More Racism Accusations

Excellent editorial at JPost refuting accusations that racism is the motive behind Israel’s decision to extend for six months a law blocking Israeli citizenship from Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens.

The temporary law took effect due to a suicide bombing in 2002 where 15 Israelis were killed and more than 40 were wounded. The Hamas terrorist who carried out the attack had become a citizen by marrying an Israeli Arab.

“The new restrictions seem to have had a security impact. General Security Services head Avi Dichter has testified that from the beginning of the current offensive until the new law took effect, 26 Palestinians who had married Israelis were involved in terrorist attacks – compared to only two subsequent cases. Dichter points out that terrorist groups try hard to recruit from among Palestinians who move to Israel, and that their access and mobility will be an even greater asset the more the security fence is completed.”

Highlighting the security rationale behind the decision is the drafting of a new law that would grant citizenship through marriage to Palestinian women, men over the age 35, and couples already in Israel with unresolved status. All of these categories carry a lower security risk.

Nation-states give preference to their nationals; that is what they do. All over the world, liberal democracies – not to mention states with fewer compunctions – choose who they wish to become citizens using many different criteria.

Denmark, according to the Economist, has adopted the most stringent immigration restrictions in Europe on openly ethnic grounds. As a result, family reunification applications have dropped from 13,000 in 2001 to less than 5,000 in 2003. And until quite recently, Germany had stringent citizenship criteria that discriminated in favor of "ethnic Germans" against non-Germans, such as Turks who had been living in Germany for generations. Though many countries, such as the United States, discriminate between applicants for citizenship on economic grounds, such distinctions can be portrayed as ethnic or even racial restrictions in disguise, since they disproportionately affect certain countries.

Since 1994, "family reunification" under Israeli law has allowed about 100,000 Palestinians to immigrate to Israel, in addition to many Palestinians who have moved here illegally. Israel is under no moral obligation to allow this undermining of its demographic balance – which is not just a matter of character, but survival – to continue.