Arab Anger over Israel’s ‘Racist’ Marriage Law That Makes Reunification of Families Even If One Spouse Is an Israeli Citizen, Next To Impossible
New
Age Islam News Bureau
12
March 2022
• Sajar
Rajhim, Afghan Teen in Delhi Masters Powerlifting ‘To Empower Women At Home’
• Percentage
of Female Employees In Saudi Banks Surges Significantly
• Iran
defeat India at 2022 Asian Women's Junior Handball
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/arab-racist-marriage-law-israel/d/126556
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Arab
Anger over Israel’s ‘Racist’ Marriage Law That Makes Reunification of Families
Even If One Spouse Is an Israeli Citizen, Next To Impossible
Palestinians
shop at a market in the old city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. (AFP file
photo)
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March
11, 2022
AMMAN:
Israel has renewed a temporary law, dating back to 2003 that bars Israeli
citizens from extending citizenship or even residency to Palestinian spouses
from the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
In
a 45-15 vote, the Knesset passed in the second and third reading the
citizenship law that makes it next to impossible for the reunification of
families even if one spouse is an Israeli citizen.
Critics
view it as a racist measure aimed at maintaining the country’s Jewish majority.
The law discriminates against Palestinians, and does not apply to Jewish
settlers in the West Bank as they already have Israeli citizenship.
The
Knesset failed to pass the law last summer because it did not have the support
of left-wing and Arab members of the governing coalition.
The
Haifa-based Mossawa Center said that the law discriminates against the rights
of Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Jafar
Farah, director of the center, told Arab News that this law would continue to
cause pain to thousands of families.
“Imagine
that a Jewish settler family is free to move and live on either side of the
green line while this law will be discriminatory against Arab citizens of
Israel married to West Bank or Gaza residents,” he said.
Jessica
Montell, executive director of the HaMoked Center for the Defense of the
Individual, plans to challenge the law in the Israeli High Court.
She
told Arab News that the Knesset’s re-passage of the ban on Palestinian family
unification was a sad day for equality and basic rights.
“Under
the guise of security concerns, the law advances a demographic agenda, with
particularly harsh implications for East Jerusalem Palestinians,” she said.
The
law, which needs to be re-approved every year, also bars marriage with citizens
of “enemy states,” including Lebanon and Iraq. But it is widely seen as
targeting Palestinians, who have a vast number of spouses to whom the law
applies.
The
new legislation even includes a section declaring that the law aims “to protect
Israel’s Jewish majority” and sets up quotas on permits approved for
“exceptional humanitarian cases.”
It
also empowers the Israeli interior minister to charge Palestinians married to
Israelis with espionage or terrorism if they are caught traveling with their
spouses.
Haifa-based
Diana Butto, former legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team, told
Arab News that racism is what has motivated the law’s approval.
“This
law is meant to bar Palestinians from living a normal life with their loved
ones and to further isolate Palestinians in Israel from the Arab world,” Butto
said.
Ofer
Zalzberg, Middle East program director at the Herbert Kelman Institute for
Conflict Transformation, told Arab News that the nature of the ban stems from
Israel’s reliance on security arguments.
“The
ban underlines the absence of an Israeli immigration policy. Immigration
policies can pursue a balance between the rights of couples seeking marriage
and the state’s national character,” he said.
Botrus
Mansour, a Nazareth-based lawyer, told Arab News that the exclusive and
discriminatory approach against Palestinians continues despite the change in
government and including an Arab party in the coalition.
“This
derives from the urge to maintain Israel as a Jewish country and thus to strive
to confront the demographic challenge. This is compatible with Israel’s
approach to closing its doors in the face of refugees from Ukraine unless they
are Jewish”" he said.
Rima
Najjar, a Palestinian blogger and activist, told Arab News that the law exposes
the Israeli fiction of being both a Jewish and, at the same time, democratic
state.
“The
Jewish supremacist nature of the Zionist state will never be eradicated through
politics as usual in a racist, apartheid system. What is needed is a radical
path,” she said.
Yousef
Munayyer a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center, Washington DC, told
Arab News that the reinstitution of a blatantly racist law is a message to the
world from Israel that “all of the human rights groups who have been decrying
its Apartheid policies are absolutely correct.”
Some
Israeli lawmakers, though, tried to justify the law.
“I
pass the law with a heavy heart and without joy. I would like to get to a point
where we do not need this law … but in the current security reality, we can do
nothing but defend ourselves,” said Knesset member Ram Ben Barak from the Yesh
Atid group.
Source:
Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2040551/middle-east
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Sajar
Rajhim, Afghan Teen in Delhi Masters Powerlifting ‘To Empower Women At Home’
Sajar
with her medals in local competitions | Photo: ThePrint
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Pia
Krishnankutty
12
March, 2022
New
Delhi: About five months ago, 16-year-old Sajar Rajhim picked up the sport of
powerlifting after joining a local gym in the national capital’s Lajpat Nagar
area. Last week, she beat her peers to bag the gold medal at Delhi’s State
Sub-Junior Powerlifting Championship.
Her
feat gets even more impressive when one considers her circumstances. Sajar and
her sisters came to India with their parents in 2013, having escaped war-torn
Afghanistan for a better life. However, as of now, her father Sayed Daud Rajhim
finds himself stuck in Taliban-controlled Kabul.
Sajar
is happy about her achievement at the tournament, where she lifted 217 kg —
more than four times her own body weight. “I lifted around 217 kg and I myself
am 52 kg,” she told ThePrint, giggling.
If
she seemed happy, her father was overjoyed. And he couldn’t contain his
excitement — while speaking over a WhatsApp call from Kabul.
But
the story wasn’t meant to be like this — distant.
The
family was together in India for eight years but the second wave of the
pandemic in April 2021 dealt a rough hand to Sayed and his wife, both of whom
lost their management jobs at a hospital in Delhi. Amid a lack of options,
Sayed decided to move back to Kabul to work as local staff with the UN World
Food Programme.
Little
did he know that the Taliban would return to power four months later. Since
then, Sayed said, a host of factors has left him “stuck”, including visa delays
and the fact that his job there allows him to send money home.
“It
is hard working here in Kabul, away from my family. The restrictions on people,
especially women, are high here and there is always a threat from the Taliban.
But I’m glad my daughters are excelling in sports. When Sajar won gold in the
Delhi tournament, I was overjoyed,” Sayed told ThePrint.
Sajar
lives with her mother and sisters in a small 3BHK apartment. Her sisters —
Sahar (21), Saween (13) and Sama (11) — are also training to be professional
athletes in sports like judo, karate and mixed martial arts (MMA).
“My
father has always encouraged my sisters and me to be fit and strong,” Sajar said.
‘Would
like to represent Afghanistan in wrestling and India in powerlifting’
Sajar,
who competes in the sub-junior category (18 years and under) and in the 52-kg
weight class, lifted a total of approximately 217 kg in her latest tournament
on 5 March — 67 kg in a squat, 40 kg in bench press and 110 kg in deadlift.
Unlike
weightlifting, which involves picking up weights and dropping them in a fast
motion, powerlifting involves lifting weights in a single plane of motion. In a
tournament, powerlifters have to perform three rounds of lifting: squat, bench
press and deadlift.
“The
deadlift was the last round. I saw she was getting nervous so I didn’t allow
her to see the weight I put down,” Sourav Besoya, Sajar’s coach and owner of
Real Steel Gym, told ThePrint.
“Coach
[Sourav] told me he put down 100 or 105 kg. So, I went with that mentality. It
felt so easy to me. Later, when he told me how much it really was, I was
shocked,” Sajar added.
Sajar
is currently training for the upcoming National Classic Powerlifting
Championship in Alappuzha, Kerala, starting 9 April.
According
to her coach, the goal is to lift a total of 270 kg this time around.
While
powerlifting is certainly the focus of young Sajar’s career, she has also been
trained in wrestling and grappling.
“I
started wrestling in around 2019 because my father encouraged me. That is why
if I ever get the chance to compete at the international level, I would like to
represent Afghanistan in wrestling and India in powerlifting,” she said.
‘Want
to open world-class gym in Kabul one day’
Asked
who her inspirations are, Sajar said that due to the political instability in
her country, very few female athletes have been able to compete in the
Olympics.
“When
it comes to wrestling or powerlifting, there aren’t many female Afghan athletes
that come to my mind. Also, very few Afghan women have participated in the
Olympics. We have some great women cycling champions but even they have left
Afghanistan because of the Taliban,” she said.
Last
November, it was reported that Afghan cyclist Rukhsar Habibzai, captain of her
nation’s first women’s cycling team, was one of many who fled Afghanistan
following the Taliban takeover.
“I
definitely want to make a good career for myself and earn enough money to set
up a world-class gym in Kabul for female athletes. We’ve got good talent in
Afghanistan but the Taliban does not think it is appropriate for women to do
sport,” said Sajar. “Hopefully, one day that will change.”
Source:
The Print
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Percentage
of female employees in Saudi banks surges significantly
March
10, 2022
RIYADH
— The percentage of female cadres in Saudi banks has recorded a significant
rise amid the overall increase of women’s participation in the labor market.
According
to statistics released by Saudi banks, the number of female employees in Saudi
banks has increased significantly during recent years.
The
data showed that the highest percentage of women employees in 2021 was in Riyad
Bank at 27.3%, followed closely by Gulf International Bank (GIB) with 27%.
The
Saudi Investment Bank recorded 23.7% of female staff, while the Arab National
Bank (ANB) recorded 21.6%, followed by Saudi British Bank (SABB) at 21% and
Banque Saudi Fransi at 19%.
Al-Rajhi
Bank recorded 17.1% female staff while the percentage of women working in
Alinma Bank reached 16.2%. The Saudi National Bank (SNB) had 13.7% female
employees, Bank Al-Jazira 10.8%, and finally Albilad Bank 6.9%.
Source:
Saudi Gazette
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Iran
defeat India at 2022 Asian Women's Junior Handball
March
10, 2022
Iran,
who had lost to Kazakhstan 30-24 in their opening match, will play Thailand on
Saturday.
The
Championship is the 16th edition of the championship scheduled to be held from
Mar. 7 to 14 in Almaty, Kazakhstan under the aegis of Asian Handball Federation.
Kazakhstan,
Iran, Uzbekistan, India and Thailand compete in the edition.
It’s
the fifth time in history that the championship is be organized by the
Kazakhstan Handball Federation.
It
also acts as the qualification tournament for the 2022 Women's Junior World
Handball Championship, with top two teams from the championship directly
qualifying for the event to be held in Slovenia.
Previously,
the championship was supposed to be held in Uzbekistan, but in December 2021,
AHF decided to move the event to Kazakhstan due to unavoidable circumstances.
Source:
Tehran Times
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/470896/Iran-defeat-India-at-2022-Asian-Women-s-Junior-Handball
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/arab-racist-marriage-law-israel/d/126556