The only democracy in the region, cont.

To me it's always been self-evident that Israel is not a democracy (both because its discrimination against non-Jews within its internationally recognized borders and its military occupation and rule over the Palestinian Occupied Territories) but many Israelis are themselves shocked at the formalization of discrimination against Israeli citizens who are not Jewish. Here's how Jerry Haber aka "The Magnes Zionist" puts it (last link below):

Yesterday, the State of Israel became the first western state whose High Court ruled that some citizens have fewer fundamental rights than other citizens based on their ethnicity. Actually, it had done so before, but yesterday it rejected  the most sustained challenge to the “Citizenship Law,” which bars the non-Israeli spouses of Israeli Palestinians from becoming citizens. So while an Israeli Jew from Brooklyn has the right of marrying anybody she likes, and having her spouse naturalized, a native Palestinian Israeli citizen cannot marry  a distant relative who lives in a town five minutes from her house – unless that relative was a Palestinian collaborator, working for the Israelis, and then, only by special approval of the Minister of Interior.

Some reading on the matter:

• High Court okays Citizenship Law, legalizing racial discrimination of Arabs
• ynet אדמונד לוי נגד אשר גרוניס: על מה הוא מתבסס? - חדשות
• The quiet man who's making a storm in Israel's Supreme Court scene: Justice Asher Grunis - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
• The Magnes Zionist: Israeli “Democracy” Descends Lower into Hell

[Thanks, PM]

Comments

[kasssandra]

You are of course aware that when Israel opened up for Soviet migration, all that was needed was ONE grandparent that was theoretically Jewish. Needless to say, there was a market for Jewish grandparents -- documentation could be bought. I know one couple from the ex-Soviet Union where the husband had some Jewish connection , the wife had none. The husband died. The wife was able to sponsor the immigration of her first husband, who of course had no Jewish connection whatsoever. The only good thing is that they are both old and sick and living off the Jewish state. So much for the only democracy in the ME!

[Jayson Casper]

It will be interesting to see how this rhetoric about being the only democracy adapts itself if Egypt and others continue to move in a democratic direction. The democracy point was such a rallying cry in the US previously, working outside the lines of religious support.

[sams88]

Why would Israel freely accept people who are viscerally opposed to its very existence has full time citizens ?

Israel is still the only Democracy in the ME, and they are such not in vacuum, but in the reality of Palestinian Hatred. this is a good way to address it.

[Jayson Casper]

I see the point, but I would question the ruling from a different basis than strict human rights. That is, why does a spouse have the 'human right' to take citizenship of his or her partner? That doesn't seem right to me. Citizenship is for nationals, and foreigners can be invited in, pendent to regulations.

But on the other hand, if Israeli law has this as a standard practice, it seems wrongfully discriminatory to exclude on the basis of ethnicity. If someone marries a Palestinian troublemaker, by all means do not grant automatic citizenship. But here it is the regulation that should not be upheld by the courts.

Of course, I don't know the ins and outs of the law or the ruling, but this seems where the rub lies.