I was wondering what everyone thought of Israel's citizenship law allowing those with spouses or grandparents who are Jews to become citizens, while not necessarily being halachaly Jewish.
From the MFA website
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2001/8/Acquisition%20of%20Israeli%20NationalityOn the establishment of the State, its founders proclaimed "...the renewal of the Jewish State in the Land of Israel, which would open wide the gates of the homeland to every Jew...." In pursuance of this tenet, the State of Israel has absorbed survivors of the Holocaust, refugees from the countries in which they had resided, as well as many thousands of Jews who came to settle in Israel of their own volition.
The Law of Return (1950) grants every Jew, wherever he or she may be, the right to come to Israel as an oleh (a Jew immigrating to Israel) and become an Israeli citizen.
For the purposes of this Law, "Jew" means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has converted to Judaism and is not a member of another religion.
Israeli citizenship becomes effective on the day of arrival in the country or of receipt of an oleh's certificate, whichever is later. A person may declare, within three months, that he/she does not wish to become a citizen.
Since 1970 the right to immigrate under this Law has been extended to include the child and the grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew. The purpose of this amendment is to ensure the unity of families where intermarriage had occurred; it does not apply to persons who had been a Jews and had voluntarily changed their religion.---------------------
There's also that part at the bottom about being able to become Naturalized, which I'm assuming could mean a person from say China could move to Israel and work on some visa, live there for at least 3 years and apply for citizenship if he could prove to renounce his citizenship.