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Comment by cs702 | Hacker News Reader

Here's an interesting exercise:

1. Substitute "Israel's Knesset" for ANY other legislative body anywhere.

2. Substitute "Palestinian" for ANY other nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or other adjective describing a group to which YOU belong.

3. See if you like how it feels: "[Legislative body] passes law barring spouses who are [like you] from becoming citizens."

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If you apply to Egypt or Jordan and “Jewish”, it also serves as an interesting exercise and helps highlight the reason Israelis (many of which were expelled from those places) may feel the need to preserve a Jewish state. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but context is important. It’s crazy how easily people talk about Israel as an apartheid state, as if all their neighbors are less heinous because it’s not safe for any Jews to live there.

Egypt likely doesn’t have such immigration restrictions because there are basically zero Jews there. Of course there were for centuries, but they were constantly persecuted, and even jailed and tortured in an effective final mass deportation. I’m sure that far more heinous laws and restrictions on Jews than being able to grant residency to your spouse remain on the books.

This law doesn't restrict marriages, it restricts citizenship through marriages for Palestinians. I'm not defending that but I am clarifying it.

Thanks! You're right. I changed my comment. FYI, I was trying to hew as closely as possible to the OP's headline, which isn't inaccurate.

Interfaith marriage is illegal (people with money have interfaith marriages overseas), and if you have a child with a married partner of another faith the child will not have the father on the birth certificate.

This is the law in China (my spouse is Chinese and we looked into this)

I am fine with that. Actually most of my life I have lived by these restrictions. I am not saying this is ok, but we should stop pretending this is not everywhere. For example US immigration system. Based on your nationality there are restrictions. As non-US immigrant my wife could not work in the US based on our nationality.

Once you are a citizen of the US though, regardless of where your spouse is from, there is equal opportunity to become a citizen.

That is different than Israel since Jewish spouses can become citizens while non-Jewish spouses can’t, even if the person they are married to is an Israel citizen.

Sure I'll try

China bans non-Chinese people from becoming citizens

Doesn't feel all that bad to me, considering this is the way it already works and I had no interest in becoming a citizen there.

> 2. Substitute "Palestinian" for ANY other nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or other adjective describing a group to which YOU belong.

Well they're not just any other "nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or other adjective". They started their movement and created their identity for a specific reason. I kinda feel like we should look into the reason for their identity and factor that into how we look at this law.

Israel is unique in it's history. There are only few people who have been through what Jews have, maybe none. There are very few countries who are as threatened as Israel is right now (maybe South Korea? it doesn't seem to be as bad there). It was Arafat who said the womb of the Palestinian woman is a weapon to destroy Israel btw.

“Ukraine passes law barring spouses who are from Russia from becoming citizens”

Seems fine to me.

A third of Ukrainians speak Russian as a first language. That really sounds fine to you?

The hypothetical doesn’t ban marrying Russian speakers or citizens. It doesn’t ban naturalisation based on marriage for a Russian speaker. It bans naturalisation based on marriage for Russian citizens. While at war that seems fine.

Thank you, this is my point. The Israeli right wing views the Palestinian state as an extension of Jordan and other Arab states surrounding Israel, and while they are not currently shooting at each other, they are most definitely not at peace with them.

After Black September (Palestinian-Jordan war in 1970) and the bombings in Amman, the Palestinian state is definitely not an extension of Jordan. Even if there is a number of Palestinians living in Jordan, they are not Jordanians. That makes that view quite wrong.

I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that this law needs to be viewed in the lens of national conflict rather than racism. The Israeli right wing does in fact consider the Palestinians in the West Bank Jordanian or generally “Arab” even though Jordan and the Palestinians themselves may not.

Also, in reference to Black September, the whole point of the Black September war was that the Palestinians considered themselves the rightful rulers of Jordan/Palestine rather than the British-installed Hashemite monarchy, and Israel has no contention to this, besides that the monarchy is not inclined to war with Israel. Still, “Palestinians living in Jordan” to them _are_ Jordanians, and Jordan is in fact the Palestinian state, which was the whole point of the British partition. The British making awful partition plans is not unique to the Levant, by the way.

Also, it’s important to note that I’m comparing the situation in Ukraine to that region in the late 60s, the height of Pan Arabism and the United Arab Republic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Republic

The Israeli right still largely views the context in this lens, as does the Muslim Brotherhood, which backs both a significant amount of terror groups in and around Israel, and Israeli Arab political parties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood

> they are most definitely not at peace with them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Jordan_peace_tr...

"The signing ceremony took place at the southern border crossing of Arabah on 26 October 1994. Jordan was the second Arab country, after Egypt, to sign a peace accord with Israel"

My family is from Ukraine and I speak Russian as a first language, and do not know Ukrainian, and yes it seems fine to me. I’m not a huge fan of Ukrainian nationalists but I’m cognizant that Russia is trying to wipe Ukraine out and they are trying to assert their statehood.

>Substitute "Palestinian" for ANY other nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or other adjective describing a group to which YOU belong.

I'm not so narcissistic as to believe that I have some inalienable right to citizenship in a foreign country. Particularly if my culture is incompatible with the host nation. I would much prefer that people reserve the right to choose their foreign neighbors. Consider it an extension of the paradox of tolerance.

What makes everyone so upset is that often the people who (very successfully) lobby for open borders also strongly support Israel when they do things like this. We don't like the hypocrisy.

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