Changes to Israeli citizenship law aka I hate CNN

Sirotnikov · August 4, 2003, 19:54

Until recently, the Israeli citizenship law said that if you marry a foreigner, you can bring him to Israel and he will automatically recieves citizen status.

Recently, the Israeli Parliament has added an exception, whereby Palestinian spouces will not recieve such a status. That comes after previous changes limiting spouces from other states currently in state of war with Israel, such as Lebanon.

This comes after several of the suicide bombers during the intifada, were discovered to have gained easy access to Israel, since they had double citizenship - both Israeli and Palestinian, usually as a result of a family tie to Israelis.

Due to the effectiveness of closures and limits on Palestinians entering Israel, terrorist organizations have turned to use more and more people with either double citizenship, or even Israeli arabs. An act which further tears up the already frickle situation between the Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel.

The arab MKs and the Palestinains of course, are making a huge deal out of it, as if it was a racial law and the arabs can't marry people, just because they are arab.

Then comes along CNN, and covers the issue - an inner Israeli political issue. The same CNN which never covers inner issues in the Palestinian Authority, such as the steps taken by Arafat to circumvent the limitations put on him by the Roadmap document, or the steps taken by Arafat to weaken Abu Mazen.

The CNN cover of course gave not-equal stage to the Arab and Jewish sides of the dispute, and even then, most of the Jewish interviewies were against the law, while those promoting it, were allowed only one or two phrases. This is factually incorrect since the majority of MKs and obviously the majority of Jewish MKs are supporting the law (or else it would have fallen!)

Then CNN finshes their report by showing a family of an Israeli Arab and a Palestinain Arab with their children, saying how it is unfair, and the reporter finishes: "And now they are waiting in fear for the possible knock on the door, to split the family in half". Completely ignoring the fact that the law is NOT RETRO-ACTIVE!!!! Thus no existing families will be broken up (unless unwed). But don't let facts get in the way of a CNN report

Sava · August 4, 2003, 19:56

Usually CNN is pro-Israel... that's strange.

mrmitchell · August 4, 2003, 19:56

Quote:

Revealed: CNN is a bunch of twits

Kuciwalker · August 4, 2003, 19:57

@ mrmitchell

Panag · August 4, 2003, 19:59

hi ,

one simple solution to one irritating problem ; ......

" boycot CNN "

wanna bet if we all started to do that they would close shop in our country and leave , ......

have a nice early morning

Sava · August 4, 2003, 20:00

nah, we need to watch CNN to point out when they are wrong.

Panag · August 4, 2003, 20:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Sava
nah, we need to watch CNN to point out when they are wrong.

hi ,

no , not in Israel we dont , ......

have a nice day

Sirotnikov · August 5, 2003, 12:45

Why is nothing being said on CNN about the latest killings in Israel? Or the latest kidnapping of jewish citizens?

David Floyd · August 5, 2003, 12:49

Uh, so your position is that this is NOT a racial law??

Sirotnikov · August 10, 2003, 01:12

David - no - it's purely political.

The question is not whether an ethnic group gain citizenship in Israel.

The question is, does Israel have the right to prevent citizenship from people of a nation we're at war with.

If you could just once drop your fairy tale ("everyone should be free like the river!") bull and think in real world terms, you'd see that as long as two nations are at war, they have the right to limit immigration between them. Infact, they would clearly want to do so.

Furthermore, basing citizenship laws on nationality, has not been proven to be less moral than basing it on traits such as class, social status and profession.

mrmitchell · August 10, 2003, 01:59

It's not right.

But Israel is certainly in its powers to limit immigration. By doing so, however, they take any bad publicity they want for it.

Nubclear · August 10, 2003, 02:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
David - no - it's purely political.

The question is not whether an ethnic group gain citizenship in Israel.

The question is, does Israel have the right to prevent citizenship from people of a nation we're at war with.

If you could just once drop your fairy tale ("everyone should be free like the river!") bull and think in real world terms, you'd see that as long as two nations are at war, they have the right to limit immigration between them. Infact, they would clearly want to do so.

Furthermore, basing citizenship laws on nationality, has not been proven to be less moral than basing it on traits such as class, social status and profession.

Yeah, when one nation invades another nation they have the right to limit the occupies from gaining citizenship

The people of Israel have no short term memory. They remember the Arab invasions of thousands of years ago, yet they dont remember Nazi Germany. And so they are willing to inflict it upon others.

Israel

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 02:26

this makes no sense... israel isn't at war with palestine... and even if it was, that would be impossible as palestine isn't even a nation state!

more racism from that racist abomination called israel... i am still shocked that the UN would have ever sanctioned the creation of an ethnic nation in our supposedly modern times.

Nubclear · August 10, 2003, 02:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert Speer
this makes no sense... israel isn't at war with palestine... and even if it was, that would be impossible as palestine isn't even a nation state!

more racism from that racist abomination called israel... i am still shocked that the UN would have ever sanctioned the creation of an ethnic nation in our supposedly modern times.

Too bad the UN can't dismantle it (Israel is....Kind like the testes. The US would never allow the UN to touch them there.).

I would definately support shipping off willing Israelis to Europe, and abolishing the State of Israel. It's a failed mess, which has caused pain and suffering for all those involved.

Mordoch · August 10, 2003, 02:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert Speer
this makes no sense... israel isn't at war with palestine... and even if it was, that would be impossible as palestine isn't even a nation state!

more racism from that racist abomination called israel... i am still shocked that the UN would have ever sanctioned the creation of an ethnic nation in our supposedly modern times.

You definately live up to your forum name! The practical issue of terrorist exploiting the policy was the primary reason for the policy change.

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 02:37

and yet they single out a specific ethnic group for this law?

Jaguar · August 10, 2003, 02:41

Palestinian is not an ethnic group, it is a nationality.

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 02:42

a nationality?! and what nation do these palestinians belong to? i see no nation called Palestine on the map!

Jaguar · August 10, 2003, 02:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert Speer
a nationality?! and what nation do these palestinians belong to? i see no nation called Palestine on the map!

There was no nation of Korea on the map in 1940, but there were people of Korean nationality.

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 02:49

JW:

first of all... Korea was its own nation before and was its own nation for severl centuries... secondly, korean is an ethnicity...

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 02:52

and this does not address the obvious immoral action the UN did in 1947 in chartering a racialized/religionized state... sure sweden is basically a country of swedes only but it has been so for centuries and there's no way to address that now... but i would have hoped that in 1947, the UN and the world was enlightened enough to not create a 'jewish homeland' and smack the star of david on its flag... why the hell could it not be the country of Levant where people of all faiths and ethnicities were represented?

Jaguar · August 10, 2003, 02:54

The purpose of my previous post was to prove that a country is not required for a nationality to exist, not to say that Korean is not an ethnicity.

Jaguar · August 10, 2003, 02:55

Anyway, back to the initial debate:

Suppose an ethnic Japanese person and an ethnic Arab both were Palestinian. Does that mean that they are both from the same ethnic group?

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 02:56

they couldn't possibly be Palestinian because there is no such country as palestine!

alright let's say an ethnic Japanese person and an ethnic Arab both were balawombangoan... does that mean they are both from the same ethnic group?

notyoueither · August 10, 2003, 03:05

Hmm, in Britain, Canada, the US, and many other places, they simply locked up alien nationals of countries at war with them/us, regardless of who they were married to. When the chips were down, that is.

It can be taken too far, but it is not an unwise thing to do as a general principle. Christ, terrorist bombs were not even going off. It was simply worried that something would go off.

This is no such thing. It is a very sensible statement that potentially hostile nationals will not be granted citizenship due to marriage. Duh!

Jaguar · August 10, 2003, 03:06

Nope. Replace balawombangoan with Palestinian and you have the same answer.

Giant_Squid · August 10, 2003, 03:09

I don't see anything wrong with this. The American government is racially profiling Arabs right now at airports because, let's face it, the average Arab is a whole lot more likely to be an al-Qaeda member than the average non-Arab (even if that is still limited to one in a million Arabs as compared to one in ten million others, or whatever small number the real statistic is). Likewise, the Israeli government recognizes that Palestinians have a much greater chance of being suicide bombers than anyone else, and are recognizing that fact.

Is this racism? Yes, of course it is, but let's not get all crazy by attaching connotations to the word that it doesn't deserve in this instance. The problem with racism in the classic American South style is that it is judging someone by a criterion that doesn't make any sense (such as skin color and moral character). If racism is used in an instance where it does make sense (such as a group of people who generally hate Israel and contain numerous organizations dedicated to bombing Israel being more likely to bomb Israel) then that particular problem with it goes away. Of course, one still has to consider whether the grief that it causes the Palestinians is greater than the amount it benefits the Israelis, but considering that it's probably going to save Israeli lives and the Palestinians can end the problem at any time by not GOING AND TRYING TO KILL ISRAELIS EVERY CHANCE THEY GET I don't think that will be a problem.

Trying to tag people as "racist" every time they discriminate on basis of race during extenuating circumstances like these is no more logical than trying to tag people as "murderer" if they kill someone in extenuating circumstances like self-defense or war.

Ned · August 10, 2003, 03:53

Siro, I believe that CNN admits that its reports from the Middle East are biased pro Arab because without this pro Arab biased they would not be given access to Arab régimes.

Stop watching CNN. Watch FOX or MSNBC.

Nubclear · August 10, 2003, 05:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Ned
Stop watching CNN. Watch FOX or MSNBC.

BILL O'RIELLY: On todays talking point, we'll talk about how the Glorious State of Israel is preventing evil Palestinians from getting citizenship through their "Marriage" law...

JOE SCARBOROUGH: On todays real deal, we'll talk about how the VERY Glorious State of Israel is preventing VERY evil Palestinians from getting citizenship through their "Marriage" law...

DinoDoc · August 10, 2003, 05:55

Uh how is this not a racist law Siro? You're essentially treating Israeli Arabs as 2nd class citizens.