>Israel's Supreme Court has upheld a law banning Palestinians who marry Israelis from gaining Israeli citizenship.

>Civil rights groups had petitioned the court to overturn the law, saying it was unconstitutional.

>"Human rights do not prescribe national suicide," Judge Asher Grunis wrote in the judgement.

>The law was introduced in 2003, with its backers citing security concerns and the need to ensure Israel remains a Jewish-majority state.

>"The ruling proves how much the situation regarding the civil rights of the Arab minority in Israel is declining into a highly dangerous and unprecedented situation", Arab-Israeli civil rights group Adalah, one of those that brought the petition, said in a statement.

>Initially, the law was emergency legislation which has since been extended periodically.

>It was amended in 2005, allowing women over 25 and men over 35 to apply for temporary permits to live in Israel, but still ruling out citizenship for all but a handful of cases.

>In 2007, it was expanded to apply to citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
BBC News - Israel upholds citizenship bar for Palestinian spouses