was informed by the same rationale. Neither section of the law awarded automatic citizenship. Both were conditional and applied legal constraints that restricted Palestinians from qualifying for citizenship status. Section 3 set a series of cumulative criteria: (a) A person who, immediately before the establishment of the State, was a Palestinian citizen and who does not become an Israel national under section 2, shall become an Israel national with effect from the day of the establishment of the State if: (1) he was registered on the 4th Adar, 5712 (1st March 1952) as an inhabitant under the Registration of Inhabitants Ordinance, 5709–1949; and (2) he is an inhabitant of Israel on the day of the coming into force of this Law; and (3) he was in Israel, or in an area which became Israel territory after the establishment of the State, from the day of the establishment of the State to the day of the coming into force of this Law, or entered Israel legally during that period. (b) A person born after the establishment of the State who is an inhabitant of Israel on the day of the coming into force of this Law, and whose father or mother becomes an Israel national under subsection (a), shall become an Israel national with effect from the day of his birth.109 Palestinians struggled to meet these conditions, and they had to meet all the conditions. As a result, only sixty-three thousand of the estimated one hundred sixty thousand Palestinians living in Israel in 1952 received citizenship with the law’s enactment.110 The law was so restrictive that entitlement to suffrage during the first and second parliamentary elections did not guarantee the extension of citizenship if a person failed to meet the set conditions. Consequently, many Palestinians found themselves denied citizenship despite having enjoyed voting rights in the past. Those denied citizenship by residence had to apply for citizenship under section 5 of the law, citizenship by naturalization, which was subject to the interior minister’s discretion. Section 5 was designed to govern the naturalization of foreign (non-Jewish) immigrants. Palestinian natives who found themselves outside the scope of section 3 were 30 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3533490