Arabs battle for citizenship; State unyielding

Mohammed al-Deik has lived in Israel for 18 years, paid taxes, employed workers in his factory and even married two Israeli citizens and fathered an Israeli girl, but Interior Ministry still refuses to grant him citizenship
Tani Goldstein
Yeditoh Ahranoth Published: 01.28.08, 19:54
They have been living within the Green Line for years, happily married to Israeli women, raising children, and paying taxes. They are not suspected of security or criminal offences, speak fluent Hebrew, and openly declare their love and loyalty for the country. However, people like Mohammed al-Deik face one problem: They were born in the territories and have been consistently denied an Israeli ID card and citizenship.

Al-Deik, 36, is just one example of the phenomenon. He was born in the West Bank and studied architecture at Tel Aviv University. He now owns a furniture factory called Noor located in the settlement of Alei Zahav. The architect's Hebrew is so fluent it is hard for people speaking with him to tell he's not a native-born Israeli.

In 1995, al-Deik married an Israeli-Arab woman from Jaffa named Shiri who soon afterwards gave birth to a baby girl. His marriage to an Israeli citizen enabled al-Deik to be granted the status of resident in 2000 after passing the mandatory security background checks.

The two divorced in 2003 and al-Deik remarried shortly afterwards, this time with Rim Mahmid, an Israeli-Arab woman from Umm al-Fahm.

When al-Deik went to the Interior Ministry to sort out the documentation for his second marriage, he got quite a surprise: "They told me my ID card had been cancelled. I told them I was about to get married and they said that 'Right now you are not married so we can't allow you to keep your status as a resident.'"

After the wedding, al-Deik returned to the ministry and informed officials that he was now married, but they responded that as he was not a citizen of the state it was impossible to even record the union. Since then, he has lived in Israel as an illegal resident.
Mohammed al-Deik (Photo: Tani Goldstein)

Al-Deik has issued a petition to the HIgh Court with the help of Attorney Arif Fairj to be granted Israeli citizenship.

"I feel totally Israeli. I love the state and I am loyal to it. I have a lot of friends here and there is no other place for me to be. There is nothing for me to do in the Palestinian Authority. I don't even have a Palestinian ID card," al-Deik says.

Five years after his second marriage, al-Deik still lives in Umm al-Fahm, pays a mortgage on a house he bought in Jaffa, makes child support payments for his daughter from his previous marriage and is in close contact with her.

However, the Interior Ministry still refuses to grant him a residency permit - much less citizenship.

"I will stay here if they want me to or not, but they're just making my life bitter," he says. "I don't have a passport and I can't travel abroad. My daughter needs my signature to receive a passport and I can't even sign.

"I went through a nasty bureaucratic process to get an ID card and now they want me to go through everything again?

"I'm a good citizen that pays high taxes and employs workers. This country doesn't differentiate between good (people) and bad (people). They're trying to make me seem like a criminal but I'm not willing (to accept it): I'm a law abiding citizen."

The Interior Ministry responded by saying that "in contrast to al-Deik's claims, he does have an active Palestinian ID card in the Palestinian Authority. His status as a temporary resident was revoked in 2003 when he was divorced from his wife.

"Since then, for the past five years, he has been residing in Israel without proper authorization. We were not updated regarding any new marriage and he is currently listed as divorced. His status was made clear to him in 2006, but surprisingly, al-Deik did nothing to change the record."