Rights Group Challenges Family Unification Ban in Israel’s Supreme Court

An Israeli rights group, Adalah: The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, has filed a petition in Israel’s Supreme Court that challenges the new Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, that bans Palestinians married to Israeli citizens from receiving permits to live in Israel. The petition on behalf of three families was filed with the court on Sunday, just days after it passed the Knesset with votes cast by government and opposition lawmakers.

Adalah argues that the law is different then previous versions. “For the first time, the law explicitly states that the ban on Palestinian family unification is intended to serve the Jewish character of the state. The legislators themselves stated that they saw fit to do so, given the 2018 Jewish Nation-State Law.  As Adalah argued then, the Jewish Nation-State Law constitutionally enshrines Jewish supremacy over Palestinians and has distinct characteristics of apartheid. Now the Supreme Court will have to decide whether they will continue to allow the state to operate on two separate citizenship tracks based on national and ethnic affiliation under the eternal pretext of temporality,” the group said in a statement on its website.

The law previously stated that it was based solely on security considerations.

The law first introduced in 2003 has been renewed every year since 2007, until last July, when Israeli lawmakers in the Knesset were unable to muster a majority to renew it.