Monday, August 07, 2006
Israel: No Mixed Marriages
This is a bad sign for the U.S., as well, because we are nearly in lock-step (though “goose-step” comes to mind) with Israel. If their Supreme Court can uphold such a chicken-manure measure, well, so can our’s.
Does anyone remember the technical help the Israelis gave the old South African government? Counter-terrorism, weaponry—it didn't matter that South Africa was black-listed by the democracies: Israel knew their kinship with a heavily segregated regime.
Slowly, slowly, we march backward through time, at least in terms of legalistic thinking. Meanwhile, though, technologic time speeds forward and the gap between our heads and our knowledge grows wider and wider. It ain’t good.
ZNet | Israel/Palestine
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=10321§ionID=107
Israel's Marriage Ban Closes The Gates To Palestinians
by Jonathan Cook ; May 25, 2006
In approving an effective ban on marriages between Israelis and Palestinians this week, Israel's Supreme Court has shut tighter the gates of the Jewish fortress the state of Israel is rapidly becoming.
The judges' decision, in the words of the country's normally restrained Haaretz daily, was "shameful". By a wafer-thin majority, the highest court in the land ruled that an amendment passed in 2003 to the Nationality Law barring Palestinians from living with an Israeli spouse inside Israel -- what in legal parlance is termed "family unification" -- did not violate rights enshrined in the country's Basic Laws. And even if it did, the court added, the harm caused to the separated families was outweighed by the benefits of improved "security".
Does anyone remember the technical help the Israelis gave the old South African government? Counter-terrorism, weaponry—it didn't matter that South Africa was black-listed by the democracies: Israel knew their kinship with a heavily segregated regime.
Slowly, slowly, we march backward through time, at least in terms of legalistic thinking. Meanwhile, though, technologic time speeds forward and the gap between our heads and our knowledge grows wider and wider. It ain’t good.
ZNet | Israel/Palestine
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=10321§ionID=107
Israel's Marriage Ban Closes The Gates To Palestinians
by Jonathan Cook ; May 25, 2006
In approving an effective ban on marriages between Israelis and Palestinians this week, Israel's Supreme Court has shut tighter the gates of the Jewish fortress the state of Israel is rapidly becoming.
The judges' decision, in the words of the country's normally restrained Haaretz daily, was "shameful". By a wafer-thin majority, the highest court in the land ruled that an amendment passed in 2003 to the Nationality Law barring Palestinians from living with an Israeli spouse inside Israel -- what in legal parlance is termed "family unification" -- did not violate rights enshrined in the country's Basic Laws. And even if it did, the court added, the harm caused to the separated families was outweighed by the benefits of improved "security".
