Abstract
This Article explores the processes of family reunification through marriage in the West Bank and East Jerusalem under their two different legal systems, where one spouse is a Palestinian resident of the West Bank or East Jerusalem, and the other spouse is a foreign national. It argues that Israeli state institutions produce uncertainty through purposefully malfunctional, unclear, and inconsistent policies of family reunification and visa applications for those families. The Article argues that the uncertainty produced through creating a regulatory gray area constructs a mechanism of control.
The process of producing this uncertainty is twofold: on one hand, there are few clear legal resources and precedents that regulate the family reunification process, and on the other hand, there is an abundance of changing and unwritten rules that inform the process. This Article draws on data collected as part of current PhD research, including interviews, auto-ethnography, and review of policy documents to examine how Israeli state institutions produce such uncertainty.
The Article then shows how impacted families navigate the complex legal-administrative matrix and challenge Israeli bureaucratic violence. Their ability to construct and acquire knowledge by alternative means, such as through rumor, expectations, and guesses, allows them to negotiate their situations. This alternative knowledge impacts families’ perceptions of their situations and can be a way in which they navigate through and challenge Israeli bureaucratic violence.
