New Israeli law to revoke citizenship racist, analyst tells Press TV

In light of a wave of condemnations by the Arab League and other international bodies of the Israeli Knesset’s approval of a law allowing the Israeli government to revoke “citizenship or residency” from Palestinian citizens, a political analyst tells Press TV that the discriminatory law is part of a racist, violent campaign to suppress the Palestinian people.

Ziad al-Hammouri, the Director General of the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights (JSCER), told the Press TV website on Friday that the new law is part of a campaign targeting the Palestinian prisoners and detainees to put more pressure on the Palestinian people, as Israel feels helpless before the Palestinian people who reject the Israeli occupation regime.

However, he pointed out that such Israeli laws of supremacy have also existed during the past years, such as the nation-state basic law or the law of “allegiance to the State of Israel,” and therefore this Israeli discrimination is not new. 

“More than 15 Palestinian detainees, including Salah Hammouri who was exiled to France, were stripped of their residencies and deported on the basis of these two previous laws,” al-Hammouri explained, adding, “Today, the new law intended to revoke citizenship is nothing but an attempt to facilitate the carrying out of previous policies that come under different titles.”

The new law, which was voted for on Wednesday, is designed to discourage what Israel calls “pay for slay” stipends, which Palestinians view as assistance for the families of those imprisoned or the detainees themselves. For some Palestinians, such payments are a key source of income, since their breadwinners are imprisoned by the Israeli regime and therefore need financial support.

“The Israeli occupation has been trying to impose different punishments on Palestinian prisoners, including depriving them of their most basic humanitarian, economic and social rights,” al-Hammouri noted.

This law’s target is not just Palestinian detainees, according to al-Hammouri, who said the law targets the entirety of the Palestinian people who refuse the apartheid regime and are accused of “carrying out acts of terror.”

In 2018, the Israeli parliament approved the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law that enshrines Jewish supremacy over Palestinian citizens. The law has distinct apartheid characteristics and requires racist acts as a constitutional value.

The law, which has distinct apartheid characteristics, guarantees the ethnic-religious character of Israel as exclusively Jewish and entrenches the privileges enjoyed by Jewish citizens, while simultaneously anchoring discrimination against Palestinian citizens and legitimizing exclusion, racism, and systemic inequality.

Al-Hammouri said that the discrimination against Palestinian prisoners is only one face of Israeli violations of human rights and aggression, because the Israeli assault is “an assault against all the Palestinian people.”

Also in this context, Adalah, an organization that advocates for Palestinians’ rights in the occupied territories, said on Thursday the law “not only creates an additional avenue for the revocation of the citizenship of residency of Palestinians under the Israeli regime, but also facilitates their expulsion.”

“The law explicitly and exclusively targets Palestinians as part of Israel’s entrenchment of two separate legal systems based on Jewish supremacy,” the group said.

Commenting on this note, al-Hammouri told Press TV that all Palestinians are at risk of losing their citizenship, especially due to the law of allegiance, since no Palestinian can pay allegiance to what he or she sees as an occupation and apartheid regime.

Palestinians denounce new Israeli expulsion law as ‘the ugliest form of racism’

Hamas strongly condemns a new Israeli law that facilitates the expulsion of Palestinian prisoners and their families, with the Palestinian foreign ministry calling it “the ugliest form of racism.”

Arab League condemns move

Meanwhile, in a statement issued Thursday, the Arab League described the law as “unfair and racist, and constitutes a dangerous escalation and ethnic cleansing.”

Assistant Arab League Secretary-General for Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories Affairs, Said Abu Ali, said the law is a consolidation of the policy of collective punishment practiced by Israel against the Palestinian people.

Under the law, a Palestinian in the occupied and illegally annexed East al-Quds who holds Israeli residency can be stripped of their status after being convicted or charged for an alleged “act of terrorism” and receiving money from the Palestinian authorities.

As many as 4,780 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli jails, including 160 children, 29 women and 914 administrative detainees.

Abu Ali also pointed out that the step is part of the forced displacement project implemented by Israel in the absence of international deterrence, which encouraged the Israeli government to persist in its flagrant violation of international law.

The Arab League General Secretariat called on the international community, with its states, organizations and institutions, to put pressure on Israel and to immediately intervene and stop this “racist law” and the “open war” against the Palestinian people.

However, such condemnations, al-Hammouri pointed out, have proved ineffective in face of the ongoing Israeli violations and discriminatory policies against the Palestinian people.

Protests in Israeli prisons

In response to the move, the Supreme Emergency Committee for Prisoners announced an immediate disobedience campaign followed by a hunger strike to mark the start of the Holy month of Ramadan.

Protests erupted in Israeli prisons also after the Israeli Prisons Administration began imposing collective punishment against Palestinians including by closing canteens and other facilities last week.

The head of the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights told the Press TV website, “I think that Palestinian detainees have started an escalation in face of the Israeli new law and other policies that aim at suffocating the detainees and their families.”

According to Palestinian media, under the new rules, prisoners leaving their cell will be handcuffed, even if attending the prison clinic, showering is being limited to three minutes in hot water, monthly family visiting has been further restricted, and morning sports are being halted.

“Such punitive measures come within the context of a non-ethical war unprecedented in history against the Palestinians,” he explained.

The punitive measures brought in by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have been increasing, with the latest being the closure of bakeries providing inmates with daily bread.

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