Around 20 years ago I took part in a regular work meeting with then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and then-Israel Security Agency Director Avi Dichter, who was my boss at the time. The meeting took place at the Rabin Base in Tel Aviv, and, as is customary in these meetings, Sharon's then-Military Secretary Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant was also present.
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Dichter and I explained to the PM the problem of residency permits that Israel gives to Palestinians and foreign citizens in the framework of requests for family unification. We didn't need to exaggerate the implications; Sharon was amazed by the scope of the phenomenon. "It's impossible to continue like this," he concluded, instructing us to formulate a response, together with the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice.
The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, which was enacted as a temporary provision in 2003 and has since been extended every year, is supposed to prevent or reduce some of these risks for Israel's national security by limiting the possibility of granting Palestinians residency permits and citizenship in Israel via family unification.
The main pillar of the law was security. It was easy to show the relatively high involvement in terror activities of those who had received residency in this way or by their children (the second generation of those who had been given family unification residency permits), in relation to the rest of the Arab population in Israel.
The phenomenon could clearly be seen in the Second Intifada terror attacks but also continued years afterward; those with family unification residency permits or citizenship are involved in terror attacks and other terror activities at a much higher rate than their proportion of the general Arab population.
This is also the case for the Bedouin in the Negev. Of the major terror attacks that took place in recent years in the south, those who had been given residency permits or citizenship in the framework of family unification (or members of the second generation) were involved in the murder of the IDF soldier Ron Kokia in November 2017; in the October 2015 shooting attack at the Beersheba Central Bus Station in which the soldier Omri Levi was murdered, and the plan for a major terror attack on a Beersheba events hall in 2016, which was exposed and thwarted in advance.
The Supreme Court judges who rejected the petitions against the law ruled that in the prevailing reality in Israel, the violation of constitutional rights was proportional. "Human rights are not a prescription for national suicide," Judge Asher Grunis wrote in his judgment. Justices Elyakim Rubenstein and Miriam Naor, who agreed with him, clarified that the right to family life is indeed constitutional, but it does not necessarily have to be fulfilled within the state's boundaries.
However, over the years the loopholes through which requests for residency have been examined have widened: the restrictions were narrowed to men under age 35 and women under the age of 25. The welcomed reduction in institutionalized terrorism and the change in its characteristics also found expression in the absolute numbers of cases in which those with residency permits or citizenship were involved. The fear of involvement in terror didn't fade away, but the statistical prevalence has decreased and so has the weight of this claim. However, the extensive influence of the family unification residency permit process has not diminished.
This is not just about the demographic impact in light of Israel's definition as a Jewish state, and not only the path that has been created for the practical realization of the "right of return," but its deep influence on the patterns of rebellion and conflict from elements in the Arab public towards the state authorities or Jewish society.
It's no secret that many of those who received family unification residency permits or citizenship are in close contact with their areas of origin in the territories of Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Their lives in Israel didn't erase their affinity for these areas. They keep in touch with what happens there, are emotionally involved and influenced and, regretfully, they also have an influence on their current surroundings.
Those who are here because of family unification are not alone in this. The Palestinians who are in Israel illegally who are employed, and sometimes live in Arab communities or mixed cities, encourage an atmosphere of confrontation and promote extremism. The widening of employment and commercial ties between Israel and Judea and Samaria and gaps in the seam line have led to a significant increase in their numbers.
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The extremism that has characterized clashes that have taken place throughout last year can't solely be attributed to this. The level of influence of these two population groups on the clashes' level of intensity is a subject that needs to be studied more closely. It would be interesting to assess the connection between the level of violence and the rate of those with family unification residency permits and illegals in areas in which the disorder took place.
Even if it's not the main cause of this problem, though, it's important to take the implications of the family unification residents/citizens into account (the phenomenon of illegal Palestinian also needs dealing with exclusively, but in another framework).
A Citizenship Law that will limit the awarding of residency permits, following the original purpose of the temporary provision, is an opportunity to stop or at least to limit this process. A law like this won't only serve Israel's national interests, but also the aspirations of many of its Arab citizens, who are disturbed by the extremism in their midst, suffer from its destructive implications for their image, economy, society, and the delicate fabric of relations that have been built between them, Jewish society and the state authorities, and who long for a positive and stable partnership.
