Bill to revoke citizenship of Palestinian terrorists advances to final readings

A widely supported bill to revoke citizenship from convicted terrorists who receive Palestinian Authority funds for their crimes is approved by a special Knesset committee on the matter for its second and third readings on the Knesset floor.

The Palestinian Authority regularly pays stipends to convicted terrorists, and the bill also applies to organizations that pay out on the PA’s behalf. The bill is inapplicable to Jewish terrorists.

The bill applies to both Israeli citizens and permanent residents incarcerated following a conviction for terror or aiding terror, and enables the interior minister to revoke their status after a hearing. The bill also expands the ability to revoke citizenship from persons lacking a second citizenship, provided they have the status of permanent resident outside of Israel. Once citizenship is revoked, the person would be denied entry back into Israel.

But a senior Justice Ministry official raises concerns about the bill’s legality to the special Knesset committee preparing the law. “This proposal is not simple and has legal difficulties,” Avital Sternberg, a senior legal adviser for public law at the Justice Ministry, told the panel before the approval vote.

Likud MK and special committee chairman Ofir Katz, one of the many sponsors of the bill, swats away legal criticism. “The responsibility to prevent the next attack is ultimately on us, the elected officials, and not on any jurist,” he tells the committee.

The bill previously cleared its preliminary and first Knesset readings with sweeping support from both coalition and opposition MKs, a rare feat amid a pitched battle between the two camps regarding the government’s plan to reform the legal system.