Summary
The Israeli regulation, introduced in the mid-1990s in Makdisi’s account, under which a Jerusalem Palestinian loses Jerusalem residency — permanently — if unable to prove that Jerusalem is and has always continuously been her “center of life”; one component of the strategy John Dugard calls de-Palestinization (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.147-148).
Details
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Samira Aliyan, born and raised in Jerusalem, lost her residency because she had spent several years in Jordan, even though she had returned home every year precisely in order to maintain it (PDF p.147).
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The same applies to a Palestinian who studied abroad for a few years, took a job in the West Bank suburbs, married a West Banker or a Gazan, or rented or bought an apartment in the suburbs because building in Jerusalem proper was impossible (PDF p.147).
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Revocation is not officially notified: it is discovered, as Samira discovered it, when carrying out a routine bureaucratic procedure (PDF p.148).
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After outcry and legal challenges the policy was suspended in 2000 and some residencies quietly restored; it was then quietly reintroduced and made more effective by the wall. In 2006 alone 1,363 Jerusalem Palestinians were stripped of residency, six times the year before and the highest annual total ever; between 1967 and 2006 the total was 8,269 (PDF p.148).
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No Jewish Israeli has been asked to establish a center of life or to assemble rent, tax and water documents going back ten or twelve years; under the Law of Return a Jew’s right to live in Jerusalem arises, in David Ben-Gurion’s 1950 words, from the fact of being Jewish: “this right is inherent in being a Jew” (PDF p.148-149).
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In part 3 the same proof is demanded at the start of life: parents applying for a Jerusalem-born child’s identity number may be required to produce evidence that the family resides in Jerusalem and that Jerusalem is their “center of life” — which, again, no Jewish family is ever asked to substantiate; if the documents fall short, not only will the child not be granted a number, the entire family could be expelled from Jerusalem (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.164-165).
Related pages
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Samira Aliyan, Judaization, Population registry and family unification