The Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority don’t seem to agree on much these days. In fact, the two governments are regularly at odds with one another, refusing to sit down and even discuss how to move forward on a peace process, let alone the details of what a final agreement would entail.
Well, it seems the two sides have come together on at least one issue — preserving their constituents by obstructing inter-marriage. While I am not aware of any regulations or laws explicitly barring Jewish Israelis and Palestinians from entering holy matrimony, at least one account seems to indicate that both governments have attempted to infuse hurdles and harassed an inter-married couple. It is also unclear whether this case is indicative of a broader policy or merely an outlier with extenuating circumstances and details.
In this story, an Arab Palestinian worker met a Jewish settler in a West Bank town. The two fell in love and got married. However, the woman’s family and village opposed the union and the couple encountered harassment from both Israeli and PA officials.
Unfortunately, this case is not surprising. Many of the West Bank’s settlers are very religious Jews who deplore the thought of intermarriage. Granted, the children of the woman would technically be Jewish, but they are not likely to be raised in an orhthodox household. In fact, it appears she converted, or at least attempted to convert, to Islam.
Similarly, PA officials, while eventually affirming the couple’s right to marry, likely feared increased tension between settlers and Palestinians. The woman’s father hired armed mercenaries to attend her wedding, which could have transformed a celebration into a blood bath. The situation in the territories is already tense, and neither party seeks to aggravate things any further.