Israeli Catholic family fights legal battle so dad can live with them

Published: 2004-02-03

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- On a midwinter morning, Yousef Nasser sat on his sofa, smoking a cigarette next to his wife, Dina; their three children sat nearby. The Nassers, who are Catholic, are breaking Israeli law: Yousef, 50, is in his home in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina illegally. As a Palestinian born in Jerusalem, Dina Nasser, 42, has an Israeli identity card that gives her Israeli residency rights in Jerusalem. But after 20 years of marriage and three children, Yousef Nasser, 50, who was born in the West Bank village of Bir Zeit and moved to San Francisco as a child before returning at age 27, has not been given an Israeli residency permit. The Nassers, who spent the early years of their marriage in England completing university studies, have filed five applications for family reunification with the Israeli Ministry of Interior, but all have been denied. Before the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, Yousef Nasser, an assistant professor of economics at Bir Zeit University, was given temporary visitor permits on a regular basis, and the family was able to live a normal life. For the last several years the family has lived in a twilight zone of uncertainty.

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