Israel’s Citizenship Policy towards Family Immigrants: Developments and Implications

This paper examines changes that have occurred in Israel’s citizenship policy towards family immigrants since the early 1990s, when it became a country of immigration. Its findings indicate that Israel now has a much more restrictive policy towards Palestinian family immigrants, and a somewhat more inclusive policy concerning the naturalization of various other groups of family immigrants. In a broader perspective, while there is evidence that the influence of the liberal perception of citizenship on policy-making processes has increased in some respects, this process has occurred within an overall ethnic, even ethnicizing, context. Accordingly, the inclusive trend toward non-Olim, non-Palestinian family immigrants may stem not only from a process of liberalization within Israeli society. Rather, it may also serve ethnic motivations by absorbing immigrants who are likely to eventually join the Jewish, or at least non-Arab, sector.