Cairo moves to overturn anti-Israeli ruling

The Egyptian government has contested an administrative court ruling that strips male citizens married to Israeli women of their nationality, local press reported Sunday.

Several Egyptian lawyers successfully sued in May to compel the Interior Minister to strip Egyptian nationality from men married to Israeli women and and their resulting children The court ruled in their favor in May.

The Ministers of Interior and Foreign Affairs appealed the verdict with the Supreme Administrative Court and demanded an annulment of the ruling, according to the official daily al-Ahram.

Jurisdictional appeal

They appealed arguing that the issue did not fall within the jurisdiction of the administrative court, the Egyptian daily independent al-Shorouk al-Gadid reported Sunday.

The appeal stated that the only case when such a verdict comes into effect is when the ramifications of these marriages constitute a threat to Egypt's national security or tarnishes its reputation.

On the other hand, the appeal added, implementing the verdict will negatively impact Egypt's image on the international level as it will appear as a country that does not respect human rights and personal freedoms.

According to the law, requests to strip nationality must be submitted to the Minister of Interior then presented to the cabinet for authorization, and only in cases of national security threats.

Marriage is national security threat

The court verdict found that the marriage itself constituted a threat to national security, especially since the children would be dual nationals and therefore allowed to join the Israeli army.

Thousands of Egyptians started flocking to Israel in the mid-1990s looking for jobs, and many of them ended up either married to Israeli women or Palestinian women with Israeli citizenship.

Israel started to become a favorable destination with Egyptians after job opportunities in the Gulf region dried up in the aftermath of the second Gulf War. Before 1990, there were almost two million Egyptians working in Iraq alone.

There are no accurate statistics of Egyptians married to Israeli women, but several reports estimate them at about 20,000.


(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)