Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Apartheid in Practice

In Israel, married but without rights

Report, The Electronic Intifada, 5 August 2008

"BEERSHEBA/JAFFA (IRIN) - Some 15,000 Palestinians who married Israeli citizens in the past decade are illegal or temporary residents. Their lives and those of their families have become "unstable," according to non-governmental organizations.

"Many families are being forced to live underground," said Orna Cohen, an attorney from Adalah, an Israeli rights group fighting the ban on "family unifications" (mixed marriages involving Palestinians or some other Arabs) in Israel.

While most foreign nationals who marry Israelis can live in the Jewish state and eventually obtain citizenship, Palestinians and some other Arabs are unable to do so.

What started out in 2002 as a temporary order -- enacted at the height of regional violence -- preventing Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from marrying Israeli citizens and residents and moving to Israel, has now become law, which seems more permanent than provisional....."

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