The Revocation Policy: A History and A Story

On March 22, 2017, Times of Israel’s Arab affairs correspondent Dov Lieber published an article entitled, “Dramatic ruling paves way for thousands of East Jerusalemites to regain residency rights.” A rare legal case was brought to the attention of Israel’s High Court of Justice: Akhram Abdalhak tried to regain legal citizenship status after being deemed ‘illegal’ upon returning to East Jerusalem after a long absence. The High Court unanimously voted in favor of Abdalhak, an unexpected yet momentous outcome. The revocation policy and its growth is explained in further detail as well as more information regarding the recent revocation of permanent residency statuses.

The Times of Israel’s Arab affairs correspondent, Dov Lieber, studied English literature and History of the Middle East at University of Maryland – College Park. He runs a blog with all of his writings in addition to what he refers to as his “non-fictional narrative journalism” for The Times of Israel.

Lieber offers sources for some pieces of provided data. Generally when he mentions statistics, he will have a source for those numbers. However, there are several times in his article where he will just state a general opinion of a group without a direct source. This can also be seen at the very beginning of the article when he mentions the number of revoked residency statuses. While it is an important figure to know, it would be more helpful and seem more reliable if Lieber included his source.

Justice Adi Lustigman

Lieber includes many quotes in his article, especially from the three justices involved with the case. He will begin to explain the situation and then finish it with a direct quote from one of the justices. The justices are incredibly relevant authorities to quote because they are responsible for the outcome of this case. It is important to hear what they had to say directly as opposed to paraphrasing their statements.

Lieber fills his article with details regarding not only Abdalhak’s case, but also a detailed history of the revocation policy. Lieber took the readers into consideration when writing about this because he was able to fill in any gaps. For example, he would offer a few sentences about what occurred in the trial and follow that with several sentences regarding the history of the specific residency rights mentioned. Lieber highlights the concerns of the East Jerusalemites regarding the potential loss of their residency status. He provided his source of human rights groups and also included that they were well versed on the subject, allowing his statement to be more reliable.

Any objectivity regarding tensions in this case were not from Lieber; rather he provides statements of other people’s objectivity. It allows readers to see the various attitudes attributed to the situation in the article. There is no sense of Lieber’s personal objectivity in the article.

Lieber presents the idea that Abdalhak was an extremely rare case – one in which there was an incredibly small chance of the court ruling in his favor. The justices made statements that both support Lieber’s data and also highlight the rarity of the situation. The statements don’t seem to be critical of Lieber’s presented data.

The overall feeling of the article is one of satisfaction. The author uses the title “Dramatic ruling paves way for thousands of East Jerusalemites to regain residency rights” which can draw a reader in to want to know more. His sub header also acts as a hook because it gives just enough information on the background of the article but not enough to know everything. Lieber uses this hook in an appropriate way which is to get people to want to read the article, not try to convince them to agree with one side or another.

Haaretz provides their own article that discusses the ruling entitled, “In Precedent-setting Ruling, Israel’s Top Court Recognizes EastJerusalem Arabs as ‘Native-born Residents’ ”. Haaretz correspondent Nir Hasson offers very much of the same information as Lieber. However, Hasson’s article differs from Lieber’s in that it has a much more neutral tone. Lieber does not include his opinion in his article, but he does write with a bit more “excitement” regarding the significance of the situation. Overall, both articles provide the same numbers which increases Lieber’s reliability.  

Lieber includes relevant voices in his article. In this case, the reader needs to know what the justices have said and get an idea of what the reactions have been. He does not add any superfluous information that could detract from his neutral, yet excited tone.

The author ends his article with a link to another article in the Times of Israel, "Israel almost entirely halts citizenship approvals for East Jerusalemites." It provides the reader with the timeline of citizenship applications being processed. He does not end his article with any kind of opinion – he links the other article to let the reader see and decide for themselves what the significance of this case is.

Lieber includes three different pictures in his article: one that shows a group of Palestinian children on top of big cement blocks (right); one of Justice Adi Lustigman (above); and one of a school in East Jerusalem (left). The pictures don’t necessarily support the author’s points, but they do give the reader a better visualization of life in East Jerusalem and they are able to put a name to a face of Justice Lustigman. This is quite different than the photo of a Palestinian woman being searched by security at an East Jerusalem checkpoint. While both articles provide a visualization of life in East Jerusalem, Haaretz only portrays the security found in East Jerusalem. With this case, it is important to see why Akhram Abdalhak wanted to regain his citizenship and those pictures help readers better understand.

School in East Jerusalem

Palestinian children on top of cement blocks