c. 2003 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ In 1997, Ahmed Mohammed Abdallah Farachti, a Palestinian construction worker from a small village in the West Bank, married Samar, an Arab Israeli citizen from a village in northern Israel. Soon after the marriage, Farachti went to Israel’s Ministry of the Interior to apply for citizenship.

Seven years and four children later, Farachti, who currently lives in Israel as a temporary resident, is still waiting. And under a new law that prohibits Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens from receiving citizenship or residency status, his chances of becoming an Israeli seem slimmer than ever.

“All this time, I’ve been trying to secure an ID card,” says Farachti in the fluent Hebrew he has picked up during his years in the country. “Instead, what they hand me are temporary permits.”

In the past, whenever the permits expired, Farachti requested another one. If it was delayed or temporarily denied, he had two choices: to stay in Israel illegally with his family or return to the West Bank. Since early September, when he and several other Palestinians petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to strike down the law, Farachti has been living in limbo.

“I’m waiting for the court to make up its mind,” he says. “In the meantime, the court says I can’t be deported.”

Asked why he does not simply relocate his family to his village in the West Bank, Farachti says, “I want my children to live in Israel. There’s no work where I come from. Israel has good schools, good medical care, Bituach Leumi,” the equivalent of Social Security. “This is the place I want to raise my family.”

The law, which went into effect Aug. 1 and requires yearly approval by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, is making it nearly impossible for Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza Strip who marry Israeli citizens to live in Israel with their spouses.

Citizenship and extended-visa applications for Palestinian spouses like Farachti, who are already living in Israel as temporary or permanent residents, have been frozen indefinitely.

Since its passage, the controversial law has brought to the fore internal debates within Israeli society: whether the civil rights of the individual outweigh the right of the public to security; and whether Israel, the only Jewish nation in the world, has the right to maintain a Jewish majority.

The law’s advocates say it is a necessary measure in the fight against terrorism.

Since the start of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, an estimated 20 Palestinians who moved to Israel through marriage or other close family ties have been implicated in terror-related activities, according to Israeli security officials. At least 87 Israelis have been killed in attacks connected in some way to Palestinian newcomers who gained entry through “family reunification.”

Critics of the new law, including some Jewish Israelis, say that it is discriminatory because it singles out Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza while permitting spouses from elsewhere to join their husbands or wives in Israel. They say that it harms the interests of Israeli Arab citizens because they, and not Israeli Jews, marry Palestinians from the territories, and is therefore illegal.

“The new law takes away constitutionally protected rights (of Arab citizens in Israel) explicitly on the basis of ethnic or national belonging,” says Hassah Jabareen, director of Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. “It is racist.”

Many Jewish Israelis view the legislation as a means of thwarting not only terrorism but the tide of Palestinians who move to Israel every year. If the growth of the Arab population in Israel continues to outpace the Jewish population, they say, within a few decades Arabs could outnumber Jews in the Jewish state.

Shmuel Sandler, a professor of democracy and civility at Bar Ilan University, believes that Israel “has the right to demand that the Jewish state remain Jewish. There are 21 Arab countries, and with a Palestinian state there will be 22. Egypt insists on being Egyptian, Syria demands to be Syrian. Why should Israel be any different?”

Sandler points to statements by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat urging Palestinians to move to Israel as a means of undermining both the country’s security and its Jewish edge.

“A lot of these marriages are political,” he says of the thousands of unions between Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel. “Their goal is the takeover of the Jewish state.”

Jeremy Milgrim, a conservative rabbi and Palestinian-rights activist, insists that Israel, which was founded in 1948 as a refuge for Jews in the aftermath of the Holocaust, no longer needs to maintain a Jewish character.

In Milgrim’s view _ an opinion not shared by the vast majority of Israelis or Palestinians, who favor a Palestinian state alongside Israel _ the two peoples should live in one large country that incorporates Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem.

“The notion of the Jewish state was something that gave us solace and comfort in our darkest hours. It’s not a formula for long-term peace and coexistence in the Middle East. This legislation shows us that we’re on very thin ice when we stake our existence on something that is so harsh and so anti-humanitarian,” Milgrim said.

Ahmed Farachti still holds out hope that Israel’s highest court will render a humanitarian ruling.

“I have a lot of family here in Israel. I want to stay,” he said.

DEA END CHABIN