Israel Fears Invasion of Immigrants

Israel is introducing stringent new measures to reduce dramatically immigration by Palestinians from the occupied territories who marry Israeli Arabs.

The move threatens to deter thousands of couples planning marriages in which one partner is an Israeli Arab and the other a Palestinian.

In some cases it threatens to split up existing marriages - where one partner is seeking to join an Israeli Arab partner who is resident in Israel or to legitimise their stay in Israel.

A new unit is to be set up in the Interior Ministry to conduct background checks on all Palestinians applying for the right to reside in Israel on the ground of 'family reunification' - mainly through marriage. Private detectives will monitor applicants.

The moves follow the Israeli claim that 'around 100,000 Palestinians' have migrated to Israel since the Oslo peace accords were signed in 1993, as a result of marrying Israeli Arabs.

The new moves have emerged amid a sense of panic in some sections of Israeli society over demographic research that suggests Jews - as recognised by the Orthodox rabbinate - could be in a minority in Israel within 30 years.

There is to be a freeze on all applications for residency and citizenship from residents of the West Bank and Gaza, and a sixfold rise in the application fee for 'family reunification' from $100 to $600 - the equivalent of six weeks' pay for a middle-ranking Palestinian civil servant.

That freeze will be challenged in court this week by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel.

Israel also froze all family unification requests following the discovery that a suicide bomber who attacked a restaurant in Haifa two months ago had an Israeli identity card.

The introduction of the harsh new rules has caused alarm among couples who have already married and where a partner is seeking permission to remain.

The Observer approached three married couples in the Jerusalem area in which one partner was a Palestinian: all declined to be identified.

'We are in an absolutely critical position right now,' said a Palestinian man recently married to an Israeli Arab woman. 'It is too dangerous. We cannot risk being identified or drawing any attention to our case.'

Sergio Della Pergola, head of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, published a report last week saying that more Jews would emigrate from Israel this year than would arrive by immigration.

Although some 30,000 immigrants - largely from eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and South America - will arrive in Israel this year, down from 43,443 last year, Della Pergola points out that over half of those arriving under the 1950 Law of Return will not be Jewish according to halacha, or Orthodox rabbinical law.

In the past two years, since the beginning of the present intifada, says Della Pergola, emigration by Jews from Israel has reached 15,000 to 20,000 annually. The increase in immigration of those designated non-Jews is the result of a provision of the Law of Return that guarantees automatic citizenship to anyone who can claim Jewish ancestry up to the third generation. It also allows an immigrant who meets these qualifications to bring a spouse and children.

A second report published last week calculates that 28 per cent of Israelis are now 'not Jewish'. Other demographers estimate that by 2020 a third of Israel's population could be non-Jewish.

The chairman of Israel's National Security Council, Major-General Uzi Dayan, claimed last week that by 2020 Arabs in Israel and the Palestinian areas would outnumber Jews by 55 to 45 per cent.