On the anniversary of Al Nakba Israeli High Court upholds anti-Palestinian ruling

On the anniversary of Al Nakba, the Catastrophe, the Israeli High Court upheld a law over the weekend which specifically prohibits any Palestinian with West Bank identification from living with their spouses and children inside Israeli borders.

The Israelis consider Jerusalem to be inside their borders as well. Hundreds of Palestinians live inside Israeli borders from Haifa to Yaffa to Nazareth to East Jerusalem. The Israeli authorities issue identification cards to all Palestinians and depending on exactly what is written, they are able to move more freely or less. A Jerusalem ID holder has far more "privileges" than a West Bank ID holder for instance. Now, despite contravention to international law and outcry, the law has been upheld that any Palestinian with a West Bank ID cannot live with their families if they live with Israeli ID inside Israeli borders. This will ultimately lead Palestinians to leave their homes inside Israeli borders and try to find space in the ever-shrinking and over-crowded West Bank. Ethnic cleansing is a slow and precise process.

Palestinian activist Mazin Qumsiyeh also addressed the court ruling on the memorial of Al Nakba, the Catastrophe, which is observed each year in Palestine for the loss of thousands of Palestinian homes, lands, and lives while celebrates the founding of its state.

"On the anniversary of the Nakba (the Catastrophe, when over 500 villages and towns were completely depopulated as part of the planned and organized process whereby Zionists thought they could transform Palestine into a racist state for Jewish Zionists, see http://www.palestineremembered.com/ ) the Israeli high court narrowly (vote 6:5) rejected petitions from Israeli human and civil rights organizations and refused to reject the racist law passed by the Knesset that prevents families from living together in Israel if one of the spouses is a Palestinian resident of the occupied territories and the other an Israeli citizen. The law has other provisions that are strictly discriminatory against Palestinians (Christians and Muslims). The law was condemned by the UN Human Rights Commission (UN HRC), the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UN CERD), the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (UN CEDAW), the European Parliament, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch among others."

Qumsiyeh added, "It is a symptom of Zionist power and callousness that became Israel’s modus operandi since the international community remained silent about the original and first crime against humanity, the largest post-WWII: the theft and ethnic cleansing of Palestine precisely 58 years ago."