Impact of Israeli military order no.1650 of 2009 on Palestinians’ rights to legally reside in their own country

Abstract

A new Israeli military Order no. 1650 regarding the Prevention of Infiltration took effect on April 2010. Human-rights organizations expressed alarm at the new powers Israeli military forces will have in dealing with Palestinians who do not hold ‘lawful documents’ of stay in the occupied Palestinian territory. The objective of this paper is to investigate how this new order fits within a legal system Israel has set up in the West Bank and Gaza Strip through hundreds of military declarations and orders. Three aspects will be analyzed: first, the way residency status is regulated determining which residents are legal and which illegal; second, the regulation for border crossings and the movement of Palestinians within the occupied Palestinian territory and abroad; third, family unification of Palestinians in the occupied territory. These examples will show how this new order is part of an overarching policy that has been in crescendo since 1967: maximizing Israeli control of (Palestinian) land and minimizing the number of (Palestinian) people. The fact that this policy is targeting a specific national group and the fact that it is accompanied by a persistent settlement policy in the occupied Palestinian territories renders these policies, not only discriminatory, but also racist and colonial.