Article74 Magazine

The fact that ID card confiscations are only one side of a broader Israeli scheme aimed at controlling and reducing the size of Jerusalem’s Palestinian population is illustrated by the new Israeli regulations for persons wishing to obtain the status of permanent residents in the city via family reunification. Based on an official Interior Ministry letter to Atty. Usama Halabi, the Ministry’s new conditions for applicants are the following: 

-Once a family reunification application is approved, the candidate is issued a B-1 visa, valid for 27 months, which allows him/her to stay and work in Jerusalem. 

-Later on he/she is issued a three year visa (category A-5). 

-Only then, after five years and three months, the probation period is finished and the candidate is issued the blue ID card identifying him/her as a permanent resident of Israel with access to state welfare services. 

The Ministry, on the other hand, may discontinue the candidacy at any time, if it suspects criminal or security offenses by the candidate, or if it has evidence that the candidate’s “center of life” is located outside the city boundaries. Prior to the new regulations, ID cards would be issued within weeks or months following the Ministry’s approval of family reunification. 
The new regulations come into effect only after the official approval of family reunification. The five year and three month period does not include the time applicants must spend waiting for the Ministry’s decision on their application, usually between one to three years, thus turning family reunification into an even longer affair of six to eight years. During the waiting period prior to official approval, applicants may, in the best case, obtain a B-2 visa, which does not allow them to work in Israel. Applicants from the West Bank are not issued Israel-entry peat at all. Currently there are 8,400 Palestinian families waiting for the Ministry’s decision on their application for family reunification (al Ayyam, 14-3-1997).