MP Barakah: Racist Israeli law of citizenship up for extension

Date: 02 / 07 / 2008 Time: 12:12
Jerusalem – Ma'an –

Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, Muhammad Barakah, representing the Democratic Front said on Wednesday that "those who prepared the racial Israeli law of citizenship must be tried in international court because it is a racial and dangerous law."

Barakah was speaking before the Knesset while it discussed a one year extension of the emergency citizenship law. Under the law, Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza who are married to Israeli citizens are prohibited from living in Israel. The law was passed for the first time in 2002, and has been extended several times since.

The law has been discussed several times recently, Barakah added, and even the Israeli High Court has criticized it and warned against its continuation. However, he said, the Israeli government and an overwhelming majority of Knesset members are insisting on going ahead with the extension. The fact that the law is clearly racist, says Barakah, is likely the reason that it has not yet been ratified as a permanent feature of Israeli law.

"Only in Israel," Barakah concluded, could "marriage and love threaten the state's existence; it's craziness itself."

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