Israel-Palestine: “Racist” law dropped by Israel
A new law, described as “racist measures” by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, which required foreigners to declare any romantic relationship with a Palestinian, has been removed after pressure from the United States and European diplomats.
The PM has asked the US and European Union to continue to apply diplomatic pressure for further changes to be made.
If the law had been passed, foreign passport holders occupied in the West Bank were going to be required to report their romantic relationships with a Palestinian to the Israeli defence ministry.
The Israeli defence ministry released these rules and restrictions for any foreigners wanting to enter Palestinian areas of the West Bank. This measure was, no doubt, going to serve as an extension towards Israel’s control of daily life and movement in and out of the occupied territory.
The West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip are considered occupied territories as Israel captured these regions in the 1967 Six-Day War of the Mideast.
A requirement was included in the initial draft of the ordinance that if a foreigner began a serious romantic relationship with a local Palestinian, then the Israeli military must be informed within thirty days of the “start of the relationship,” which meant either an engagement, wedding, or moving in together.
Once married, they were obliged to leave after twenty-seven months for a cooling-off period of a least half a year.
COGAT – Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories – the Israeli body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, stepped back from numerous of these controversial restrictions.
This wide-ranged policy imposed these rules on foreigners who married Palestinians or visited the West Bank to work, teach, study, or volunteer. It is important to note that these rules did not apply to people visiting Israel or the more than 130 Jewish settlements scattered across the West Bank.
The previous rules also imposed limits on the number of foreign students and teachers that were allowed to work or study in the West Bank.
This new law was going to affect thousands of foreign spouses, businesspeople, academics, volunteers, and Palestinians living in the diaspora.
Jessica Montell, the director of HaMoked, an Israeli human rights organisation that had planned to prevent the rules from taking effect, had stated towards the initial draft that “this is blatant discrimination.”
A new level of panic had ensued as people were seeing a codifying of something that should not have been there in the first place.
HaMoked submitted a petition to the Israeli High Court to cancel the regulations.
Currently, COGAT and security affairs have modified some of these restrictions, which includes the removal of having to declare a romantic relationship with a Palestinian, and the quota of students and international lecturers that can visit Palestinian institutions.
All these regulations are set to be implemented on October 20th.