STEVEN PLAUT EXPLAINS THE ISRAELI RULING ABOUT PALARAB “SPOUSES”
of Return” was being implemented under everyone’s noses. It consisted
of Arab citizens of Israel’s marrying Palestinians from the West Bank,
Gaza or elsewhere and demanding that their spouses be granted Israeli
citizenship. Some of the marriages are fictional, like “Green Card
Weddings” in the US. Many others are multiple wives for Moslems,
especially Bedouins. No one ever stopped the Israeli partner from
going to live with the spouse in the spouse’s location outside
Israel’s Green Line!
The Israeli Left has long demanded that any spouse of any Israeli Arab
citizen be granted automatic residence rights and citizenship in
Israel. It goes without saying that spouses do NOT get automatic
citizenship in most other countries just because they marry a citizen.
(This includes the US.) The Left represents any reluctance to grant
automatic citizenship as a violation of human rights, especially the
“right to marry.”
Now no one is challenging the right of Israeli Arabs to marry
non-Israeli Arabs or anyone else. They can marry “Palestinians” all
the want and go live with their spouses in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, or
Brooklyn. The real problem is the demand that unlimited immigration
into Israel be permitted to all non-Israeli Arab “spouses.” It is all
part of the decades-long campaign by the Left to make Israel as
non-Jewish as possible, to minimize demographically the Jewish
majority in Israel. That is why the Left also wants unlimited free
entry to all Africans who would like to enter Israel as “refugees” and
earn Israeli wages.
Anyway, the question of the “right to marry” and the right of spouses
to automatic citizenship has been under deliberation in the courts and
media in Israel, and yesterday the Israeli Supreme Court issued a
landmark decision in the matter. The ruling affects not only this
specific issue but may signal the beginning of change in the Supreme
Court itself. At last.
Usually Supreme Court judges in Israel sit in a panel of three out of
the full set (this is very different form the US Supreme Court
practice!) For difficult cases, larger panels are used. The ruling
on this case was made by a panel of 11 judges, which is unusually
large.
The panel ruled 6 against 5 in favor of sanity and legal common sense.
It rejected the demand that residence and citizenship be an automatic
entitlement for spouses of Israelis (and of course they meant Israeli
Arabs.) The Israeli Left is squealing in indignation at this defeat
and at this “violation of fundamental human rights.” Haaretz is so
livid that it turned red – ok, it was already red to begin with.
The breakdown of the vote in the Court is also instructive. The five
who voted FOR the entitlement to citizenship were the Beinisch Clique,
and included the Beinisch judicial activists. Edna Arbel and the Arab
judge Salim Joubram voted with Beinisch. Among the six who voted for
sanity were Neal Handel and Eliezer Rivlin, both of whom (with
Joubran) refused to defend freedom of speech in the Gordon-Plaut SLAPP
suit court case. Perhaps most importantly, Asher Gronis, who is about
to take over for Beinisch as Chief Justice, voted against the
entitlement and in favor of sanity!
Perhaps this augurs well for the Israelites!
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