Bill to strip citizenship of terror collaborators
Internal Affairs Committee approves bill allowing minister of interior to pull Israeli citizenship of anyone convicted of violating national allegiance, treason, espionage, committing act of terror
A bill which would allow the minister of interior to revoke the Israeli citizenship from anyone found guilty of violating their national allegiance will soon be brought before the Knesset for its final readings.
The Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee approved the bill's formulation on Monday, making it ready for its second and third Knesset readings.
The bill passed its first reading with nine MKs voting in favor of it and three – MKs Yossi Beilin (Meretz-Yahad), Dov Khenin (Hadash) and United Arab List-Ta'al Chairman Ibrahim Sarsur – negating.
According to the proposed bill, the minister of interior will be able to revoke the Israeli citizenship of anyone convicted of treason or espionage and anyone found guilty of being a member of a terror organization or committing and act of terror.
Ones Israeli citizenship will also be stripped
if they are named the citizens of Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The minister of interior will not, however, be able to revoke a person's citizenship automatically: An Israeli citizenship can only be revoked if it was given less than 24 months prior to the minister's call to annul it. If more than two years have passed, the decision would be left up to the Administrative Court.
The two-year window was set as a compromise between the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee's head MK Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor-Meimad) and the Ministry of Interior: The ministry's original bid was for a one-year window. Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, however, is expected to file a secondary motion asking the annulment window be extended to five years.
