Israel Matzav

Terrorist's daughter wants Israeli passport

An 'Israeli Arab' woman living in Norway who was deported to Algeria when she was 15 as part of a 1983 'prisoner exchange' has asked for an Israeli passport so that she can 'move freely about the world.'

The woman was born in Israel and has an Israeli citizenship. Her parents, who are Arab Israeli citizens, carried out a series of terror attacks in Israel, and her mother was sentenced to long imprisonment over the murder of Victor Guetta in a market in the northern Israeli city of Afula in 1969.

The parents were deported from Israel in 1983 as part of a prisoner exchange deal, and have been living in Algeria ever since. Now the daughter, who left the country with them at the age of 15, wants an Israeli passport which would allow her to enter Israel and move relatively freely around the world.

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Victor Guetta's son was furious Sunday when he heard of the request filed by the daughter of the woman who murdered his father.

"This is impudent and outrageous. The daughter of the terrorist who murdered my father will receive a passport and return to Israel?"

Shimon Guetta, 72, will never forget the day of October 6, 1969, when his 84-year-old father was murdered and dozens of people were injured as a demolition charge exploded in the Afula market.

"It was the day after Simchat Torah," he recounted. "I arrive at my parents' house, and my mother told me that father had gone shopping at the local market. I suddenly heard an explosion. When I arrived at the scene of the disaster, my father had already been proclaimed dead."

The next day, Shimon said, he heard that the terrorist would be brought to the market to reenact the attack. "I ran over there, and a policeman who saw me said, 'Don't worry, she'll get what she deserves.'

"Terrorists' families deserve no rights. What if they want to return to their village in order to murder more innocent Israelis? It destroys my life to hear this. My father of blessed memory was our angel."

The Interior Minister currently has the power to revoke citizenship of terrorists and their relatives - a power that has never been exercised. There is currently a bill pending in the Knesset that turn that power over to the courts.

Hundreds and perhaps thousands of relatives of Israeli terrorists live in the Jewish state and receive all the rights given to Israeli citizens. Although the interior minister is authorized to revoke their citizenship, this authority has never been activated.

The Knesset is now advancing a move that will turn over this authority to the courts. Interior Ministry Director-General Aryeh Bar said that "the law must be in favor of the State. Such requests raise the issue of Israeli documents and what they can be used for. This is why they are examined meticulously."

Last week, the Knesset's Internal Affairs Committee approved for second and third reading a bill enabling the interior ministry to revoke the citizenship or residency of a person involved in a terror organization, taking part in terror activity, espionage, or treason, subject to the approval of a district court.

That bill makes it even less likely that the terrorists' relatives' citizenship will ever be revoked. The 'High Court of Justice' would bury the use of that power.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:05 PM