Prometheus 6   

New Law Raises Obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian Marriages
By JAMES BENNET

JERUSALEM, July 31 — The Israeli Parliament voted today to block Palestinians who marry Israelis from becoming Israeli citizens or residents, erecting a new legal barrier as Israel finished the first section of a new physical barrier against West Bank Palestinians.

Supporters of the legislation called it a necessary bulwark against infiltration by terrorists. "We are in a state of war — not with the English, or the Americans, or the Dutch, or the Slovaks — we are at war with our neighbors, the Palestinians," Gideon Saar, of the dominant Likud Party, told the Parliament in debate before the vote. "It's a tragic reality."

Proponents also called the law a way to preserve Israel's Jewish majority.

Opponents called it a racist measure that threatened to divide thousands of families or force them out of Israel. Roughly 1.2 million of Israel's 6.7 million citizens are Arabs, and they are far more likely than Israeli Jews to marry Palestinians.