Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Gerusalemme liberata (dai palestinesi)

Residency Rights / ID Card Confiscation
Israeli demographic strategies vis-à-vis Palestinian Jerusalemites - such
as restrictive residency and housing policies - aim at both separating
them from the Palestinians in the West Bank and driving them out of the
city in order to secure a long-term Jewish majority. Until this day, any
Palestinian who is not classified by the Israeli government as a permanent
resident of East Jerusalem - incl. spouses, children and other relatives
of East Jerusalem permanent residents - must apply for family
reunification to reside legally there. The decision to grant or deny these
applications is, according to Israeli Law, ultimately at the discretion of
the Interior Minister, who is not required to justify refusal.
Israel applies a number of discriminatory methods to control the number of
Palestinians who legally reside in the city. The confiscation of ID cards
under bureaucratic pretexts is one of these. Instrumental in this are the
1952 Law of Entry to Israel and the 1974 Entry to Israel Regulations, both
of which regulate residence in Israel. The following restrictive
provisions do not apply to Jewish permanent residents or Israeli citizens
but only to Palestinian Jerusalemites. Those who:
- wish to travel abroad must obtain an Israeli re-entry visa; otherwise,
they lose their right of return;
- hold or apply for residency/citizenship elsewhere lose their residency
right in Jerusalem; this policy relates to a ‘regulation’ the Israeli
government introduced in 1994, according to which Palestinian
Jerusalemites must prove that their ‘center of life’ is within the
municipal boundaries;
- live abroad for more than seven years lose their residency rights; in
1996, the Israeli government decided that any Jerusalemite who lives in
the ‘territory’ (West Bank) more than seven years, would also cease to be
an Israeli resident (of those 411 ID cards confiscated in 1999, for
example, 290 were revoked because the holder had moved abroad and 121
because he had moved to the WBGS); 
- want to register their children as Jerusalem residents can do so only if
the father holds a valid Jerusalem ID card; as a consequence, there are
countless cases of ‘unregistered’ children of couples living ‘illegally’
in Jerusalem - who are denied access to the city’s educational and health
services - and of Jerusalemite women who are forced to leave the city.
- marry non-resident spouses (from the WBGS or abroad) must apply for
family reunification in order to live legally with their spouses in
Jerusalem. Most of these applications are turned down, with no need for
justification.
Due to the fear of having their ID cards revoked, Palestinian
Jerusalemites avoid approaching the Ministry of Interior, except in real
emergency situations, although the number of East Jerusalem Palestinians
that have their residency rights revoked is decreasing. The Israeli policy
of ‘quiet deportation’ in East Jerusalem through court judgments, legal
and administrative tactics has resulted in the revocation of 6,444 ID
cards from Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem since 1967 (as of April
2001); this number does not include the dependent children of those who
lost their ID cards.
In May 2002, the Israeli govt. decided to stop processing all family
unification applications submitted by non- Jerusalemite Palestinians. On
31 July 2003, the Knesset approved by a vote of 53 to 25 a bill to prevent
Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens from receiving Israeli citizenship
or permanent residency status. The law is to become an amendment [roba
dell'altroieri, 14 May 2006: High Court approves racist amendment to
Nationality Law] to a clause in the Citizenship Law relating to family
unification (Citizenship and Entry Into Israel Law - Temporary Order 2003)
and applies retroactively. According to this policy, also children born in
the Occupied Territories to permanent residents of Israel are affected as
they will only be recognized as Israeli residents upon an approved family
unification application, all such applications were frozen in May 2002.
The "temporary order" will be in effect for one year only but the govt.
can extend its provisions indefinitely.
http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/facts_and_figures/0_facts_and_figures.htm
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2002.
Balle.
-Stefano