| Interior Ministry Forces Palestinian Women to Renounce Israeli Citizenship In 1987, `Itedal Abu-Hilal, from `Ara village located inside the green line, married a resident or Tulkarem in the West Bank. When the couple’s first son was born, the mother was told that she could register the child only if she signed that she would renounce her Israeli citizenship, which she did. Also, Naifa Al-Wakarda from Lud, married to a West Bank resident, was pressured to sign a similar statement every time she arrived to the Interior Ministry in order to register one of her children. Zuhera Abu-Shab was compelled to renounce her citizenship when she applied for a driving license.
The fate of these three women is shared by dozens of Palestinian women, citizens of Israel, whose husbands are residents of the 1967 occupied territories.
Atty Avigdor Feldman, representing the three in a High Court petition, argues that the Interior Ministry violated the intent of the Israeli Citizenship Law, because the women did not renounce their citizenship by their own free will. He also states that in the case of Jewish citizens, the Interior Ministry usually tries to prevent renunciations of citizenship. “This [act by the Interior Ministry] represents an exploitation of the women’s needs ... for the illegitimate aim of stripping the clients of their Israeli citizenship, leaving them stateless and without any citizenship.”
No date has yet been scheduled for the hearing of the petition. (Kol Ha’ir, 11/11/94).
It is important to state that the Jerusalem Interior Ministry has been withdrawing the Jerusalem ID cards of dozens of Palestinian women, residents of East Jerusalem, who moved to the West Bank outside the city boundaries following their marriage to West Bank residents. Their case is even more precarious, because their status as “permanent residents” is less protected by Israeli law, than the status of Palestinian citizens of Israel. |
