Israelies accused of racism over marriage law

The Israeli parliament today passed a new law to force Palestinians who marry Israelis to live separate lives or move out of of the country.

Human rights groups and Israeli Arabs described the law as racist.

The law would prevent Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who marry Israeli Arabs from obtaining residency permits in Israel.

The vote was 53 in favour, 25 against and one abstention, a spokeswoman for the parliament said.

“We see this law as the implementation of the transfer policy by the state of Israel,” said Jafar Savah from Mossawa, an advocacy centre for Israeli Arabs, referring to a plan by far right groups to transfer Israeli Arabs to other Arab countries.

Savah said the law was an attempt to legalise unofficial policy that has been in effect since September 2000 when violence broke out and warned that the law would damage relations between Israel and its Arab minority.

Both local and international human rights groups have condemned the law as racist.

“This is a racist law that decides who can live here according to racist criteria,” said Yael Stein from the Israeli rights group B’tselem.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International sent letters to the parliament protesting the law and urging MPs not to pass it, a statement from Human Rights Watch said.

Israel’s government contends that such a law is necessary for security reasons, citing instances where Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza have exploited their residency permits, granting them freedom of movement in Israel, to carry out terror attacks.

“This law comes to address a security issue,” said Cabinet Minister Gideon Ezra. “Since September 2000 we have seen a significant connection, in terror attacks, between Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza and Israeli Arabs,” Ezra said.

The law forces newly married couples to choose between living in the Palestinian areas or living separately and would be in effect for a year when the parliament must renew it.

It is not uncommon for members of Israel’s one million strong Arab community to marry residents of the Palestinian areas, and this was one of the only ways a Palestinian could be eligible for an Israeli residency permit.

Ezra told the radio that since 1993 over 100,000 Palestinians have obtained Israeli permits in this manner. ”It has grown out of control,” he said.

Stein from B’tselem said there have been only 20 cases from these 100,000 people who have been involved in terror.

“I am not taking these attacks lightly but this is an extreme solution to a marginal phenomenon,” Stein said.

Ezra turned aside charges that the law was racist, saying ”I agree that anyone who kills Jews just because they are Jewish is a racist.”