[News] Israel marriage ban too racist even for apartheid South Africa

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-marriage-ban-too-racist-even-apartheid-south-africa>
Israel marriage ban too racist even for apartheid South Africa

Ali Abunimah <https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah> - 10
March 2023
------------------------------
[image: Man speaking at microphone in front of crowd at the Arkansas State
Capitol protesting school integration with signs reading Race mixing is
Communism and Stop the race mixing]

Israel’s restrictions on marriage are reminiscent of laws against race
mixing that existed in the United States and apartheid South Africa.
(Library of Congress).
Library of Congress

Israel is a country where people “can be assured they will not be
persecuted or discriminated against because of what they believe or whom
they love,” former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg boldly asserts.

Writing in *The New York Times* on 5 March
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/05/opinion/michael-bloomberg-israel-netanyahu.html>,
the billionaire appears to suggest – in line with standard pinkwashing
propaganda
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/ap-corrects-story-falsely-claiming-homosexuality-illegal-palestinians>
– that Israel’s recognition of same-sex marriages makes it an exemplar of
respect for individual rights.

As such, Bloomberg warns, Israel’s shining democracy needs to be defended
from legal reforms proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Those proposals have spurred thousands of Israelis to protests in the
streets for weeks against what many are calling a judicial coup.

Like other liberal Zionists, Bloomberg fears that the changes would rob
Israel’s judiciary of its supposedly enlightened independence as well as
stoking capital flight that could endanger the country’s alleged position
as a technological “start-up nation.”

Bloomberg paints a picture of an Israel built on the “shared values” of
“freedom, equality [and] democracy” all “sustained by a commitment to the
rule of law.”

But like so much else in Bloomberg’s article, the Israel of his imagination
is totally unrecognizable to anyone with even a tenuous hold on reality.
You can’t just marry who you want

In fact, Israel does not
<https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-709331>
permit same-sex marriage
<https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2015-06-30/ty-article/.premium/gay-marriage-unlikely-in-israel/0000017f-ef9d-dc28-a17f-ffbf0b740000>,
although it does recognize such marriages if performed abroad.

Israel does not even allow marriages between a man and a woman unless they
are of the same religion. Mixed religious marriages are banned and there is
no option for civil marriage – although, again, Israel does recognize such
marriages only if they are performed in another country.

But the Jewish state’s persecution and discrimination against people based
on what they believe and whom they love does not end there.

In 2003, Israel adopted a law
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-renews-racist-marriage-law>
prohibiting Israeli citizens who marry Palestinians from the occupied West
Bank or Gaza Strip, or nationals from several other regional states, from
living with their spouse in Israel.

The “emergency measure” has been renewed every year – except in 2021
<https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-israel-religion-business-government-and-politics-f99c3aff0368bde00eef634ef42fde7d>
– when it fell victim to Netanyahu’s efforts to discredit the coalition
that briefly ousted him from the prime minister’s office.

But in March 2022, Israeli Jewish racists were able to come together across
party lines
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/11/israels-knesset-passes-law-barring-palestinian-spouses>
to renew the legislation.

Although nominally justified as a “security” measure, Israeli leaders have
never been shy about admitting the true purpose of the law: to prevent the
growth of the Palestinian population within Israel.

Indeed, last year they dropped the “security” pretense and inserted a clause
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-03-12/ty-article/.premium/whats-new-in-the-citizenship-law-whats-the-next-step-in-fighting-it/0000017f-e938-d62c-a1ff-fd7b25010000>
confirming that the law’s purpose is to “establish restrictions on
citizenship and residence” that take into consideration “the fact that
Israel is a Jewish and democratic state.”

All of Israel’s tight restrictions on who can marry whom are aimed at
ensuring continued Jewish demographic and political supremacy.

As such, even if they differ in the details, Israel’s policies are very
much in line with the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act
<https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/prohibition-mixed-marriages-act-commences>
that existed in apartheid South Africa, or the bans on interracial
marriages that existed in some US states until they were overturned
<https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/supreme-court-case-library/loving-v-virginia>
by the Supreme Court in 1967.

And because they are aimed at ensuring the domination of one racial group
over another, these restrictions are part of how Israel perpetrates the
internationally recognized crime of apartheid
<https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid>.
Targeting Palestinians

1/4 Last night the Israeli Knesset extended the ban on Palestinian family
unification for another year. This extreme racist measure, practiced
against Palestinians for over 20 years, would not have passed even in
Apartheid South Africa. pic.twitter.com/27TMoZawDq <https://t.co/27TMoZawDq>
— Adalah (@AdalahEnglish) March 6, 2023
<https://twitter.com/AdalahEnglish/status/1632766255764471808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

The 2003 law reinforced the already existing restrictions on Israeli Jews
and Palestinians marrying one another, but its main target
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/30/israel-high-court-rulings-undermine-human-rights>
was always Palestinian citizens of Israel, who most often marry
Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza due to close familial and communal
ties.

>From the Zionist perspective, the law not only prevents more Palestinians
from coming to Israel, but has the added benefit of forcing any of the two
million Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship or residency to leave the
country if they want to marry and start a family with the person they love.

“This extreme racist measure, practiced against Palestinians for over 20
years, would not have passed even in apartheid South Africa,” Adalah, a
group that is mounting legal challenges
<https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/10751> to the law, said after the
Knesset renewed it once again on 5 March.

“This law is not just another one of the countless forms of discrimination
against Palestinians by Israel; it is a violation of the most basic human
rights and an invasion of the most intimate space of the family unit,” the
group added.

Adalah points out <https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/10581> that “even
the South African Supreme Court struck down similar measures during
apartheid.”

Not so surprisingly, I’ve found virtually no coverage of this latest
reaffirmation of Israeli apartheid and even less international criticism.

Adalah, which advocates for the rights of Palestinians in Israel, is taking
inspiration from the successful battle waged decades ago by South African
activists, lawyers and ordinary people against that country’s racist
marriage laws.

2/4 More about @LRCSouthAfrica
<https://twitter.com/LRCSouthAfrica?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>’s successful
challenge before the High Court in Cape Town against a similar law and the
legal struggle for justice in Apartheid South Africa in @ZackieAchmat
<https://twitter.com/ZackieAchmat?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>'s extraordinary film
"Law and Freedom (Part 1): Who was Mrs Komani" https://t.co/svrTqKestU
— Adalah (@AdalahEnglish) March 6, 2023
<https://twitter.com/AdalahEnglish/status/1632766261888262145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

In December, Israel’s high court heard petitions against the 2003 law. The
court, which almost always ends up giving “legal” cover to Israel’s most
racist and violent practices against Palestinians, has yet to rule.

But given its history there’s little reason to be hopeful – whether
Netanyahu’s reforms go through or not.

As for Michael Bloomberg, he reminds us that throughout his public life he
has “steadfastly supported Israel” and has “never gotten involved in its
domestic politics or criticized its government initiatives.”

He brags that while Israel was bombing Gaza in the summer of 2014, killing
an average of 11 Palestinian children per day
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/balance-un-gaza-report-cant-hide-massive-israeli-war-crimes>
for 51 days, he hopped on a plane to Tel Aviv to demonstrate his
unconditional support.
Invisible Palestinians

Now, however, with Netanyahu’s proposed reforms threatening rights that
Jews enjoy, but that have always been denied to Palestinians, Bloomberg
declares that “my love for Israel, my respect for its people and my concern
about its future are now leading me to speak out against the current
government’s attempt to effectively abolish the nation’s independent
judiciary.”

Meanwhile, his entire article contains one throwaway reference to
Palestinians and claims that Israel exists “in one of the world’s most
dangerous neighborhoods” – a racist trope that directly evokes how many
white Americans stoke fear
<https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/syndicated/dangerous-neighborhood-trope-wars-overseas-linked-police-brutality-home/>
about and justify pervasive police violence in predominantly Black urban
areas.

That said, Bloomberg, just like other prominent American Jewish supporters
of Israel who are now speaking out
<https://www.jta.org/2023/02/21/israel/jewish-federations-come-out-against-netanyahus-judicial-reform-in-rare-critique-of-internal-israeli-politics>
in defense of Israel’s supposed democracy, surely knows the horrific
reality that Palestinians are subjected to – even if they won’t admit it.

It is precisely the ruse that measures like the racist marriage law are
“temporary” – even after 20 years – just like the notion that Israel’s
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is “temporary” even after 55
years – that allows liberal Zionists to pretend Israel is anything other
than what it is: a grotesque settler-colonial apartheid regime that
practices the worst forms of racism and discrimination known to humanity.
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