Ruling denounced as racist but one judge said: 'Human rights are not a prescription for national suicide'

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

The supreme court has narrowly voted to uphold a law which bans thousands of Palestinians who are married to Israelis from living in Israel. The ruling was denounced as racist by human rights organisations.

Following a five-year legal battle, the court ruled the Palestinians could pose a security threat. "Human rights are not a prescription for national suicide," wrote Asher Grunis, one of the judges in the 6-5 majority ruling.

The law, which was introduced in 2003 as emergency legislation during the second intifada (Palestinian uprising), has prevented thousands from the West Bank and Gaza from living with their spouses who are generally Israeli Arabs.

Many families are forced to move out of Israel, live apart, or live together illegally in Israel.

Exemptions can be granted for Palestinian men over the age of 35, or women over 25. However, according to Adalah, a legal rights group representing Israeli-Arabs, only 33 out of 3,000 applications for exemptions were granted last year.

The 232-page judgment was in response to a number of petitions which argued the law infringed the basic right to family life of Israel's 20% Arab population. The court ruled: "The right to a family life does not necessarily have to be realised within the borders of Israel."

One of the minority judges, Edmund Levy, wrote: "This law is greatly harmful. Its damage resonates. Its legislation is a formative event in the history of Israeli democracy."

Among those awaiting the decision was Taysar and Lana Hatib, who married six years ago. He is from the northern Israeli city of Acre; she was originally from Nablus in the West Bank.

Lana has a temporary residency permit which must be renewed annually, and which prohibits her from driving a car.

"The decision is proof that one shouldn't have any faith in the Israeli judicial system," Taysar told the Israeli news organisation Haaretz. "It is clear that the supreme court is influenced by the wave of fascism and racism sweeping Israel and the judges weren't expected to act in any other way."

The ruling, he said, put an end to hopes for a normal life.

Adalah, one of the organisations which challenged the law, said: "The supreme court approved a law the likes of which do not exist in any democratic state in the world, depriving citizens from maintaining a family life in Israel only on the basis of the ethnicity or national belonging of their spouse.

"The ruling proves how much the situation regarding the civil rights of the Arab minority in Israel is declining into a highly dangerous and unprecedented situation."

The Association of Civil Rights in Israel, another petitioner, said it was "a dark day for the protection of human rights and for the Israeli high court of justice".

The law was racist, it said, and would "harm the very texture of the lives of families whose only sin is the Palestinian blood that runs in their veins".