Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Israel’s Supreme Court of Israel rules that ‘breach of loyalty’ can lead to loss of citizenship

The decision upholds a 2008 law. Those who are affected and become stateless will be granted permanent residency

(JTA) — The Supreme Court of Israel that the state has the right to revoke the citizenship of those who commit a “breach of loyalty to the State of Israel,” including espionage or terrorism. 

Thursday’s ruling involves the cases of two Palestinian citizens of Israel were convicted of deadly attacks in 2012 and 2015. They received separate sentences, but the state also attempted to strip their citizenship under a 2008 Nationality Law. 

The court ruled that, although the paperwork was filed incorrectly in these cases, the law itself is constitutional, even if it would render the individual stateless. 

The United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which Israel was party to in 1961 but ultimately did not ratify, declares that adding to global statelessness is a violation of international law. 

In cases that result in loss of citizenship, Israel’s high court determined that the interior minister would be required to grant individuals permanent residency. 

This law has been brought to the Supreme Court only three times, all against Palestinian citizens of Israel. 

Adalah, a legal rights group, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which filed a joint appeal on behalf of one of the convicted men in 2017, released a statement saying that “The current case indicates that the law is discriminatory and will likely be used exclusively against Palestinian citizens of Israel.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.