Nicole Center-Maor, a lawyer with the Reform Movement in Israel says “The Interior Ministry is coming to terms with the reality of the Diaspora, which is different from the reality in Israel.”

from Haaretz:

Is the Interior Ministry undergoing a sea change?

Experts are split on whether the Interior Ministry is being increasingly open to changes undergoing Diaspora Jewish communities or still looking to tighten the reins on who can enter the country as a citizen, following the granting of citizenship rights to the gay spouse of an immigrant as well as other aliyah applicants who had previously been rejected by the Shas-controlled body.

… However Rabbi Seth Farber of the Itim organization says that while the ministry is “coming to terms more with the nuances of the Diaspora community,” he does not feel “there is a deep effort to understand the character of the Diaspora.”

Farber says he has heard increasing talk of doing away with the Law of Return altogether. An increasing number of immigration insiders feel that Israel ought to be isolated from the Diaspora Jewish community, Farber said. While they may have accepted the realities of Jewish communities abroad, they are also, under these circumstances, trying to find “alternative methods of keeping the gates as closed as possible,” Farber said.