Right-wing lawmakers in the Opposition are poised to help the Bennett government pass an extension to a law strictly limiting Palestinian Arab requests for family reunification in Israel, according to a report by Israel Hayom.
The report, published Wednesday morning, claimed that months after the coalition failed to pass a bill renewing the 2003 version of Israel’s Citizenship Law, Opposition lawmakers are preparing to work with the government to prevent a wave of family reunification requests by Palestinian Authority residents.
On Sunday, the powerful Ministerial Committee for Legislation – a panel of government ministers empowered to grant official coalition backing to bills in the Knesset – is scheduled to vote on a modified version of the extension to the 2003 Citizenship Law. The new version was drafted by MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist Party), who had previously submitted an amendment to Israel’s Basic Law, enshrining the 2003 Citizenship Law into Israel’s quasi-constitutional canon.
Rothman’s new draft is similar to the extension of the 2003 law which the government failed to pass in July, but adds explicit quotas more strictly limiting family reunifications, and calls for greater transparency regarding the granting of entry permits to Israel and legal status of Palestinian Authority Arabs in Israel.
“For the first time in the history of the State of Israel, there are coalition officials who want to bring in Arabs from Judea and Samaria into Israel in large numbers,” Rothman said.
“Therefore, we must ensure that the status quo is preserved, and we must set quotas and transparency in the Citizenship Law.”