From: bh437292@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Basil Hamdan)
Subject: Dual citizenship, US-Israel. (was Re: Kahane's philosophy)
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 19:55:16 GMT
Reply-To: bh437292@lance.colostate.edu
Organization: Engineering College, Colorado State University


In article <1992Dec15.180109.23379@cs.ucla.edu>, steven@maui.cs.ucla.edu (Steve Berson) writes:
|> hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker) writes:
|> 
|> >Since Israel is the only nationality which the US allows it's citizens to aquire
|> >without losing US citizenship there has always been a problem with American
|> >imigrants to Israel who were quite happy to vote for an extreemist line but
|> >always knew that they had a safe bolthole to run to if things got nasty.
|> >Phill Hallam-Baker
|> 
|> Is there any factual basis for this claim?
|> Thanks,
|> Steve

No this is common misconception of US laws, I sought some information
on this matter and I received a long Q&A type online document.
Basically, Americans are allowed to become dual citizens of other
countries (that do not require them to give up American citizenship)
if they are non naturalized citizens, or naturalized as children.
If they are naturalized citizens as adults, then they are asked
to forego all previous nationalities in order to aquire the US
nationality.  It has been argued that this gives naturalized 
citizens less than equal rights, and one can conceivably make a
case that after a year has passed since the naturalized citizen
has aquired US citizen he can then reassert his prior citizenship.
"The theory is that, after this one-year period, the new citizen
has fulfilled the 14th Amendment requirement of being subject to
the jurisdiction of the US -- and is thereafter free to become the
citizen of an additional country on the same basis as a natural-born
US citizen would be".  But I do not want to be a test case
for the 14th Amendment.
So basically a natural-born  American of Jewish ancestry can 
legally aquire Isreali citizenship and become dual US/Israeli 
citizen, but the converse is not true, that is a natural-born
Israeli has to forego his Israeli citizenship (in strict legal terms)
if he wishes to aquire US citizenship.
 
Here is an excerpt(I can e-mail the complete and long document
to anyone concerned or interested):

======================================================================

Q:  Does the US have a special agreement with Israel permitting people
    to be dual US/Israeli citizens?

A:  No.  It just happens that Israeli citizenship law does not require
    renunciation of one's old citizenship in order to become a citizen
    of Israel.  In this regard, Israel is treated no differently from
    Canada, the UK, France, or other countries which permit people to
    become citizens without giving up their old status.

    I've been told that the US State Department has granted additional
    autonomy to its consular officials in Israel to deal with dual-
    citizenship claims without having to forward them all to Washington.
    This was reportedly done because there are so many such cases in
    Israel, however, and is not the result of any special treaty or
    other agreement with that country.

    Note that serving in a foreign army does =not= automatically cause
    you to lose US citizenship.  As explained below, if you do this with
    the =intent= of thereby giving up your US citizenship, then yes, you
    can end up losing your US citizenship.  So, again, the fact that
    most dual US/Israeli citizens can fulfill their obligation to serve
    in the Israeli army (IDF) without losing their US status is not the
    result of any special treaty between the US and Israel.

=====================================================================

Basil