Our office was contacted by a couple, an Israeli and a Jordanian, who requested assistance in the recognition by the State of Israel of the Jordanian woman as an Israeli citizen. Although the couple have lived together for many years and have children together, the Ministry of the Interior refused to recognize the Jordanian woman as an Israeli citizen since she was found to be registered in the Palestinian registry even though she is not Palestinian. Her registration in the Palestinian registry was done by the Palestinian Authority since several years ago, without asking her and certainly without getting her permission.
The Law on Entry into Israel, 1952, gives the Minister of the Interior the authority to authorize entry and residence in Israel, to anyone who is not an Israeli citizen or a holder of an immigrant visa or an immigrant certificate. The reasons for entry and residence for a foreign resident in Israel may be diverse, tourism, work, studies, volunteering, marriage to an Israeli etc.
An Israeli who wishes to grant residency status in Israel to his foreign spouse shall make a request through a procedure known as "family reunification". The approval of the application until the status is granted to the foreign spouse, will be done in the procedure known as "graded procedure" stipulated in the procedures of the Ministry of the Interior and its purpose is to monitor and control the sincerity of the relationship between the spouses, throughout the entire period and its stages. The length of the period during which the spouses are checked before permanent status is granted varies according to the nature of the relationship between the spouses and the status of the Israeli. An Israeli citizen who marries a foreign spouse will be required to go through a procedure lasting four and a half years, at the end of which the child of the couple will be granted the status of a citizen. In contrast, an Israeli permanent resident who marries a foreign spouse will be required to undergo a procedure lasting five years and three months.
An Israeli citizen who requests status for his foreign spouse through cohabitation (including same-sex spouses), will be required to go through a procedure that will last 8 years and at the end of each of these procedures the foreign spouse will be granted permanent resident status, but will not be granted Israeli citizenship at the end of this procedure.
The "staged procedure" is essentially the same as all the cases indicated above. Upon approval of the application for family reunification, a temporary visa is granted for one year to the foreign spouse and during this period the spouses are required to present various documents for the purpose of review and verification of the relationship between the spouses and verifying the location of the center of their lives. Once a year the visa is renewed for another year in a similar manner until the end of the graduated procedure.
In 2003, a temporary order was enacted, the validity of which was extended from time to time, and which prevents the granting of status to residents of the Palestinian Authority. In 2007, the restriction was also extended to "citizens or residents of Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq", and certain exceptions were established for granting a residence permit and obtaining status in Israel. Over the years, the Palestinian Authority "granted", sometimes without asking the permission of the recipients, citizenship to many foreign citizens who stayed in its territory. The meaning of this grant today is that Israel does not allow these foreign citizens to obtain status in Israel in accordance with that temporary order and a legal procedure is required to allow this.
Due to the sensitivity of the issue, it is important that this procedure be accompanied by a lawyer specializing in the field of family reunification because failure to meet the requirements may prevent the status from being accepted or be postponed for a long period of time.