By a vote of 6-5 late Wednesday night, the High Court rejected petitions against the 2003 law limiting the reunification of Palestinian and Arab-Israeli couples.
Judge Asher Grunis, poised to become the next President of the Israeli Supreme Court, led the majority, writing that “Human rights are not a prescription for national suicide.”
The 2003 law states that the interior minister may grant citizenship ” if he is convinced that the applicant identifies with the State of Israel and its goals, and that he or his family performed a significant act to promote the security, economy or some other important matter of the State.”
Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch and four other dissenting justices described the freedom to marry as being at the core of democratic principles.
“The blow, as presented, to family life must be viewed against the certain harm, given past experience, to the lives and bodies of Israelis,” Grunis wrote, in anticipation of their argument.