.

Algemeiner Staff. (c) 2021.

{Matzav.com}


4 COMMENTS

    • This Is expected reaction from the eternally Peter Pan adolescent Generation X cool anglo-american who live in Israel

      the real query is: should this government present government have legitimacy? Answer :it has zero

      Unless the regulations are based on a Groundswell Reservoir of tradition which the Opposition coming from there is no basis to refuse Arabs the right to family reunification and citizenship unless ethnocentric
      & Fascist.

  1. @N. Oyb

    Maybe you missed the part where shaked promised meretz mk of 3,000 families naturalized…in exchange for supporting the bill

  2. It’s not the Likud’s job to save the government from itself

    By Mati Tuchfeld

    The opposition’s dilemma as to whether to oppose important and necessary legislation out of political considerations is difficult and understandable. The legislation that will be brought for a vote will be but the first of many. Support for the law means granting the current government a safety net. Every time Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar encounter difficulty with the left-wing flank of the coalition, they will be able to skip right over their heads and rely on the legislative support of the Likud and other right-wing opposition parties that will repeatedly need to obey to save the state from its government. It seems it would be smarter to simply act to replace it..
    Moreover, there is a serious problem with the logic of Bennett’s and Shaked’s remarks. if the Likud is indeed being reckless in its political opposition to the proposed family reunification law, why wouldn’t these Yamina members impose coalitionary discipline on government members? After all, this is a necessary tool, without which no government could function. And if coalitionary discipline were to be violated on such a critical and cardinal issue, the two could break up the recently formed government because it is not looking out for the security and fate of its citizens. As long as they fail to take action – and don’t expect them to in the future either, their empty words are aimed merely at dragging the opposition into some kind of nonexistent collective culpability..

    but with them it’s different. As far as we know, Netanyahu didn’t send private investigators to spy on political rivals. Former Zionist Union party head Tzipi Livni, supposedly Mrs. Clean, did. So, too, did the current head of Israel’s “pro-change” and “unity” government Bennett himself.

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